Analysing Narrative Music Videos - Lady GaGa Paparazzi

Julius Conmigo           Media Studies A2             Ms. McCleod

Analysing Narrative Music Videos

Lady Gaga’s music video ‘Paparazzi’ follows the typical Todorovian narrative model as it consists of all stages. The music video’s equilibrium starts off with Lady Gaga making out with her Swedish boyfriend Alexander Skarsgard. The Equilibrium’s Disruption is when is pushed off the balcony by her boyfriend after realizing she is being set up whilst paparazzi's are taking pictures of her, and ‘Lady Gaga is no more’. The recognition of this disequilibrium is when we see Lady Gaga in her crutches, implying that her fame is ‘broken’ or in the verge of falling. The reparation of the disruption is when Lady Gaga poisons her boyfriend and finally the Re-equilibrium is when she finally gains her fame back in the end.  Todorov’s narrative model is usually used in movies however since this is a music video that lasts for 7minutes, Todorov’s method is used to give and show a better understanding to the audience of what the music is taking about and somehow show a relation between lyrics and the video.

Vladamir Propps character is used to an extent in this music video; We can easily spot who plays which proppian character. Lady Gaga plays as the Hero, as she has to kill her boyfriend to regain her fame back, she also plays as the  Princess, As she is the lover of Alexander Skarsgard lover. But at some peoples opinion she can be see also as a villain or anti-hero too because she kills her boyfriend, throughout the video we see her becoming wilder and wild and goes to jail in the end, and through this we see it as being evil. Alexander Skarsgard (Lady Gaga's Boyfriend)however plays as the main antagonist, because he tries to kill Lady Gaga by pushing her off the balcony.  The structure of narrative follows the typical Good vs. Bad story line but with a twist. We see Lady Gaga as being the Hero but in the end goes to jail and in that case we see as only Villains being taken to justice. Music videos are usually montage editing but we can still tell that the time representation is linear; there is a beginning, middle and an end and that the music video is happening in real time within the video, and we understand what is happening within those times.

Lady gaga and Snake of Eden Trio

Lady gaga wearing the same costume
from the film 'Metropolis'

The music video doesn't really have an enigma code as it tells us the whole story and what happened, how she regains her fame and what she had to do. The inter-textual references that the music videos have is one of obvious ones, close to the end of the music video, Lady Gaga wears a yellow jumpsuit, embroided with Minnie Mouse faces; she too has a very cute, Gothic make up related to Minnie Mouse. However some people may not notice but there are two other inter textual references such as the one 3:13s into the video, she's seen in a metallic costume along with crutches. This is a reference to the German film "Metropolis".Lady Gaga also makes out with three hair metal rockers when she says the line "Loving you is like Cherry Pie". These trios are from Snake of Eden, a reality TV show, and the line 'Cherry Pie' is a reference to glam band 'Warrant’

By Julius Conmigo