Narrative Theory

Narrative Theory Applied to Sky Ferreira's 'I Blame Myself'

In terms of Narrative Theory 'Tim O'Sullivan et al' argued that all media texts tell us some kind of story. With this video in which I am analysing there is a clear narrative that is followed. The video follows the stroyline in which the main character, singer 'Sky Ferreira is a drug turf enforcer protecting her turn on the streets of America. The storyline comes to it's climax with the arrest of 'Ferreira' and her gang's arrest. Referring back to O'Sullivan he also argues that media texts offer a way of telling stories about ourselves, not usually our own personal stories, but the story of us as a culture or set of cultures. This video follows this ideo because Ferreira is representing and telling a story of gang culture within America. For example she uses props to indicate the gang culture within the video such as hooded gangsters, chains and a black retro vehicle. At the beginning of the video there is a short monologue that sets the scene for the narrative, certain words such 'fuck you' and 'get the fuck off my block' indicate violence and the ideology of gang culture.

Tzvetan Todorov stated that media texts follow a set of stages within the narrative. These stages are broken down into 5 key aspects;

1. A point of equilibrium
2. Stability is disrupted, a state of disequilibrium
3. Recognition that a disruption has taken place
4. Re-create equilibrium through action
5. Restoration of a new state of equilibrium 

From my analysis of the above video this theory is put into practice because at the start of the video everything is calm and relaxed on her turf as you see a gang member standing on a street corner monitoring the specific area. The stability is then disrupted which causes disequilibrium as turf is interrupted by a new characters that ask for drugs. The recognition of this disruption is recognised and the gang leader 'Ferreira' is brought to the situation and deals the drugs to the clients. For the restoration of a new state of equilibrium to occur there are consequences of the action that is taken place, as the police arrive they arrest 'Ferreira' and her gang. Therefore there is a new state of equilibrium in which gang culture resolved in this specific town by the authority.

Another theorist in which my video relates to is Kate Domaille, who stated that every story ever told can be fitted into one of eight narrative types. Each of these narrative types has a source, an original story upon which the others are based. One of the eight stories in which my video fits into is Achilles – ‘the fatal flaw that leads to the destruction of the previously flawless or almost flawless person’. How my video fits into this theory is that the ‘flawless’ person in my video is Sky Ferreira who acts as drug enhancer and is the ‘boss’ on her turf, however she is taken down (destruction) by the police that arrest her for drug involvement. 

With the video 'I blame myself' it is clear that there is a narrative structure to the video and is not abstract. The video shows a variety conventions of a modern day music video for example lip syncing, performance elements such as a dance routine and clear storyline which is followed.
 

Going back to the idea of gang culture, messages and values from the video are specified to the audience. Firstly the fact that a women is the main drug enhancer has the ideology of feminism behind it and gives the message to the audience that it is not always stereotypically correct that men are the most ‘dangerous’ in society, as women can equally play bad roles such as drug dealers. A value which is put across to the audience is that getting involved in bad situations such as drug dealer always results in bad consequences, as in the video the gang get arrested.  

Finally another key aspect of narrative theory is binary opposites, within this video there is one clear binary opposite; good vs evil. The good within the video are the police, linking back to Todorov's theory they reach the new state of equilibrium by arresting the evil, which are the drug gang.