Riptide Music Video

Analyse the music video of Riptide Vance Joy focusing on the following elements. Refer to contextual information and technical codes to support your points. 

Vance Joy explores different types of representation in his music video of Riptide. Firstly, the actual song is based off of the indie genre; indie is short for the word independent as back in the day indie was usually written by people outside the mainstream media for example pop music. Indie is mainly ukulele or guitar based and is seen as quirky and an alternative which feeds onto the stereotype that authenticity is significant. Since the music video is shot in little parts and has a complicated narrative, there are some parts of the music video which shows hints of the indie genre, for example in the beginning it shows an iconography of VHS tapes which immediately indicates that this is from the indie genre as VHS tapes were used back in the day however not many people use it nowadays which can be classified as an alternative or quirky thing to have. 

The actual music video is filmed on parts which are based on the lyrics word for word so the structure of the music video is fragmented; the lyrics are a direct address to the narrative. Some of the shots are taken literally in some camera shots as when the singer sings "unstuck" it shows two ice lollies separating and the lyric "i just want to know" tarot cards was shown indicating that they want to know into their future. However, what the music video does not show as explicit is the recurring motif of the abuse and violence against women. The first frame just a woman who looks restrained and scared suggesting that women are vulnerable and weak. 

There is a narrative progression seen in the character of the female singer, as the music video progresses it is clear to see that the makeup smudges and she appears with bruises and blood running down her fingers which is a sign of domestic abuse as her facial expressions at the beginning were confident with her eyebrows raised and shoulders broad to a lower frame of her cowering and almost hiding from the male figure. There are also frames of women constantly being sexualised by society shown through a camera shot where you are not able to see the woman's face but only her back and a strap hanging from her shoulder which portrays it as quite depersonalising and degrading as she is not aware that she is being filmed. However, there are some camera shots where women are viewed as more confident, seen in the low angle shot where there's a woman looking carefree as her body language is her arms moving carelessly in the air and her facial expressions are unthreatened.

Postmodernism is a movement that was developed in mid/late 20th century where there was a breakthrough in movies,  creative arts and criticism as it changed more into parodies and mockery of older films and other arts. Throughout the video there are postmodernism techniques; there is an intertextuality of the horror genre as  generally in horror movies, women are usually the ones who get killed, kidnapped and at the end they escape so this music video adds on to the fact that women are seen as weak and fragile.  Moreover, there is a direct reference that Vance Joy is making to Wes Anderson almost as a mockery where small snippets of the music video correlate to the movies that Wes Anderson create as well as the indie genre that the two emphasis. Furthermore, the recurring theme of violence against women in the music video is also another direct address to one of the movies that David Lynch directed called 'Blue velvet.' In the movie there is one scene where the man abuses the woman to the point where the woman is pleasured by the abuse and she starts to smile which mirrors the music video as the character of the female singer, while still looking bruised and tormented, is still carrying on and singing despite how hurt she is.