Engl360
Anjie Zhao
Essay 3
Dec-4-2014
Modern Rhetoric in Music Videos
Nowadays, rhetoric relies on multimedia,
which includes a combination of video, audio, text, still pictures and others. The
strength of multimedia is it enables audience to observe and interpret several
different kinds of media at the same time; such process brings greater impact
on the audience than a single text or a single media. In my essay, I will
analyze a music video for “We Are Young” made by Fun (check out the link in the
citation page). This music video is multi-media based; it embodies multiple
rhetorical expression including oral text (lyrics), background music, music
composition, visual images, slow motion videos, and American cultural elements.
All of these rhetorical modes belong to modern day rhetoric, and they together to
create strong emotional appeals. I will talk about how this music video serves
as a good example as modern rhetoric and how its rhetorical techniques fit into
modern audience’s expectations. I will also talk about how this music video
connects to ancient rhetors such as Aristotle and ancient rhetorical techniques
such as ethos, pathos, and logos.
The structure of this music video is very
modern in general, because ancient rhetoric does not involve multi-media
rhetoric. Such multi-media composition creates a stronger impact on audience by
using appeals to both visual and audio; audience not only can hear the story,
but also see the story by watching the video. Such effect by multi-media videos
like can be found anywhere in 20th or 21st centuries, such as on YouTube.
Before 20th century, people aren’t able to access different media at the same
time, because devices like music video wasn’t officially invented until 1950;
people didn’t think they can actually “observe” visual content of the song;
before music video was invented, people relies on imagination based on the
music and the rhythm. Differently, people today become materialistic, they rely
highly on senses (the ability to feel, hear, and see) because of the influence
of multi-media. While they listen to a song, they also expect there are visual
or motion videos that supports the music. This music video satisfies modern day
people’s expectation for multimedia text structure.
One technique of modern rhetoric is “multi-media
storytelling”, which is an effective rhetorical process. Such storytelling
technique is often used in a movie. The use of multiple different media contributes
to the same story. In the music video for “We Are Young”, as soon as the music
starts, we see a young man coolly adjusts his collar in front of the camera, a
pianist sets his fingers on the piano, and then the guitar player is about to
play the guitar. These scenes are being set together to show that a music band
is about to perform some music performance. And the guy who adjusted his collar
earlier starts singing; the lyric said “… My lover she is waiting for me just across
the bar,” and immediately the camera shifts to the image of a girl who is
standing in a bar, waiting for her boyfriend. This example shows that the
singer plays the role of the narrator and is using his song to tell a story
which happened in a bar. And the video clips serve as visual supports or visual
evidences for the oral or musical texts. This is because as the guy sings more
and more, the visual story gets developed, and the audience sees the visual
motions and gets a deeper understanding of the lyric based on the visual. Using
both video and audio simultaneously for a story is only possible in modern time.
This music video is fully multi-media based thus is able to fulfill the
requirements for multi-text storytelling technique.
Another modern rhetorical technique used in
this music video is “slow motion.” As I said in the previous paragraph, modern
day people are familiar with the rhetorical techniques used in music video
production. Movie editing programs such as Microsoft’s Movie Maker includes “slow
motion effect.” Such program is first released in 2000; before that year people
do not know about this rhetorical technique. Slow motion effect can be edited
through video editing programs, and is meant for the purpose of helping people
keep track of what’s going on in the video. In some way, slow motion effects
also emphasize on artistic portrayal of the plots of the story. The music video
of the song “We Are Young” is an example of these rhetorical influences. For
example, at 0:50 second of this music video, a guy is hitting the girl with a glass
bottle, his movement is decorated by slow motion effect, you can see the glass
bottle slowly breaks on the girl’s head, and the broken glasses slowly flying in
the air. This depiction satisfies audience’s aesthetic taste because it’s
creative and unique. Slow motion effect also match the guy’s movement with each
words of the lyric such as “Tonight, we are young” (Klasfeld, 2011). This slows
down the scene and makes the scene clear for observation. Audiences are able to
focus their attention for the very moment of the hitting (the guy’s movement).
The music turns explosively exciting when the bottle hits the girl’s head. This
creates a strong emotional appeal; audience’s emotion reaches its peak when
they see the glass breaks, and at the same time hears the song hits its climax.
