Laura Marling - Devil's Spoke
Genre and Narrative
- Barthes' enigma code is prevalent in this video through various shots of what the audience assume to be tribal men.
- This creates an enigma because the audience do not understand what these dark, old men have to do with the narrative, therefore Marling remains incoherent to the audience (which helps toward her 'star image') and also appears to be interested in different cultures.
- This is evident through another of Barthes' narrative codes, the cultural code, and through the mise-en-scene of a foreign landscape.
- Goodwin's key features of commercial music videos are also spotted in this more independent video.
- For example, there are a range of 'meat shots' which are to, of course, advertise the artist.
Media Language and Representation
- This video follows two lines of action.
- There is an ECU of Marling's make-up free face, with her hair looking wispy and windswept. This is unconventional as critical theorists Erving Goffman, Sut Jhally and Jean Kilbourne noticed a pattern in female artist's music videos.
- Women would be shown to have the 'artificial' look where they would be presented as slim, tall and airbrushed; a misrepresentation of REAL women.
- However, Marling's genre of indie folk doesn't focus on the advertising of the female body but on the music and passion put into it.
- There is evidence of dismemberment, which is another pattern noted by Goffman, Jhally and Kilbourne.
- For example, more ECUs of Marling showing her bare neck and shoulders.
- This agrees with the theorists' studies as it plays on the desires of the male audience and also conforms to voyeurism.
- On the other hand, an MLS of Marling in a tribal robe playing a drum, like an aborigine challenges the stereotype we see in popular culture.
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