Media Response 3-I Heart Regina

As you are all (except maybe Amy) aware, I LOVE Regina Spektor's “Fidelity” music video. Then, the other week, as I was reading a little about her (in class as we watched her video-I picked up the habit from Amberly, blame her), I was made aware of how often she uses literary allusion in her lyrics. Now, I’m a self-professed “lyrics girl”—if I think the words are cool, it doesn’t matter how terrible the music is, or how awful the person who sings them appears to be; I will like the song, the album, the artist. (This is probably the reason for my unexplainable love of John Mayer—his lyrics spoke to me at a time when I needed them—as corny as it sounds, it’s true.) Regina is another one who has caught me here. I enjoy her use of and play with words, themes, and allusion. Add to that the fact that her music video is rockin’, and she’s got me. I own her music, and one of the first reasons (among many) that I fell in love with (500) Days of Summer is her appearance on the soundtrack.

That being said, I realized the other day that I know absolutely nothing about any of her other music videos. Do any of the others come close to touching “Fidelity”? In my quest to answer this question, or at least become more familiar with her video work, I decided to Spektor-fy myself this week and use my media analysis time to check out some of her other work. What I found was interesting…

First of all, the red earrings that appear once her locket drops and color is introduced in “Fidelity” appear again and again in her videos. Perhaps it’s just because she likes them, but I would venture to say that it’s probably more than that. Often they are highlighted in hints of color, even when the rest of the scene is black and white; perhaps it’s a connection to who she is, herself, as a person?

The second thing is that all of the videos I looked at were truly perfect for analysis. It is evident that Spektor herself, or maybe it’s just her directors, though I think that it’s probably more her, as an artist, trying to present various messages through the videos as well as the words. If nothing else, however, they’re visually stimulating and thought provoking without being “too much” or “stupid.” I think all of these I’ve placed below are excellent choices when looking at the codes of music videos, and I truly would use any of them in a lesson on making meaning from textual analysis. Using “Sampson” in teaching allusion would also be effective, though in this case the lyrics may be a more obvious choice of focus.

“Samson”

Especially when looked at in relationship to the story of Samson and Delilah, looking at this video, one may get the message that sometimes things aren’t what they initially seem to be, or perhaps that things evolve and change over time and with perceptions?

“Us”

This one I think is interesting because of the stop-action animation effect created throughout and the used of the paper medium as well. I think that it’d be really interesting to see what my students would make of this music video in relationship to the lyrics of the song.

“Better”

I LOVE how it initially looks like there are many copies of the same person, yet upon closer observation it’s obvious that there are different faces. Through the various influences presented, are these women convinced that they need to be the same in order to be happy or accepted? In the end there’s an allusion to the idea of “marching to a different drummer,” which I think is probably Spektor’s point—be yourself.