Riptide- genre conventions and postmodernism

Genre conventions

While the music video to Riptide may be a promotional video to an indie-pop song, the video itself has many references to other genres of film. We saw in the last session how the video shares many thematic and visual similarities with the surrealist genre. However, the video also makes explicit reference to the horror genre, in particular classic horror films from the 1970s.

Suspiria vs Riptide

Mise-en-scene of the exterior setting of the woods and nighttime shots.

Synthetic lighting- red, purple

the character's looking at something off-camera to the side.

 siloheuttes

the character's being grabbed and pulled out of frame/view

women's bodies being outlined.

Further examples of the horror genre in riptide

Postmodernism

Riptide combines a range of startling images, including images that are symbolically violent and sexual. We have explored the violent and negative representation of women, but there is another possibility: the director has chucked lots of things together in order to make a cool video!

Postmodernism is anti-theory and resists any definition. Much of the time, even experienced academics will completely disagree with one another on both the definition of the term, and how useful this concept actually is for the study of Media.

broadly, a postmodern text can be characterised by wilfully breaking the rules and conventions of media texts.

FIVE ASPECTS THAT COULD MAKE A TEXT POST MODERNCriticism of metanarratives – postmodern texts usually try to distance themselves from traditional ways of making meaning, and will break the rules of existing metanarratives such as religion or science (if you want to brush up on what metanarratives are, then check out this post) 

Metanarrative - Also known as a grand narrative, this refers to an overarching narrative or system of beliefs that helps us to make sense of the world.

Rejection of high culture – postmodern texts will often use a deliberately ‘trashy’ aesthetic

Breaking rules – postmodern texts often break fundamental rules of making media, for example by ‘breaking the fourth wall’

Intertextuality – postmodern texts often routinely make reference to other texts, cultures and times

Style over substance – surface meanings are seen as more important in a postmodern text than any deeper meaning

Why postmodernism?

Using postmodernism is a great way to make reference to a variety of different texts and styles in a media text. It allows the author to complete freedom to use a variety of styles from different times and places. It can arguably challenge the audience's perception of the ways in which we use media... or it could simply be an opportunity to look cool without considering deeper meanings too much. For these reasons, adopting a postmodern perspective works especially well for music videos, which are obsessed with intertextuality and providing endless style over substance.

When discussing postmodernism, it is best to make sure you tick the following boxes:

• Identify what aspects of the text are actually postmodern
• Consider why the producer has used these stylistic choices, and what effect they may have on the audience
• Consider the purpose of music videos, and exactly what they have to do to get the attention of the audience
• Explain the ideology of the producer, and question the use of postmodern aspects

Applying post-modernism to Riptide.

Criticism of metanarratives- rather than being performance or narrative-based like most other music videos as per conventions, riptide simply directly translates the lyrics of the song to the screen. They're presented as completely abstract with no connection to each other, it's just images which have nothing to do with each other.

Rejection of high culture – 

Breaking rules –