Theories of Music Videos

Strauss

Strausee was ananthropologist who was born in France in the early 1900's. He believed that the way we understood certain words depends not that much on the meaning they contain but by our understanding the different of the word and its 'oppsoite'

He believed that a meaning in narrative is bases upon binary opposites. Strauss observered that all narratives are based on or around conflict between binary opposites. Examples are:

• Good/Evil
• Black/White
• Human/Alien
• Human/Nature

Propp:

Vladimir Propp developed a character theory for studying media texts and productions, which indicates that there were 7 broad character types in the 100 tales he analysed, which could be applied to other media:

• The villain (battles hero)
• The donor (prepares the hero)
• The magical helper
• The princess
• The false hero
• The dispatcher
• The hero

Barthes:

Todorov:

Tzvetan Todorov's narrative theory suggests that all narratives follow a three part structure where they begin with equilibrium, where everything is balanced, progress as something comes along to disrupt that equilibrium, and finally reach a resolution, when equilibrium is restored.

Laura Mulvey: 

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema was an essay written by Laura Mulvey. An essay which coined the term “Male Gaze” which soon went on to become a very well know and discussed theory. In film, the male gaze occurs when the audience is put into the perspective of a heterosexual man. The concept of gaze is one that deals with how an audience  views the people present. It can be thought of in three ways, How men look at women, How women look at themselves, How women look at other women