How is media language including intertextuality used in Burn the witch to construct representations of group messages and values

How is media language including intertextuality used in Burn the witch to construct representations of group messages and values (Approx 800 words)

The media language used within Radiohead’s Burn the witch (released on 3rd May 2016) constructs representations of group messages and values; the editing pace is slow for a music video and the camerawork is primarily static, connoting theatricality. The video is shot in the 4:3 aspect ratio of pre-widescreen television.

This Birdsong is a trademark (Genre related style and iconography Goodwin), which makes their videos recognizable due to the recurrence of this trademark, within Radiohead’s songs the first thing we see in terms of setting is the bird, which represents innocence and freedom, which we can predict the village is like this also.

Radiohead’s Burn the witch’s camera work, editing, and mise-en-scene focus on a parallel linear narrative. Radiohead is a televisual narrative. Further to this Radiohead is characterised by generic slippage ( how the genre is neither horror nor a children’s animation or even a hybrid)- its disorientating.

Radiohead’s Burn the witch is expressionist, it expresses emotional states. This expressionist media language focuses on the artificiality of the music video and shows the influence of postmodernism. Other influences used from postmodernism would include its conventions of intertextuality. The video is rich with explicit intertextual references, for example, the village is the reminiscent of a children’s television animation as the village shows intertextual references of the Trumpton Trilogy (Camberwick Green), which was directed by Chris Howell in the 1960s. Which is also an overt reference to Donald Trump by using that particular program who at the time was making decisions about the US'S immigration policy. The Trumpton trilogy consisted of idyllic picture postcard British towns, likewise in both the music video and Trumpton, the characters all wear the traditional rural dress, such as smocks and folk costumes. The sets are designed to connote stability and tradition: the town squares, white gates, the village fete laid out on tables. The media language emphasises the setting whose mythical connotations of warmth and safety strikingly contradict the paranoia and persecution depicted in the video; As the narrative being an intertextual reference (a pastiche) of the 1973 Britain film The Wicker Man, which, like the video, starts in apparent normality, and then becomes increasingly disturbing to its and ends with his human sacrifice in a burning wicker man.  So the Man burned in a ethology is a clear homage to the wicker man. Which is similar to the music video in the way that, the media language used in Radiohead’s ‘Burn the witch’ reflects connotations and develops themes of persecution which, in both the song and the video is placed within the context of ‘normal’ society. ‘Normality’ is connoted in the music video by the use of stop-motion animation with high-key lighting and bright saturated colours used.

Radiohead’s video deliberately uses positive stereotypes, as did the film The Wicker Man,  to create a false sense of safety and security, then counters these with negative stereotypes. The village is represented positively with a happy tight-knit community, the Mayor and characters are in unity and the mayor has the power, as they do not oppose the mayor. This indicates a potential dictatorship and the willingness to obey, they meet and honour traditional signs of Britishness (painting the red post box, decorating the maypole, playing in the village band) these being touristic stereotypes of village life. The stereotypes are undermined by these mind-altering revelations: the red paint is used to mark a door which is red crosses on wooden doors, which is an intertextual reference from medieval England, as the red crosses were painted on the doors when the plague crossed London in 1665, to identify the plague victims. This was an example of discrimination against the sick (social exclusion is represented). Within the video, this was accompanied by a cheery wave to the person trapped inside. This was a metaphor for modern-day discrimination as this could relate to the context of the video and the cultural references, for example, the blaming of different people and Muslims within Europe's refugee crisis. This also links in with Goodwin's standard themes, in this case, political consciousness. The lyrics could link to people who have spoken out before who now wait for the government or, in this case, to punish them for opposing their views, as everyone listens to the mayor within the video. The mayor representing an insider, and a man of traditional authority. Within this traditional community woman that are in charge - powerful women become the ‘witch’ of the song’s title- instead, they dress in traditional costume and have submissive roles such as being tied to a tree, serving food and dressing with flowers a structure that turns out to be the hanging gallows.  Another revelation was the maypole appears to be a gallows, the band is playing at a fete where the centerpiece is a Wickerman. Negative stereotypes of historic rural Britain are evoked, as a place of plague and xenophobic violence, reflecting left-leaning ideologies such as demands to reduce immigration.

Both the film and the video are implying that social solidarity and conformity are based on horrific scapegoating and blaming of the ‘outsiders’, which was because the band wanted to raise awareness for the refugee crisis, as Europe was in the midst of a refugee crisis,

 they were trying to say that this can happen in the most apparently cosy and safe communities. Hence the use of animation within the music video.

There are also multiple references to witchcraft such as the dunking chair public execution of witches, which metaphor for modern-day differences. This theme was developed in other British ‘folk horror’ films such as Witchfinder General (1968) whose witch hunting is mirrored with the ducking stool found in the video.  Other Witch references are inclusive of casting out spirits when she's tied to the tree, the residents are very active with their beliefs as we see a satanic-like ritual being carried out which contributes to the gloomy atmosphere.

Other intertextual references include the happily waving workers in the greenhouse who appear to be a reference to a news report of the plight of immigrant farm workers. The way they are ordered to wave by the man with the stick it carries connotations of propaganda films such as Nazi films showing ‘happy’ inmates of ‘civilised’ concentration camps. This also has intertextual references from the Wicker Man as Jobe’s crates of tomatoes were used in the film, Jobe is also a biblical character who was punished and tested by God.

The media language used within Radiohead’s Burn the witch constructs representations of group messages and values as incongruity in the media language shows the disparity between the narrative and the mise-en-scene which tries to create a sense of shock to establish a critical distance from the fictional world. Radiohead tries to position the audience as seeing parallels between a fictional world and modern society, invoking left-leaning ideology of concern about the social exclusion and exploitation of minorities and the powerless. The video eschews diversity in representing the dangers of cohesive monoculture held together by xenophobia and social exclusion of others who are seen as a threat, as there are social anxieties about immigration and national identity which the narrative of the video criticises scapegoating that is used to create a sense of identity.