RS - Deconstruction - Sum 41 - In Too Deep

Artist: Sum 41

Song Title: In Too Deep

Year: 2001

Director: Marc Klasfield

Genre: Punk Rock

Audience: 15-24

Here is the performance side of the video

Sum 41's "In Too Deep" music video has performance aspects (see image to right) in it mixed with a comedic narrative (which I will explain later). The video is a parody of the diving competition which is in the film Back to School. The band face very stereotypical highschool "jocks" whom are very muscular and wearing tight speedos. The teams go head to head performing the best dives off a huge diving board competing for the best score.

Stereotypical high school "jocks" (muscular in tight speedos)

Because of it being a parody the band members all dive in some sort of comedic effect whilst their oppositions do almost perfect dives. That is the main story/narrative of the music video however the narrative footage cross cuts to the performance side of the music video in which the band lip-sync and play their instruments infront of a crowd.

Binary opposites of the stereotyped "jocks"

The final dive is by the drummer Steve Jocz whom does a ridiculous yet entertaining dive to finish off the video and get a perfect score so their team beat the "jocks".

Intertextual reference to Slash in "Estranged"

When Dave Baksh plays the guitar solo in this song, it is a clear intertextual reference to the Gun's N Roses classic music video Estranged in which Slash does the same and rises out of the water playing a guitar solo. If the audience has not seen the "GnR" music video they will not pick up the preffered reading (Stuart Halls theory) for the reference.

Iron Maiden T-shirt

The audience for the music video is 15-24 because of the fairly childish humour within the music video with the over the top dives etc. The fact that there is an audience within the music video (seen in the image to the right) shows clear evidence of what the audience is. For an audience of 15-24 you would expect there to be very fast takes however quite alot of the shots are on screen for a few seconds especially when people are diving, this challenges the codes and conventions for a music video within that audience range.

Male Gaze aspect

There are both male and female gaze aspects within this music video to make sure it appeals to both male and female so that the audience is larger. The male gaze aspect can be seen to the image on the left whilst the female gaze is used with the muscular, tanned jocks on the diving team to appeal to the female audience.