I decided to chose the video for the song "Jeremy" because it fits into the rock genre that I am planning on doing my music video from(specifically 90's rock, when it was at its best) and because its has a very aggressive twisted story a lot like how I plan to portray my song.
The first theorist I would like to talk about is Vladimir Propp who refers to the consistent use of specific characters in a story such as the hero, villain, princess ...etc. And within this video there are many of these characters which overlap into each other as well for example the boy Jeremy which the video is about could be considered the Hero because he is the protagonist which this story is based upon however he could also be considered the/one of the villains because he ends up fighting his problems by shooting his school class of students. However this story/video is full of villains/antagonists because its about a boy who has lots of problems because his parents abuse him and his peers bully him and he then becomes a killer so really the whole story is based upon villain esc characters hurting a child so much that he in turn becomes a villain also in the process of getting revenge. But these villains could also be thought of as dispatchers and helpers in a sense that they(parents) sent him on the journey Propp talks about in his theories by causing him pain through neglect but if the end idea of the story was to make him a killer then they(peers) also were the helpers in creating this story because they helped him become who he became.
The next theorist I would like to talk about is Tzvetan Todorov who talks about the cycle in narratives where there is an equilibrium and the equilibrium is broken and the restoration of balance is what the story is revolved around. In this video there is no clear restoration of the broken equilibrium however I personally believe that in some sense there is because, the equilibrium is broken when Jeremy doesn't receive attention or affection from his parents, and the continuum of destruction of the equilibrium is where he is consistently bullied by his peers in class. To which the resolution of the problem or repair of damage as Todorov refers to is him shooting them which is followed by the new equilibrium which is Jeremy as a murderer.
Following that is the theorist Roland Barthes which says that narratives are communicated through different codes, such as the "action code" which in the video "Jeremy" there are many actions from him self expressing through massive aggressive drawings at the start to then fighting with other class mates although that is explained through the song lyrics more than film to the conclusion of the narrative where he shoots his class peers. Another code which Barthes talks about is the "Semantic code" , and within this video there are many different characters/archetypes that are being shown for example of a boy who gets abused and bullied then shoots up his school which wasn't irregular in the 90's in America. Or the characterisation of the parents that don't really care which starts a chain reaction of self destruction within their child. Or the horrible class mates which didn't think anything of their actions because they are children which also contribute to the pain and suffering of the receiver(Jeremy). The last code I would like to talk about is the "Symbolic code" which features massively throughout the course of the video from him aggressively self expressing through art forms half naked alone in the forest which is already showing signs from the start of him experiencing problems to him fighting with class mates who pick on him, which is another problematic sign. Then it all concluding with his pain and anger amounting so much that he shoots up his class mates in school which signifies so many things like the level of neglect and bullying that he was experiencing at that time.
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