AQA A-Level Media Studies - Ghost Town

Context

Released in 1981 during Thatcher’s tyrannical reign and an economic crisis

Due to the privatisation of of certain industries as well as moving certain production work oversease - it left a lot of working class citizens jobless and poor

Genre - Intertextuality

British social realist films (pastiche) - sympathetic representations of working-class men. It highlights the bleak urban environments and sense of hopelessness

The low budget shoot and social/political nature of the song and video reflect the codes and conventions of the genre

German expressionism (pastiche) - dim lighting held at dramatic angles (e.g. in the car during the tunnel sequence there is a single light held below the band giving them all dramatic and ghostly appearances

Inspirations - Intertextuality

1960s James Dean film ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ - features young people with a focus on driving cars with a lack of purpose (allusion)

1980 British film ‘Babylon’ featuring similar themes around racism and class issues (pastiche)

Links with Neale’s repition and difference theory

Representation: Establishment

Thatcher’s government shutting down mines causing job losses and a failing economy, as well as getting rid of council housing - “government leaving the youth on the shelf”

Tall buildings - no doors = no communication, grey and lifeless, low pov shots from the working class

Government failure - traffic cones blocking roads, “all the clubs are being shut down”

Representation: London

Band cramped in car - lack of social housing and overcrowding

Rundown areas and tight alleys interpolated throughout

Empty (video likely recorded early morning in the summer) - “Ghost Town”

Representation: Youth

Women - no representation

Young men - emasculated, no work, panic (swerving car), suicidal - “do you remember the good old days”

Representation: Racial tensions

“too much fighting on the dancefloor” - shadows fighting on the wall

“why must you fight against yourselves” - even racists are being affected by the economic crisis - now is not the time

Editing/Camerawork

Long shots - intro, dread, miserable, long days

Quick shots - swerving car, violent, suicidal

On board travelling shots

Ends in a cross-dissolve

Camera stuck to the bonnet of the car

Lighting/Mise-en-scene

Tunnel lights - infinite and mimicks the long feeling of boredom

Car - Vauxhall Cresta was a popular and affordable car of the time

Typical contemporary clubbing outfits

Gilroy - Post-Colonialism

Challenges racial tensions of the time and dominant ideology

Band is of mixed ethnicity (‘two-tone’) and is instead making a call-to-arms bringing awareness to class inequality

Hall - Reception Theory

Dominant - Unifying British youth against the establishment

Negotiated - agreed with the sentiment, but felt that focusing mainly on the male youth excluded and ignored problems that women and older audiences were equally experiencing too

Oppositional - Feeling that the racial tensions of the time was causing the economic crisis at the time

Butler - Gender Performativity

With the loss of masculine jobs - this violent response (swerving car etc.) could be seen as the band trying to come to terms with their identity. Responding in a violent way would typically be seen as masculine

Todorov - Narratology

Equilibrium: Band setting off together looking for something to do. Eerie diagetic sounds and green light signalling the story to set in motion

Disruption: Empty and bleak streets where nothing is open

Recognition: Upbeat break reminiscing on the past - greatly contrasting everything else

Attempt to repair: Continued aimless drive, shadow figures fighting each other, band members shouting

New equilibrium: Bleak arrival at river. Given up and accepted they have nothing to do - throwing stones into the river