Teenage Dirtbag Analysis

Teenage Dirt Back Baby Analysis

The first shot of this video is a shot including a young male on the stairs who seems to be sleeping. The type of clothing that he is wearing is giving an indication of when the music video was created and what type of character he is being portrayed as. The location the character is in looks rather dark and dull with the colours of the walls and the tone/shade of the lighting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This music video is a narrative style video, as we have the main band performing in front of an audience, and also includes a dream style image of the young male in the shot with the girl of his dreams. Throughout this video there are some certain shots such as this one showing that this main character is very different from the others within the video. This is shown well through the use of costume and posture of this certain character.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This slow-motion shot of a young female getting out of a rather expensive looking car, helps to show the audience that this is most likely the young female which all guys “dream about”! The lyrics for this specific shot are “Her name is Noel I have a dream about her She rings my bell” also gives indication of her name and how she comes across to the opposite sex. Her costume and the way she acts around the other males helps to show that she is a stereotypical American “Popular” girl.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The band “ Whetus” are based in two different locations within the video, one location when they are singing the main verses are based in the school gym. The camera pans around the band in a circle motion, for the chorus they are dressed rather differently and they are in which looks like a school corridor. To which the main characters within the music video are behind them singing and dancing to the song. This front view shot of the stereotyped geek walking throughout the corridor. Through this shot we can see the characters reaction to other stereotyped characters such as the geeks, jocks and emo’s. The camera starts to pan away from the character which helps to illustrate the characters distress and surroundment.

 

Throughout the majority of the video, the band and narrative are shown separately, however at the end they both come together. This could represent the two teenagers also coming together, which supports the idea of finding each other. There are 3 different sections to the narrative; arriving at school, during the day and finally the prom with a “will she/won’t she” finale. This gives structure to the narrative and flows consistently, the first verse acts as the beginning of the story, the second being the middle and the final verse and chorus is the ending. The audience feels sympathy for Jason Biggs’ character as he is essentially being bullied by the rest of his school. With the music video being set in an American High School (Jackson High) it supports the narrative of a teenage love story. The costumes the cast are wearing make it clear to the audience what purpose they represent.

 

"Teenage Dirtbag" is a song by American alternative rock group Wheatus. It was released in July 2000 as the lead single from their eponymous debut album. It was included on the soundtrack of the movie Loser. The single was massively successful in Australia, spending four weeks at number 1 and becoming the second-highest selling single of the year. It also reached number 2 in the United Kingdom and Germany