#6 A Simple Kind of Life

No Doubt - A Simple Kind of Life

A Simple Kind of Life was released by the rock band No Doubt in the early 2000's. The video features the lead singer wanting a "simple kind of life." We see through the video that her life is anything but simple. The song starts out with the words, "For a long time I was in love. Not only in love, I was obsessed. With a friendship that no one else could touch. It didn't work out." The lyrics paired with the image of the girl on screen walking away from her former love in a wedding gown depicts that she had wanted to marry this man but as she says it, "didn't work out." She says shortly following, "All I needed was a simple man, so I could be a wife." We understand as viewers that she is looking for a husband, but by dissecting her words, we hear that she doesn't really care who the man is, she just wants to be a wife. This is reinforced by the video clipping to her on a couch with another "love" of hers.
    
She continues to the second verse with this second male. She says, "I'm so ashamed, I've been so mean
I don't know how it got to this point." This indicates that these people are failed relationships. It's interesting to note that not only does she mention these relationships, but more so she focuses the song on herself. She's expressing her own actions within the relationship and trying to figure out how the simple notion of wanting a simple life is harder than it had always seemed.

One of the last verses she is featured with the third love interest. She's sitting on a chair and he's sitting down next to her in front of a drum. He sips some of his drink and then hands it to her to hold while he drums. She looks sad and sings, "I always thought I'd be a mom. Sometimes I wish for a mistake
The longer that I wait the more selfish that I get. You seem like you'd be a good dad." With the last statement she smiles and he gets up and moves to a bigger drum set. This last verse we see that she yearns to be a mom and wants to have a child. The men she's with obviously don't want one. She says that sometimes she wishes for a mistake, meaning a pregnancy.

The next scene in the video goes into her (in a wedding dress) and the three men (all in tuxes) walking underneath a helicopter. She is stumbling in her dress and sings the last verse, "Now all those simple things are simply too complicated for my life. How'd I get so faithful to my freedom? A selfish kind of life. When all I ever wanted was the simple things. A simple kind of life." All she wants is a family and a baby or a "simple life," but as we can see in this verse these things are too complicated for her life. If she focused on loving the men she was with instead of only thinking of herself and her life then maybe she would have that simple life she always dreamt of. She asks, "How did I get so faithful to my freedom?" meaning how did she keep trying to be free and fight for herself if all she wanted was to be surrounded by a family.

At the end of the video the woman finds a baby and looks around to the different "husband" characters as if to chose a father. She runs away and hands the baby to her mother. Then walks away.

Using the music perspective we can see the music sounds displacent and sad for the most part with upbeat parts intermixed. It has a release pattern for most of the song, but fades into a few release patterns for added effect. This effect creates a congruent message where the emotion of the song in lyrics follows it in musical tone.

The song is targeted to both women and men. Young girls are targeted because they want to be and look like the girl first portrayed as in love. Mothers and wives are targeted because that is what the girl wants to be so badly in the video. Single women are targeted as well because that's the way the girl ends up. Men are targeted throughout the video mostly to view the woman in the video. At one point shes topless and covered in glitter contributing greatly to the sex drive and appeal to men. I think the video is also appealing to men because it shows how men are pressured to have kids by their significant others.

Some of the potential messages being communicated to the audience within this video may be, the question of having children, the question of being too selfish in a relationship, the sanctity of marriage or perhaps how to pursue the right mate.  All in all the potentical implication I see within this video is not to marry who you are unsure of being able to achieve a simple life with. By doing so three times the woman is expressing that by wasting her time on the men that were not right for her she acted selfishly and now doesn't have a family.

#5 You Lint Licker!

Orbit Gum Commercial

     This commercial came out a few years ago and I found and still find it hilarious. It quickly became a popular ad for Orbit Gum's Dirty Mouth Campaign. Within the commercial the businessman's wife walks in on him mingling with what appears to be the "cheating assistant" or secretary. The wife confronts the man about the other woman and he tells her to stop overreacting. The woman and the wife get into an argument that soon escalates to a fight. During the whole altercation the three characters are simultaneously chewing Orbit Gum and not using curse words in the situation when one normally would. The tag line and the orbit girl come in, "Fabulous, New Orbit Raspberry Mint cleans another dirty mouth. For a good clean feeling, no matter what." The pun here being that their dirty language and their dirty mouth was being cleaned with the gum.
     While at first galnce this commercial seems to be a funny advertisement for Orbit gum, by analyzing this commercial through the Marxist perspective one can see examples of economic metaphor, preferred reading, and occluded preferred reading uncovering the true purpose for the commercial.
     Economic metaphors are anything that signifies something about the culture's ideas, norms, values or practices. In this commercial, the economic metaphor is that when faced with heartbreak, tragedy, or anger as a society we permit "dirty language" to be allowed. In the commercial the "dirty words" are replaced with silly little sayings or non threatening words. By replacing these words the commercial is poking fun at our societies ability to allow dirty words based on elevated situational happenings. It also shows that as a society we maintain our honor and status by saying horrible things to each other. The person with the worst name to call the other wins in an argument. This commercial is really designed to make us feel ashamed of our dirty mouths and want to replace that shame with Orbit Gum to clean up our language because we see how silly we act through the examples that the actors give.
     A preferred reading is known as something easy to pick up on or "the norm" in a situation. In this commercial the preferred reading is a middle to upper class white wife visiting her husband at work. We know by the actions of the wife throwing the box that she is angry and we assume that it has something to do with the husband and his secretary. These assumptions are what is known as preferred readings. Viewers immediately know something is wrong. The ad displays this reading to show that the we all have problems, and even in the midst of them it's nice to maintain a "clean mouth". While the advertisement shows the characters yelling at each other their actual words are clean and nice sounding. A preferred reading of the actual wording makes the situation seem much less volatile.
     Alongside a preferred reading is an occluded preferred reading. An Occluded reading is something similar to the preferred reading but more subtle. The characters in the commercial also represent an occluded reading because while the characters seem to have nice clothes and good manners we quickly find out that they are lower than what we expected. They soon show us that they don't carry themselves well and that they are going to make a scene. As the situation escalates into a physical fight viewers realize that what they are seeing is really an occluded reading because the characters are not who they first appeared to be. Their language may be cleaned up with their gum, but their body language can't be stifled. Thus, the viewer gets the message that no matter who you are and in whatever situation you can have the power of a clean mouth just like our characters have.
    By looking at the Marxist Perspective and termonology we as viewers can identify that this commercial is not simply about chewing gum, but how our society holds itself in front of others. While our presentation of ourselves and our society may seem on the surface as a clean holistic and valuable one, when looked at in depth may come to be a trashier omitting one, yet, whatever the case may be we all have the power to have clean mouths.

What the french, toast?!