IDK
Depicting the “Iconic” and the “Ironic”
INTRODUCTION. The remix video that I chose to look at is found on YouTube and is called “ICONIC/IRONIC aka Marilyn Monroe vs. Lana Del Rey”. The video was uploaded by an account named wreckandsalvage, who has uploaded 174 videos with a total around 2.3 million views collectively. Two videos that this account has uploaded have been featured on the well-known video remix blog Political Remix Video whose intent as a site is listed on their “About” page as this:
This website aims to showcase some of the best, most innovative and inspiring examples of political remix video on the net. As part of our editorial policy we do not post videos created to explicitly support a particular Political Party or political candidate. We also will not post videos containing any form of hate speech, sexism, racism, classism or homophobia.
The particular video that I am looking at was uploaded on July 11, 2012 and as of November 13, 2012, has 180 views. In order to delve into the content of this video and the artist’s intent in creating such a remix, I believe it is very difficult to understand what exactly the artist was trying to say without briefly analyzing the two different videos on which the remix was based on, as well as provide some history as it pertains to this analysis.
CONTENT BACKGROUND.
On May 19, 1962, Marilyn Monroe sang Happy Birthday to President John F. Kennedy at his 45th birthday celebration. The footage has been remembered through all these years for many different reasons, but there are a couple that I wish to focus on now: for one, this performance was one of her last major performances before her death on August 5, 1962, less than three months later; and second, it has been an iconic reminder of the speculation that the two had had an affair. The video and audio from the performance is featured in the video, remixed with a portion of a music video from the present-day music artist.
The second video that the artist pulled from to create their remix comes from Lana Del Rey’s video treatment for one of her songs called “National Anthem”. The video was uploaded onto YouTube by the artist or her representatives and to this date has over 9.75 million views. The opening minute and a half of the video is her interpretation of, with not much of an attempt to disguise it, the original footage of Marilyn’s iconic performance. Del Rey has recorded her own version of the song and altered the audio to make it sound older to match the sound quality of the Marilyn video. The video itself also appears to be old footage from the same era as the original Marilyn performance.
CONTENT ANALYSIS. Ironic is defined by the artist of this video as: “happening in the opposite way to what is expected, and typically causing wry amusement because of this”. With regards to Del Rey’s video, the artist assumes that she is trying to make a tribute to Monroe by remaking her performance; however, the rest of the video contains visuals that detract from the artist’s initial idea that she is attempting to honor her and makes them wonder if she is intending to do the exact opposite, or if she just messed it up. The aspect-to-aspect visuals (McCloud, 72) of Lana Del Rey’s video are of Del Rey and a modern day rap artist named A$AP Rocky acting as President Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy. These two different artists featured in the video don’t seem to have any real relationship to each other or the situation but are merely acting the part in an attempt to tell the story of the music. Considering the supposed relationship of Marilyn and President Kennedy, Lana dressing up as the President’s wife seems to contradict the notion that the start of the video was meant as a tribute to any of the three main people depicted in the video (being Marilyn, Jacqueline, and President Kennedy), hence the artist’s use of the word ‘ironic’ in the title of the video. The artist seems to be claiming that if she meant to honor Monroe, she wouldn’t call attention to the fact that she was not his wife and for that matter a legitimate love interest (if they in fact were having an affair), and we could just watch her interpretation of the performance as a piece in itself.
Lana Del Rey & A$AP Rocky in Del Rey’s video “National Anthem” acting as John F. & Jacqueline Kennedy
The Marilyn Monroe clip on the other hand is a very iconic piece, as evidenced from the fact that Lana Del Rey chose to cover it and didn’t feel the need to look like Marilyn Monroe and still have confidence that the viewer would understand the reference. Though the images are very realistic in themselves according to McCloud’s triangle (McCloud, 51), the video acts iconic in that it not only tells the story of her minute-and-a-half performance, but have through time represented something much bigger, both in time and magnitude, than what was going on in that instant. Given the time frame, it alludes to three major things: the assassination of one of the more beloved presidents in this country’s history, the untimely death of questionably the most famous woman in the world at the time, and a possible forbidden link between these two people. The comparison of the two, along with the editing, creates an interesting relationship between the two videos and sets up an even more interesting remix.
