Riptide - Vance Joy

Riptide - Vance Joy

Context

The video was directed by Dimitri Basil and Laura Gorun and has nearly 100 million views on Youtube.

Objectification - A process of somebody becoming objectified 

Male gaze - Assumption that women are only placed in media to be viewed by straight men. 

Voyerism - The pleasure one receives from watching someone without their knowledge

Scoporphilia- The love of watching

Female representations in Riptide:

How does the video to Riptide encode feminist ideology?

• Ironic representation of patriarchal hegemony - M/S man standing in front of woman with torch in exaggerated pose and situation - graveyard
• Sexualised images utilised as referential codes - significant amount of film references draws attention to the many negative representations of women in cinema
• C/U shot woman singing - connotations of rebellion and agency
• Music video lacks anchorage, forcing the audience to make own assumptions about the representations of women
• M/S gagged women escaping from ropes lacks sexualised elements and is presented purely as upsetting and challenging to the heterosexual/male audience
• Ultimately the video is highly polysemic and most of all subversive of the hegemonic ideological perspectives normally seen in music videos. 

Montage editing

is used in an overt way - a wide range of contrasting images that are placed together to create meaning. 

Continuity

The unbroken and consistent existence or operation of something over time

This music video does not have any continuity throughout the video. 

Suspiria (1979)

Paradigmatic features of a horror film

• Non-diegetic soundtrack cuts out, functioning as a proairetic code, signposting the upcoming violence
• M/S of girl hanging, low key lighting
• C/U women being stabbed with a knife 
• Suspenseful framing of female protagonist standing in corner of the room
• Consistent vulnerability of women 

The blatant representation of distressed and helpless women being attacked by an aggressive male force is used in Riptide to create an ironic presentation of that oppressive representation. 

Surrealism 

is something that follows the logic of dreams

Dreams have their own logic, a foot into reality but does not follow the real life world's conventions of comprehension of being. 

Surrealist Film

Riptide uses surrealist imagery to create a discussion, explore concepts and to evade conventions. 

Binary oppositions