"Great White Bear, Dear Reader" - Analysis Essay

This is a little different to what I generally post in here. It was my Visual Communication 110 first assignment, all they told us was do an analysis of a music video in 800 words, so none of us really knew what to do at all, they also said they werent going to give us the marks back which really sucked cause I spent quite some time on this and really enjoyed it thoroughly; so anyway I thought I'd post it and hopefully introduce some people to some brilliant South African music. Please watch the video first, its wonderful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_NPQN3z_e0

Great White Bear - Dear Reader

The music video I have chosen to discuss is for the song, Great White Bear by Dear Reader; a local group born and bred in Johannesburg. The video is not lacking at all in emotion invoking imagery or music, it is a beautiful piece with a well suited collection of shape, colour, line and texture, combined to create content and context and thus, art. Together they speak about the real and twisted, or “sinister game” of love that two people face, with the rest of the world criticising them for it. I think this song is about the struggle of love and fighting for what you feel, no matter what the situation or the repercussions. Through interpretation and the use of semiotics it will be discussed how this video effectively gets its message across to the viewers.

The music video starts with a door to door shoe salesman at the first house in a neighbourhood. His posture shows that he is confident and proud, but as soon as his customer tells him off; he slouches over and makes his way to the next door, nervously stroking his hair back, he knocks on the door, again brutally refused. He looks to the next door thinking if it is even worthwhile, and as he is about to knock on the door, someone upstairs throws something at him. He then continues on, sad and alone, these scenes are an example of Paradigm, a group of signs that are of the same or similar type that together create a message. The imagery here all links to the loneliness of the salesman, and his disheartenment relating to work, life and even love.

W.H. Wackenroder says in terms of Hermeneutics, “To find meaning of a work of art, one has to contemplate the artist rather than his products.” The first line in the song is a clear example of this, as there could be numerous correct and incorrect interpretations, “He climbed into the belly of the great white bear”. Cherilyn Macniel, the lyricist, says that a polar bear is very well camouflaged in its frozen surroundings, so hiding inside one would be the best hiding place of all. This is Hermeneutics idea of intention; the individuals thoughts and desires about the world and how they perceive their work, she wanted the great white bear, ingeniously portrayed as a bar in the video to be the salesman’s place of solitude, his ultimate hiding place from the world.

While he sits drinking to try clear his thoughts, there is an example of Mise En Scène, the way in which they use certain elements in a frame to give meaning. In this scene everything is solid pencil, except the salesman’s suit, this could be symbolic for his erratic thoughts, confusion and frustration even, because like his thoughts it is unsteady and for lack of a better word, “squiggly”.
He continues on his rounds, and see’s a big old house, covered in thorns not very inviting but as Umberto Eco says, “The sign is a lie because it is something that stands for something else.” When he approaches the spiders house he stops and sighs feeling hopeless he rings the door bell, when nothing happens he immediately turns and begins to walk away, but then a “friendly” face welcomes him in. The looks of the house and the looks of the spider herself are quite possibly just a visual illusion because the fact that she is a spider does not mean that she doesn’t need or long for love and companionship.

In semiotics there are three different kinds of signs, this music video is full of iconic signs meaning that everything looks like what it is, in other words it is very high in Verisimilitude because the people look like people and that is what they are, even the black widow, although personified looks like a black widow.
The salesman opens his briefcase and inside are nine red shoes, shoes are meant to represent the walking of certain paths in our lives, or our journey. Throughout the entire music video there are no colours, but red; red symbolises love in most cultures today, thus making the shoes a symbol of their journey of love together; I am however not sure on the symbolism of why there are nine shoes, when a spider has 8 legs and a human has two. Later on he also picks a red Hibiscus which is often related with delicate beauty, showing that to the salesman even though he is in love with an ugly spider he still finds her beautiful.

When he is dancing with the spider in the next scene, in the background there is a couple watching them but walk away in disgust, this is the beginning of people not understanding their love for one another and not accepting it, the first sign of the world judging relationships between different race or in this case species.

The spider makes a heart shaped web in the tree’s as it zooms away from them walking together , the lyrics, “To bring a disaster on their youthful dreams of escape” this is almost like a bad omen for their ‘youthful dreams’ of being happy together and how this dream is doomed. The salesman then takes her to his place of safety, the great white bear and still there they are not free from judgement.

They are sitting together at a table and two other salesmen (as seen by the briefcase) see this and go to him to try explain to him what is going to happen but he will have none of this, and hits the other man with a bottle . They then chase after him, this is symbolic of the fact that people are trying to save him while he doesn’t want to be saved, and in terms of the lyrics, “Run, run, run there’s a bullet in your back” meaning that no matter how much you run it will always catch up to you.

In the end when they believe they have finally escaped all the troubles of the world and they are alone, together, they kiss, the spider knowing full well of the consequences, the salesman dies and she is alone and sad once more.
The video ends zooming out of a window and into a room full of shoe salesmen briefcases, this is an Indesical sign, as all the brief cases mean that she has loved many and as a black widow once they reach a certain level of intimacy, the kiss, they all die.

The song together with the music video shows how love can form between different kinds of people, in the most unlikely of circumstances. Love is blind to colour, creed and associations and it is hard for others to understand the bond that you may have. It helps us realise that when the world tries to separate two lovers, they will fight only becoming stronger together right until the bitter end.