Jaye's E-Portfolio
Self-Image, Smoke, and Mirrors
A person’s appearance is crucial to being accepted within a population of people who share interest, purposes, and common interaction areas. Before social media became the giant monster of communication it is today, our most compelling advertisements were mostly shown on television, print, and radio. Popular musicians, actors, and athletes expressed their lifestyles and ideas to our youth through television programs, especially music videos. Most depicted chiseled bodies, sex, wealth, and a carefree or dangerous lifestyle as the objective for achieving social norm in the respective environments of our youth. With naked bodies, luxurious cars, and outlandish lifestyles creating unrealistic expectations and standards for our youth to live up to, low self-esteem and mental afflictions troubled young viewers when they could not meet these fictional expectations.
Research on celebrity influence suggests some teenagers would go to great lengths and harmful extremes to address an imaginary flaw in their appearance to mimic celebrities. The idea of immoral influence through TV media and its effects on young people may have caught the attention of the French electronica music duo Daft Punk. In 2006, they released the very disturbing and controversial music video, Prime Time of Your Life, which addressed the influential notion that television programs raises a high toll to pay on children’s self-image. With scare tactics and strong visuals, Daft Punk uses pathos to engage its viewer’s emotions in order to convey their idea of society failing through TV media.
TV, The Inspirational Coach
Television media presents the most impressionable material that can alter an individual’s logic by using a pathos technique in displaying any combination of videos, images, writing, and sounds. This media is most impactful to a younger audience that typically has more free time to watch unsupervised television programs versus the limited time parents have working late full time hours. Furthermore, most music videos are played during the day and switch to TV shows during nightly primetime hours when teenagers are preparing for bed and working adults are coming home. Being that younger viewers have more time to watch television during the day, their engagement and interpretation to what they’re being exposed to may affect their behavior development in society. The interpretation of what’s shown to them combined with their ability of rational thinking, can determine how they view themselves and society as a whole, which is what is presented in DP’s music video.
Daft Punk’s EDM music video steps outside its genres parameters which predictably has incorporates artistically, futuristic images with sexy women, robots, androids, space ships, and electronic control panels in their videos. In fact, this video seems to have a specific filter and filming style that gives is a pseudo 80’s retro tone to it, distancing it’s self from the expected format of this genre. Daft Punk’s iconic status appeals to a broad television audience and they use this status with an off-kilter music video to emotionally grip their audience’s attention, using the rhetorical technique, ethos. I doubt you’ll find many fans dancing to this video while excitedly reciting the lyrics. They’ll more than likely be enthralled by the absent futuristic, artistic, computerized, and flashy videos that are common with this genre. This alone will take the viewer away from a place of dancing and singing and situate them to start forming an opinion on the idea of maintaining and healthy self-image.
Skeletons in the Closet
In this music video, a young girl is shown in her bed watching TV in which portrays society onscreen as living skeletons. She turns off the TV, gets out her bed, and walks to her dresser to look at framed pictures of herself, friends, and family. These pictures also share the same skeleton representation as shown on the TV, with the exception of the little girl whom looks normal. One picture shows her as a fat girl jump roping with two skeleton friends. She looks up at her mirror in a first person view, and her reflection shows an image of her being fat. The camera changes to third person view briefly revealing a normal looking young slim girl walking into the bathroom. Once in the bathroom, she challenges her overweight depicted reflection in the mirror by slitting her wrist and peeling the skin off her body down to her waist revealing her upper body muscular structure. She does this without any sign of blood, nor any major signs of pain. She then becomes unsteady and starts having flashbacks of the pictures she just looked at, then falls to the ground. The next view shows the opened bathroom door with her legs hanging out, with her upper body hidden in the bathroom suggesting that something else may have taken place of the skin peeling. Her parents rush to her body, kneel down and start crying over what appears to be their daughter’s dead body. The camera pans from the parents back to her dresser where the framed pictures now show the girl and her family as normal. Her TV powers on and shows a video of her two skeleton friends holding a jump rope in which she is no longer fat, but a skeleton.
The skeleton concept could represent two theories. One can be exaggerating the appearance of a slim body figure, and the other representing death. They both uncover serious mental issues indicating the girl wants to commit suicide or take extreme measures to become a skeleton and fit into what television depicts as a normal society. The controversy that this video presents is personified by the extreme idea and warning signs of what the young girl believes is a solution to improving her appearance and fitting in. She seems happy in all her skeleton pictures, which shows if no action was to be taken, she could remain happy in this fictional skeleton world. However, The lyric “The Prime time of your life, come on and do it, now, don’t wait and live it today” is recited during the video in what seems to express a delusional motivation for the girl to change her appearance to fit in.
Dealing with Mental Anguish
The use of the pathos approach showing graphic images and sound sequences helps engage emotions from the viewers. This is the strongest appeal in this video. The reflection in the girl’s eye of the first skeleton shown conveys a sense of obsession and fascination with the fictional skeleton culture, which can unsettle the viewer’s feelings. The dead stare she has at her overweight delusional reflection in the mirror shows that she’s not happy with how she looks, which can inspire pity from the viewers. The parents crying over her dead body can encourage the viewer to develop an empathic assessment along with a desire to help prevent this dangerous behavior amongst friends and family. The pictures and images on TV show skeletons being active, important, and happy, which is the opposite of what she’s doing. She’s peeking out her window through blinds indicating she’s embarrassed to be seen and may not have been outside in a while. If she can become a skeleton she can be happy too. This presents a weaker logos appeal since there’s logic in the message, however it’s an obvious false logic.
The Mayo Clinic Staff defines that “Body dysmorphic disorder is a type of chronic mental illness in which you can't stop thinking about a flaw in your appearance — a flaw that is either minor or imagined”. Kids, teenagers, and young adults are picked on and bullied on a daily basis for their numerous physical features that may be perceived as imperfect. It could deal with height, color of skin, a crooked nose, or being overweight. To combat these flaws they will pad their bras, bleach or tan their skin, resort to plastic surgery, and practice dangerous approaches to improving their appearance such as bulimia. If these methods fail to provide the results they’re looking for, they may resort to greater extremes were they could potentially hurt themselves and others out of frustration.
The effectiveness of Daft Punk’s concept comes into play when images of depression and obsession transition to the girl taking action by cutting her wrist. At that point opinions, emotions, and ideas start becoming active in a viewers mind. The music gradually gets faster and intensifies once she starts this process, which adds to the madness of the graphic images being shown. In the book "The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music, professors of neuroscience, L.J. Trainor and L.A. Schmidt, argue that “The acoustic cues that differentiate emotions cover virtually all aspects of musical structure and include both structural (what is given by the composer) and performance characteristics”(311). The gradual change in music mimics the emotion of uncontrollable anxiety that DP seems to be conveying, which prompts the viewer’s emotions to become more involved with the unfolding conclusion of the video.
Consolidated Thoughts
Daft Punk utilizes this music video to spread awareness for their concern and negative view of how media creates unrealistic standards that jeopardize the well being of it’s young viewers. Their scare tactic strategy in using graphically disturbing images is able to obtain their viewers attention and allow them to form apprehensive opinions to avoid similar situations. It’s clear to see DP's message in this video is be happy with who you are and not to attempt to be something that you’re not. Doing so could allow unwanted emotional distress to enter your life and the life of those around you. Daft Punk’s physical appearance pays reference to this message as they carry themselves uniquely and successfully different than other EDM artist, making this video that much more powerful.
Skeletons Live Outstanding Lifestyles
22 July 2014