Narrative Analysis

Katy Perry - California Girls

The video I chose to look at is Katy Perry – California Girls. I am going to focus on analysing the narrative based on the three main theorists, Todorov, Propp and Levi-Strauss. I believe that this music video focuses specifically on Todorov’s theory which is ‘5 conventional stages’ as the video is told in chronological order and has an equilibrium, disequilibrium and a new equilibrium.
The equilibrium in the video would be Snoop dog being the controller over ‘Candyfornia’ – the imaginary (game board) land where the video is set.
The disequilibrium would be Katy Perry discovering the land.
The recognition and reparation of the video would be finding and releasing the captured girls she finds in Candyfornia.  
The new equilibrium is when Katy Perry and the other girls all stop the controller of the land and bury him in the sand (Snoop Dog), as if they won the board game, beating snoop dog at he’s own game.
This video could also have references to Levi-Strauss’ theory and Propp’s theory. Because the video is only roughly 3 minutes long, it doesn’t have time to represent all characters in Propp’s theory. The characters that are shown is a hero (Katy) and villain (Snoop).  Levi-Strauss’ theory of the binary oppositions were shown in the video were good & bad. Good being Katy Perry and bad being Snoop Dog.

Though this is a music video, it still has a single diegesis, known as the standard Hollywood narrative structure (one main storyline). This is convenient because the whole video has a relation to Hollywood. For example the icing of the Hollywood sign suggests that the Candy world in the video is an imitation of Hollywood, for example a ‘dream land’ which we all link Hollywood to be.
I think this video has a lot of inspiration from the film Charlie and the chocolate factory, with a story of a strange land full of sweets and happiness (in the end). There is a strong sense of narrative structure in the video. It has been edited so that we know the background of the story. With quick shots that show Katy in many different locations and outfits we can see the length of her mission in the ‘board game’.  The video follows a clear linear narrative with a basic storyline.