In modern days, people who love Rock music tend to think that the explosive
moments in a song give them chill, that is why they love such music. These fans
will expect such explosive moments in the music video, because such moments
represent their unique life style and lift their spirit. Slow motion effect
crucially contributes to the creation of such explosive moments and is adopted
by the modern media industry.
In this music video, the editor also uses American
traditions, cultures and norms as rhetorical techniques. For example, as the
video goes on, you would notice that people in the bar are messing around and
partying. They are spraying beers, throwing food, breaking things, dancing, and
being wild. Partying is a big part of American’s tradition. The target audience
for this video is the American youth, because if you look closely you will find
almost everyone in this music video are young and there are no old people. And
partying is also what young people most likely to do. This video is spreading
this life style of being wild and free in order to attract young American’s
attention. The lyric of the song express the same idea. In the lyric, it said “Tonight,
we are young, so we set the world on fire, and we can burn brighter”(Klasfeld,
2011). These words encourages people to break free from social constrains and
pursue freedom; these ideas emphasize on strong emotional appeals for young
people’s desires and needs to be free. In addition, this music video also
includes American’s idea about love and sexuality. In the video, there is a
couple standing in the crowd; there are creams on the girl’s face and the guy
is kissing her hard. This portrays the American ideal of how people love; and
in American culture, young people’s relationship should always involve intimate
interactions between a boy and a girl. This media production is trying to use
all the appealing ideas about American dream, freedom, and love to meet the
expectation of American youth; Again, the video portraits the American youth in
an wild way because the society believes that young people are supposed to be
wild. In contrast, people rarely behave wildly in the ancient times; before the
19th century while technologies or sexually suggestive music are not
developed, people hardly think American youth in an sexual or violent way.
People perhaps will have negative perceptions about young people acting
violent. However, the violence in this music video is portrayed in a positive
way. This is also a cultural character for modern Americans. Nowadays, people
hold more freedom than before, thus they expect things to be stimulating,
especially in the media. The crime rate in America is higher than before too. It’s
not hard to guess that American people become more open minded or tolerant with
sex, drugs, and crime today. Thus they don’t mind seeing violence in music
videos, because modernity has shaped their cultural values and norms; American
people become like to watch violence in media. This can show that this music
video is only designed for modern time audiences because its content fits into
modern people’s values and ideas. In addition, the setting provides evidence of
the “modern time”; the casual dresses, cellphones, plastic cups, the bar and
the people’s haircut all can show that it’s 21st century instead of
ancient time. American people have unique ways of dressing. This can be
considered an appeal to value. For example, white American guy would like to dress
in a suit in public or workplace. In this video, the guy who is singing the
song dressed formally; he is in a black suit and wearing a bowtie, like a gentleman.
This also connects audience with the American ideal, because Western men are
more likely to dress formally and in a suit, unlike Asian men who do not have
customs or traditions to wear suit. While American people watch this video they
get the idea it’s about American people, not people from other cultures, they
feel more connected to cultural ideas being conveyed in this video, because
they know such video is depicting a part of their lives, thus they are more
likely to watch it.
We can also connect this music video with
ancient rhetors. This music video has adopted some important rhetorical modes
from ancient rhetoric. For example, this music video used Aristotle’s pathos.
According to Aristotle, pathos embodies the appeal to audience’s sympathy and
imagination. Aristotle said appeal to pathos is not just appeal to emotion but
also appeal to “shared feelings”. Audience is able to share the same feeling
with the author of the lyric or the creator of the video. I think this music
video definitely provide audience with shared sympathy and imagination. An
example would be the so called “American dream.” As I said earlier, this music
video focuses on the idea of freedom. While people sees all the people are
throwing things and doing what they want in this video, they will share the
same feeling of being set free. They will also connect the video to their own
lives and the free times in their lives, just like going out at night and play.
These imaginations are culturally-based, if you are not American, you may not believe
that throwing things or hanging out in a bar is freedom.
In conclusion, the music video for “We Are
Young” fits perfectly into the category of modern time rhetoric because of the
depiction of its multi-media structure, editing effects, and modern cultures. By
analyzing this music video, I realize the powerfulness of technology.
Technology helps us make more effective products. This music video, if without
either the video part or the audio, would appear less attractive to audiences. This
is because multimedia has made the emotional appeal stronger. The two different
media emphasizes on the same message and at the same time. This doubles the
level of effectives of a single text.
Citation
Klasfeld, M. (Director). (2011). We Are Young [Music Video]. United States: Fueled By Ramen.
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv6dMFF_yts
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