JC: Deconstructing a music video - Fake Plastic Trees, Radiohead

Whilst we were briefed to look at two or three music videos in response to our product analysis task, after analysing this video I felt I had enough information and ideas about the video to be able to write about it in full. Fake Plastic Trees appeared on Radiohead's second album 'The Bends'. The music video was directed by Jake Scott, who had this to say about it: "The film is actually an allegory for death and reincarnation but if you can read that into it you must be as weird as the people who made it". Whilst at a first sighting Scott might be correct, it is easy to see after some time the deeper connotations which the band were attempting to show.

Institution and Audience

Although at the time of release, this video might have been popular on a number of music channels at the time of release, however, as the track is now over a decade old, it is likely to appear frequently on a music TV channel. Instead, as both the song and Radiohead themselves are well recognised both within the rock genre and, to an extent, popular culture. Therefore, whilst the song may not be played twenty times a day on the same music channel, it will always have a dedicated group of supporters (such as myself) who will want to listen to the song and/or watch the music video, and it will thus be consumed in a focused way, through web 2.0 applications such as Youtube, with the audience making an active choice to watch the video. This is also communal consumption, as the audience are listening to songs they once enjoyed.

Furthermore, because Radiohead are an established band with their own unique sound and style, they are likely to escape the clutches of manufactured pop record labels who dictate the way in which the band must perform and what must be included in their music videos. The extra diegetic gaze used by Yorke (staring into the camera) is something that is used by a number of popular music artists at the present however, and these meat shots might have been suggested by both the record label  and the director in order to break the fourth wall of cinematography and thus appeal to the consumer more.

Genre and Narrative

Unlike a number of more recent music videos which are mainly performance based, Fake Plastic Trees, as mentioned in my introduction, is a concept based narrative. Media theorist Andrew Goodwin identified features of music videos (Dancing in the Distraction Factory, 1992) that can be applied to this video; firstly, there is a link between the lyrics and the visuals which both illustrates and amplifies their meaning. For instance, a woman can be seen sitting down, when the lyrics are "it wears her out". Another example of this comes at the same lyrics later in the song, where a supposed member of staff looks tired and weary, stuck in a mechanised, monotonous job. Further into the song, however, the lyrics are repeated. At this point in the video, instead of sitting down, the woman leaves the checkout, and is in effect therefore dead. This combined with the lyrics suggests that she may have died from exhaustion (perhaps of life itself) and the meaning of the lyrics are thus amplified through the visuals. There is also an illustrative link between the music and the visuals; as the song 'instrumentally' comes to life, the cutting rate increases whilst the people start to move about more and express their characters.Whilst the video may seem to be random, and therefore an example of disjuncture, after deeper analysis the message of the video became clear, and the video is therefore illustrative of the concept, albeit subtly, so the consumer actually has to think, instead of being spoon-fed both a message and promotion.

Roland Barthes was another theorist who suggested that media texts have a number narrative codes that are linked with one another - "a weavingof voices". The first two codes, the hermeneutic and proairetic codes, both require a story - in this case the narrative - to be read in temporal order, and thus are reliant on focused viewing. Both of these codes are present in the video for Fake Plastic Trees, as the iea of death and reincarnation is present in the narrative of the video, but never really explored and is instead connoted by the video. This, as Barthes describes, is a jamming, as there is effectively an acknowledgement at the end of the video will never be resolved, that we never actually know how the people get there, how they leave or what makes them leave. At the end of the video, the lead singer is seen walking out of the building, and the shot becomes blurry. Whilst the clips ends here, we wait to see what happens to him - and therefore suspense is created by his actions, thus the proairetic code is employed in this video. In addition, there is strong reference to the human idea of pre-destiny, and a controlled life - the cultural code. A man dressed as a security guard in the shopping centre control room is seen as an old woman tries to take a product from a shelf - as we see her we see a hearing aid/earphone, which connotes the idea that she is told what to do, being controlled, as she then refrains from taking the product. The fact that the 'reincarnated' version of the lead singer, Thom Yorke appears in the same place - the supermarket - also suggests that there is an idea of pre-destiny.

