Link to video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKyvG9xpJcw
The video for Good Charlotte’s “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” is a video which contains both performance and narrative aspects. The opening section of the video is almost entirely performance, however it does introduce a relation to the narrative section, as the very beginning of the video shows an aerial shot of a helicopter shining a spotlight on the front of an unidentified building, with a news-style caption of “Beverly Hills – Breaking News” in the bottom corner, clearly showing that whatever is happening is some sort of important story. The camera then cuts to the front of the building, where Good Charlotte are assembled and begin to play. An effect is applied to the video of a newspaper page being ripped aside, accentuating the idea of the video being a news story. There is a side-on shot from a CCTV camera shown, raising the possibility that the band’s actions are being considered a crime. After quick cuts between another aerial shot of police cars complete with the news caption, and the band performing, the scene changes to an interrogation room, with lead singer Joel Madden sat opposite a police officer, still singing the lyrics. A few quick cuts are made here between several previous shots, such as the CCTV camera angle and a close-up on Madden as the band perform. We then see various members of the band in the same interrogation room, being shouted at, pushed and generally mistreated by the police. This is as a statement of how police are biased towards celebrity, which will unfold further later on in the video. At this point, a theme is introduced which runs through the rest of the video, as a shot of Madden singing is frozen in frame, with a solid colour filter over the shot, in this case white, with the word “week”, which Madden has just sung in the lyric “I’d like to see them spend a week”, spelt out in letters made to look like they have been cut out of newspapers in the ‘poison pen’ style. This is a theme which has a twofold effect – firstly, it refers to one of the lyrical themes of the song, namely the media’s bias towards famous figures and censorship of anyone who stands out against them. Secondly, this is also a small piece of intertextuality. Good Charlotte are a band who perform in the punk rock genre, and this ‘poison pen’ style of writing they use is a tribute to a band many perceive to be the original punk rock band, The Sex Pistols, who were famed for using this style of writing on album and single covers, perhaps most notably on the anti-monarchy anthem “God Save The Queen”, the cover of which also displays the censorship aspect which Good Charlotte’s video has as a central theme. The remainder of the bridge section is shown in the same style, with quick cuts between the various members of the band being interrogated, along with a wide shot of the band’s performance on the steps outside the building seen in the opening shot. As the song hits the chorus, the band are seen to have been arrested, and are sharing a prison cell in matching uniforms. They are pressed against the bars as if trying to appeal for release, while Madden, at the front of the group with his arms and face through the bars, sings the lyrics towards the camera s it zooms into him. The shadow from the central crossbar is across his eyes, obscuring them from view, in a parody of the classic form of photo/video censorship of a black line across the eyes. The remainder of the chorus is viewed in a mixture of performance shots of the band on the steps, and shots continuing the narrative, showing the band singing in a prison cell, along with various prison interior shots. The second verse contains with a fast montage of various representations of the poison pen and newspaper style shots across the screen, all synched in as visual representations of the lyrics of the song, such as money flashing into the shot when the line “as long as you’ve got the cash” is sung. As the song enters the bridge for the second time, the narrative is moved on with a shot of the band being led into a courtroom in chains, with a faked “Trial TV” logo in the corner of the shot, continuing the lampooning of the media which is the central theme of the video. The trial is then established by showing shots of the characters of a lawyer against the band, and the judge sat at a table. Spliced in alongside more shots of the performance which runs through the video, Joel Madden is seen walking into the courtroom singing at the assembled people in the room. As the bridge finishes, there are several guitar chords played in a row. With each of these, the shot cuts to a different person or set of people, including the judge, lawyers, public gathered in the courtroom, jury and the band themselves, all with the censorship black bars across their eyes, mouth, or both. The trial is shown to begin at the start of the chorus, with Joel Madden shown in the witness stand, singing the lyrics as his testimony. The lawyer is heard shouting over the lyrics, declaring “that’s not music!” and yelling “I object” as Joel’s testimony, the chorus, finishes, while Joel is pushed to the ground by a courtroom officer. This is meant to parody the mass media’s ignoring of certain styles of music, and the fact that Good Charlotte were not seen as “mainstream” artists. During an instrumental section of the song, the lawyer calls witnesses for his side of the case. Two characters immediately shown are those who the band are showing as being the media’s supposed favoured types of people, a clearly rich man who identifies himself as “Chadwick Merryweather Hardick The 3rd”, and a blonde woman who is clearly meant to portray the “bimbo” character, responding when asked her name with “Can I get back to you with that?” They then proceed to state the opinions which Good Charlotte face from the mainstream media, including the first character insulting their supposed fashion sense despite his own questionable dress sense. The video then shows the supposed idiocy of the media by showing the lawyer strongly asking “Is it true, that the accused treated you like a dog?” The shot then cuts to a dog on the witness stand, before showing the band in shame at their supposed actions. The instrumental ends with the foreman of the jury being asked for his verdict. He states as the instrumental is coming to it’s very end, “We find the defendants...” but the verdict is not announced. The video cuts to the band exiting the courtroom all now wearing tuxedos, which is what they are wearing in the performance shots. The media are shown interviewing the blonde woman from the trial, but running away from her to interview the band instead. She looks visibly shaken and upset. The remainder of the shot is a mixture of the band being interviewed and the performance shots. The narrative order of the video is therefore left deliberately ambiguous, as the performance which we assume to be the start of the problems could in fact represent the end of the story, and the verdict of the jury is also never explicitly stated, although we can assume they were found not guilty due to their exit of the courtroom at the end of the video.
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