VIDEO ANALYSIS. The video itself is put together in a very simple way. With both videos using moment-to-moment scene transitions (McCloud 71), a black and white color palette, and similar sounding audio, the style in which the artist combined the two videos was somewhat informed by the material that the artist had to originally work. The artist simply superimposed one video on top of another and used audio from both clips to create an interesting mix. The Lana Del Rey footage is shot using the same moment-to-moment transitions and similar, but clearly different camera angles than the Marilyn footage. This allows the artist the opportunity of many different options for combining the two videos. The approach that they went with is an interesting one.
Video stills of the remixed video to show the different videos in their altered form.
With both videos being shot in black and white, it already accounts for a consistent style that can be easily merged. The colors on the Lana Del Rey footage were simply inverted, something that is easily done in Photoshop or iMovie, so the dark colors appear light and the light appear dark. With the Marilyn Monroe visuals not being altered much in regards to its colors, the artist chose to flash one video after another creating a somewhat creepy or ominous effect with the two women singing side by side.
The audio in the remix ends up sounding solely like the Marilyn Monroe clip but I believe it is created from the two different audio components spliced together just like the visuals are. This could be looked at as a testament to Lana Del Rey’s ability to impersonate Marilyn Monroe but what gives it away is the clear change in background noise that happens at the same pace that the remix video switches from one clip to another. In the original Monroe video, the background noise is quite a loud part of the audio but in Del Rey’s interpretation, it is much less prevalent. The combination of the two audio clips doesn’t do much more than stay out of the way after its initial appearance. The audio becomes a link that provides the viewer with the initial background information needed to understand what is going on with the visuals and then seemingly fades away as your attention becomes fully occupied by the changing images. Let’s look deeper into the relationship between the words and pictures.
I couldn’t really talk about this remix using terms from Scott McCloud’s book Understanding Comics without talking about the word/picture relationships of the two videos and the remix they created. By themselves, both videos create an additive relationship between the spoken words and video (McCloud, 154). Although, I would argue that the words are much more important, at least initially, in the Lana Del Rey clip to tell the intended story. In the way that she presented herself, the connection to the Marilyn Monroe clip is much less obvious until you hear her start to sing the exact same song and way that Marilyn did, then the connection is obvious. In the initial Monroe video, the spoken words help tell the story of the situation but you would still be able to tell that she was on stage performing something if there were no sound at all. It is interesting that even when the sounds are almost and identical, as well as the video, that the relationship between words and pictures can carry a different weight in importance.
With the remixed video, I would argue that the word/picture relationship is interdependent (McCloud 155). While the words are used to reinforce the similarity between the two clips, the black and white colors, both inverted and normal, are an abstract way of getting the artist’s point across that these couldn’t be any different in their portrayal of the subject: iconic vs. ironic. Not only does the artist use the difference in color, he takes it one step further and lays them on top of each other, switching back and forth between the two to add dynamics to the video, as opposed to playing them side-by-side simultaneously. Even though the images may become way more distracting, the fluidity of the audio splicing is consistently there to remind you that these are supposed to be depicting the same event in a very similar way, and for that reason, the audio is just as important as the pictures.
FAIR USE. The way in which the artist remixed the video: by using a long clip from two different videos, especially the Lana Del Rey video, which was most likely paid for by her or her record label and intended to promote her music, raised questions in my mind about fair use. The intent of a video like this is to take an initial piece or work and draw attention to an element of it that possibly got overlooked when viewing the original. In my eyes, the remixed video doesn’t necessarily shed a positive light on Lana Del Rey’s original and therefore might offend the artist and ask that the remixer take it down. With such a long clip being used from it, I would think they might have grounds to make the artist do so.
Conclusion. The success in this video’s ability to prove the artist’s point came from the way in which the original material was mixed together. It superbly illustrated a difference by calling attention to the supposed similarities between the two original clips. It was a great example, as many remixes are, of looking at the parameters of what is already created and not viewing them as limitations but rather as opportunities for new creation and innovation.
SOURCES.
Del Rey, L. LANA DEL REY – ‘”NATIONAL ANTHEM” (OFFICIAL VIDEO). 2012. Nov 4, 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60cvtxwlJr8
Marilyn Monroe sings Happy Birthday to JFK. 2006. Nov 4, 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3IzpazVl-I
McCloud, S. (1993). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. (2nd ed.).
Wreck & Salvage, prod. ICONIC / IRONIC aka Marilyn Monroe vs. Lana Del Rey. 2012. Nov 4, 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?
feature=player_embedded&v=-nUTB9_THsc#!