Analysing Narrative in Music Video

Avril Lavigne – “Alice (Underground)”

In “Alice”, the artist plays the role of both narrator and protagonist as she tells the narrative of the music video through the lyrics and performance. She also plays the role of the protagonist as the narrative is centred to her, being Alice.

The music video portrays an objective character identity in the narrative as the world of “Wonderland” is seen through Alice’s point of view, which is played by Lavigne.

In this music video, Todorov’s narrative model is loosely applied. Equilibrium is presented when Lavigne is presented near a forest wherein she sees a white rabbit. This is followed by the disruption wherein she follows the rabbit and wanders off into the forest, and unknowingly, she falls down a big hole accidentally. This disruption leads her to a dream-like sequence which is presented through the fade transitions and montage editing embedded in the duration of the video. In this disruption, she meets the Mad Hatter whom she has tea with. Through the montage editing, we also see some characters like Cheshire Cat, The Red Queen and The White Queen. This conflict is resolved when the artist runs away and gets out of the forest. The ideology value that is being reinforced through the narrative structure is that women do not need men to save themselves. It is shown that there is equal power between the genders because the narrative does not have the typical “rescue-the-princess” theme which usually seen in fairy tales. This is also evident in the mise-en-scene wherein the artist is wearing a black, frilly gown which is unusual in a fairy tale theme as the protagonists are usually wearing bright and vibrant clothes such as pink, yellow and blue.

Since the music video has montages of different characters, Lavigne plays the role of the hero while Mad Hatter and Cheshire Cat plays the role of the helper. I addition, The White Queen plays the role of the donor and the dispatcher while The Red Queen plays the role of the villain. There is a subversion of gender roles as the artist (Alice) plays the role of the hero, which is stereotypically played by the male character. Also, the lack of the “princess” role in the video shows how women is being independent and doing things to attain their own goals.

The binary oppositions that are present in the music video are:

-          Men VS Women

-          Good VS Evil

-          Dream VS Reality

-          Light VS Dark

-          Protagonist VS Antagonist

-          Young VS Old

-          White VS Red

The binary opposites identify with the central ideological messages in the music videos because it reinforces the subversion of gender roles wherein the hero is female and the helpers are male. This oppositions also indicates the main value of the video that women can be as strong enough as men to change the world. Men are typically strong and independent, but in this video, through Hatter’s body language and facial expression, he seems so desperate to keep Alice (Lavigne) in Wonderland. Furthermore, the conflict that keeps the narrative flowing is the binary opposition of dream and reality with the argument of whether or not Wonderland is real. This is also reflected through the lyrics of the song “Is this real? Is this pretend?”

Barthe’s narrative codes are also illustrated in the music video. The artist chasing the rabbit, falling down the hole and running away from the Hatter are the action codes revealed in the video to show the progress of the narrative.

The fact that the narrative is based on Lewis Carol's story "Alice in Wonderland", the audience already has a prior knowledge about what the narrative is about. This cultural code is also present when we see Lavigne chasing the white rabbit, which is similar to what happened to Alice in Alice in Wonderland.

The enigma code being raised in this video is whether or not the main character is dreaming or not - “Is this real? Is this pretend?”

Based on Cameron's modular narrative theory, the theory that applies in this video is a forking path. This is applicable as it juxtaposes what the original version on Alice in Wonderland is. For example, in mise-en-scene, the original version presents Alice as a naive simple girl with a sky blue dress and white fluffy apron. On the other hand, the music video presents Alice which is Lavigne wearing a black gothic gown, juxtaposing the sweet and naive impression the original Alice has.

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll and Alice in Wonderland (2010) movie by Tim Burton is the intertextual reference used in this music video.