Narrative Theory: What is it?

Most Music video's have some sort of narrative, that's a given. I decided to research the idea of a 'narrative' and what it means in regards to music video's. 

Andrew Goodwin, a noted media theorist, believed that an artist in music video has to be involved in the music video, this is important as it makes it look authentic. This can be achieved through performing or acting as the main character or through singing or miming to the song.

Goodwins theory states that there are 5 key aspects which are featured in most music videos, these are-

• Thought through beat, which is seeing what the lyrics mean in the viewers head
• Relationships between the song and visuals
• Narrative and performance of the song
• Technical aspect of a Music video
• Star image (the performer or band) and how they're the centre of attention

Another theorist, Jean-Francois Lyotard, was against looking at narratives in a piece of artwork/media as one big narrative (a meta narrative). He suggested that the traditional ways of thinking about narrative, such as Todorov's equilibrium theory are flawed. He argued that narrative is becoming increasingly fragmented, and that these become stories within stories (micro narratives).

With regards to music video's and artists signed to major labels, ultimately it's up to them how they are represented, especially with solo acts, it helps to market them. With Independent labels, the artists themselves have more control of how they are seen on camera through music videos.

For researching this theory, I decided to find what I considered a very mainstream artist with a mainstream video, one which had been popular within the past year, to show a representation what they are like currently and also what an average person listens to and watches. I chose Katy Perry's Roar.

Whilst looking at the music video for Katie Perry's 'Roar' I can see how it conforms to Goodwin's theory. The whole video is focused on her and what she does. Also by her singing along to the track she is investing herself into her song, by visually performing to the viewer. By having the onomatopoeic word 'Roar' and having animals in her video, she can cleverly work the two together to give the song more power, by connecting the word to the animal, which could be part of the message she is putting across.

For one of the other music videos I analysed, Like toy soldiers by Eminem, in my opinion definitely conforms to Goodwin's theory as he raps along to it, and the story arc follows Eminem and how the rap war has affected him directly, making the audience connect with him as we can visually get an idea of what he thinks of it.