Tuesday, 10 August 2010

Twisted Sister - I Wanna Rock




The video begins with a classroom full of teens, who are not under control whatsoever, when a teacher enters the room he instantly goes berserk. The teacher represents authority, when the band appear on screen they begin to humiliate him by throwing him though the ceiling. This anti-establishment behaviour appeals to the rebellious nature of teenagers.
The band itself is dressed eccentrically wearing makeup and the lead singer is wearing a wig, despite being male, this however was accepted at the time, being the 80’s.
The teacher throughout the video tries to halt the efforts of the band to perform, this constant assault also represents the attempts by society to constrain the band, perhaps the genre in general.
The opening shot is a long range shot of a classroom where students are in disarray.
The second shot is a tracking shot of the teacher starting on his feet and then zooming to his head to show his facial expressions and agner at the chaos of the class. When the band finally appears it is a medium shot of the band, this then quickly changes to another shot, shots of the band and teenagers all cheering to the band and singing the song are shown. Multiple medium to long shots of the band performing are shown, altogether the shots place emphasis on the band and their connection with the teenagers (representing their audience) and with eachother they are better off. Their isn't much sound other than the song present in the video, with exception to diagertic sounds such as the teacher shouting at the beginning (which has to be noted that when the song began his dialogue stopped). The only other diagetic sound is one scene where the teenagers are banging their heads against lockers in tune to the music.

Overall the video serves as a metaphor for the band leading their audience out of the restraints of the current music industry and being rebellious. Heavy Rock/Metal at the time had this image and the video re-affirms this image by portraying rock in the form of the rebellious children and the authority/establishment being personified by the teacher. At the time rock was viewed as having negative affects on society by both the public and the government,

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