Lyotard is a post-modern theorist who disagrees with the more traditional theories of narrative. He thinks that instead of one big narrative, there are often many more smaller narratives going on at the same time. According to Lyotard this is as a result of a modern distrust in what he calls 'grand narratives', or 'meta-narratives'. This is arguably most obvious within sit coms where different groups of characters will have a different sub plot within the same episode. In my opinion this theory is suited more to things like sit coms than music videos, in particular rap, which is the media I am focusing on. This is because a music video is more limited in that it is part of a song which more often than not focuses on one topic. However, in a song which tells more of a story it may be more fitting. A video that immediately comes to mind for this is Stan by Eminem.
The video clearly depicts the linear meta-narrative of the song, and at the end of the video there is somewhat of a subplot in which we see Eminem replying to Stan's letter adding depth to the story. However, I think that this video subverts what is expected from the genre in telling such a clear story through the video. Although the song itself is particularly narrative focused so in that sense it is fitting. This is a clear contradiction of Lyotard's ideas, as it depicts a meta-narrative in a modern setting.
A good point of comparison is the video for Kanye West's 'Jesus Walks'. Whilst, similarly to Eminem, his song covers serious topics such as poverty and racism which may be considered unstereotypical for the rap genre, the music video is put together in a much different way. It contains much less of a linear meta-narrative than the video for Stan even though the lyrics don't rule out that as a suitable choice. In fact, there are a few clear sub narratives in the video, including Kanye in a hallway of fire, images of African American's working in a situation which may be slavery and a depiction of a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The more complex narrative in this video may be due to more ideas being depicted in the song Jesus Walks than in Stan, however it is still interesting to see how different narratives techniques are chosen for two songs that have a serious topic. Personally, I think that the video for Stan had a linear narrative in order to portray the extremely powerful story in Eminem's lyrics and that anything else wouldn't have done it justice. Meanwhile I think the Jesus Walks video had a lot more potential in terms of what could be done with it. Interestingly, there were three different versions of Jesus Walks made so this could reinforce the idea that it was a flexible song to create a video for. Even further, the fact that so many narratives were created for the same message gives strong support to Lyotard's ideas on the death of the meta-narrative.
To summarize, I do agree with Lyotard's ideas on narrative but it doesn't always fit the genre of rap videos. In the case of the Stan video, it is clear that a linear narrative is effective and present within the genre of rap which means it doesn't fit Lyotard's ideas. Although this doesn't mean that his ideas are completely unsuited to rap. For example if I applied it to Chance The Rapper's Juice (a video I have previously analysed) there is a clear lack of any meta-narrative yet the video, as well as Kanye West's 'Jesus Walks' video, is still very effective.
With regards to my music video, I think that there will be a subplot within the video. This creates a second narrative and in some ways aligns it with Lyotard's theory.There is a part within the song in which Kendrick Lamar talks about his grandparents' drinking when he was little and there is a strong symbol of a golden flask that we want to depict in our video.
No comments:
Post a Comment