The video is very much a statement of Radiohead's creativity, a work of art. Whilst their unique way of representing the concept in hand might be considered strange, it demonstrates their willingness to create something extraordinary, and thus true artistic talent. It is clear that despite a number of meat shots, there is little emphasis of the commercialisation of the video, because, despite the way in which the concept is presented to us, there is little extraordinary about the video - there are no special effects, for example. There are some postmodern elements to the video, such as the belief that many ideas/realities - in this case death and reincarnation - are merely social constructs. Going back to the shot of the security guard, I mentioned earlier the idea that the people within the 'supermarket' were being controlled. The security guard talking into the woman's ear, telling her what to do, could therefore be interpreted as him feeding her information, which she is taught and has to abide by, follow - and thus the idea of myths being passed down through word of mouth is present within the video.

Media Language

A social message that could be read from both the lyrics and visuals is that you can build something up to be what you want it to, but ultimately it never is that - it is merely something that has been dreamt up. In addition to this, the lyrcis "if I could be who you wanted all the time" suggest that whilst the above is true, it is in part society's fault that this occurs, as people are always striving to better themselves for the sake of impressing others. The above lyrics are aural signifiers for the fact that he will never always be who the subject of the song wants him to be, with the setting of the supermarket connoting this idea, as he is after all just a normal person.

The problem with this is that this message is connoted mainly through the lyrcis of the song, not the visuals. Nonetheless, there are still visual techniques in use to imply these ideas (camerawork, editing, mise en scene and special effects). When a man in a basketball shirt appears, we see him shaving his head - ie changing his image. When he looks into the camera, his non-verbal language connotes that he is sad, he has a solemn look on his face and he is effectively presenting himself to us, saying "look at me, is this good enough?". At this point, we also see him at close-up length, suggesting the focus is on him. Most shots throughout the video are close-up, as people are constantly 'presenting' themselves to the camera. This idea of . The idea of death is also created by the use of white light, a special effect, as this is a common term used to describe the moment when someone dies. Finally, the lyrics "I used to do surgery, for girls in the eighties, but gravity always wins" and "She looks like the real thing" both occur at the same time as visuals of two women. Whilst the first shot shows a checkout girl stereotypically looking uninterested and chewing gum - a reference to popular culture -  with a number of beauty products and jewellery to improve her image ties in with the above idea, it is the second woman who is more interesting; whilst the shot of her is not voyeuristic, her top is drawn to the level of her breasts - drawing attention to them, and thus linking back to the original lyrics "I used to do surgery...". Whilst she is clearly wearing a number of beauty products and looks glamourous, she has also clearly aged, and does not look happy - therefore she is being inefficient, a theme running through Radiohead's songs. Furthermore, her costume is a tracksuit - something that is popular within modern culture and particularly at the time at which the song was written. This suggests that she is buying into the consumerist world, trying to fit in, and the fact that she is unhappy suggests that she would be better off pleasing herself, pursuing her own interests.

Representation

The idea created by the lyrics "it wears her out" - that people's attempts to fit the bill, to make the grade can be stressful is a recurring theme in Radiohead's songs, such as in Street Spirit (Fade Out), where Yorke is seen throwing himself off a caravan and falling into darkness, connoting ideas of suicide and therefore death, a nightmare or fear through stress. This time, instead of darkness bright lights are used to create this idea, which is nonetheless still present. As a subtle, subconscious idea, this makes the product stand up to repeatability, and therefore helps to promote the band's image and identity without creating an advertisment.

The star persona of Radiohead is created through the two paradoxes suggested by Richard Dyer, who suggestes that stars are images, commodities and dependant on subsidiary media in order to construct images of themselves. Dyer also outlines two paradoxes, which mean that the the star image is incoherent. The first paradox states that the star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer. Evidence of this in Fake Plastic Trees is that the band, and Yorke in particualr can be seen in a supermarket, an average setting that everyone is familiar with. The extraordinary element of this is that the supermarket is actually an allegory for in effect, a waiting room into the afterlife, limbo. The second paradox states that star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer. Whilst Yorke regularly breaks the fourth wall by speaking into the camera and addressing the consumer, he and the band are also placed within this concept, and are therefore absent. This incoherence means that the consumer will strive to complete this image, therefore consuming more of their medium thus increasing the band's popularity.

Emergent ideologies such as the nanny state are present within the video, through the 'controlled' nature of the people within the supermarket. This is therefore represented negatively as is it seen to be restricting the people within the supermarket, the society. The 'social myth' of reincarnation has a part to play in the video. Speaking generally, people are represented as fickle beings, obsessed with self-fulfilment and pleasing others. This view is another emergent ideology within society.