In my view, this music video is one of the most thought provoking videos I have seen. Although on the surface it seems to be yet another depiction of a drunken and drug fueled "night out", the prodigy have succesfuly taken a cliche and turned it around to address the stereotypical view of a man and taboos around the behaviour of women.
The video takes the viewer on a night out through the eyes of what is asumed to be a man. We dont see "his" image until the end, but the assumtion is made as we experience drugs, scruffy trainers, kebabs, drunken fights and eventually ending up in a strip club and steeling a car. This behaviour is associated with a male youth, possibly early twenties. "He" takes a girl back to his flat and the song ends with a suggestive sequence depicting sex. The woman takes her clothes and leaves and suddenly a reflection of the protagonist is seen and it becomes clear that we have experienced a night out through the eyes of a woman, not a man. This is immediately shocking, but thought provoking in the sense that this is extremely unexpected. It is seen as a taboo for a woman to behave in this manner.
Aswell as addressing questions to do with behaviour, this video also is filmed very effectively. It gives the viewer a real sense of the alcohol taking control as the video goes on, and through the music becoming more and more disjointed, a sense of depression, frustration and anger is really achieved.
Monday 22 October 2007
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4 comments:
The whole conceit of the first person angle works really well as you point out and because of this it feels less 'polished' and perhaps creates a more believable impersonation of reality?
I agree with Will - the first person does give this a less polished, more messy feel, which makes the slide into drunkeness much more believable and at the same time much more interesting to watch than if the director had opted for a van Sant-style third person shot.
Again, agreeing with both Will and Liz, the first person angle works really well. Gives you an insight into the the grimmer world of nightlife.
Pretty normal night out for me though i suppose :)
In regard to experimentation with narrative in music video I find this piece particularly interesting, as its subject matter doesn't generally lend itself to a narrative of this kind.
The "twist ending" has become a common staple in the thriller genre, most specifically in film. Audience expectation of the plot twist has almost rendered the concept itself obsolete. It still has the potential to surprise, but will never fully be able to do so due to the audience's awareness that it is forthcoming.
Although 'Smack My Bitch Up' was produced some time ago, "Hooligan culture" has recieved its fair share of recognition in the media. The video to The Streets' 'Blinded By The Lights' culminates in a claret-splattered bust-up at a wedding reception, for example. Also refer to 'The Football Factory' (2004), starring Danny Dyer and directed by Nick Love.
The focus on louts and hoodlums in the media is itself bonded with certain notions, in the same sense that the twist ending is synonymous with the thriller genre. The most prominent of these signifiers being, as Ellie addressed in her original post, that "Hooliganism" is a predominantly male arena.
The director, Jonas Åkerlund's employment of a first person perspective throughout the narrative gives his spin on the stereotype that extra punch. Without the narrative that precedes the revelation, this role-reversal would not be so shocking.
'Smack My Bitch Up', in my opinion, appears to be itself a video response (as popularised by Youtube. Rather than simply comment, users are able to create their own videos in order to respond to another's more illustratively) to criticism that its accompanying track promotes violence against women. Whilst such acts are depicted in the video, the ultimate blow is delivered in that the perpretator is in fact one whom we would assume to be the victim. And due to the narrative nature of the video the viewer is bombarded with these facts all at once when the twist passes, rather than fed it in small bite-size pieces that are easy to swallow.
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