Nowadays, an official music release is accompanied by a specially produced music video, usually by the company or publisher of the music. The content of the music video varies according to the style and expression of the song. I am particularly interested in narrative songs and music videos, which are sometimes like microfilms, telling a story concisely, while at the same time sending out some social values and making an appeal.

As the in <Music/video: histories, aesthetics, media>, “Just as cameras brought art and images to the masses in ways that allowed casual viewers a far wider experience of the world, so too does the music video expand the reach of popular music.”（Arnold, Gina, 2017） Music is not only about the art itself, but its corresponding music video also attaches some other meaning to it.

For example, the song ‘Dusty Schoobag’ by the Chinese boy band TNT was written with the concept of fighting against violence in schools in mind. In the music video, seven teenagers represent the seven groups that are most vulnerable to bullying in Chinese education: the teenager with musical dreams, the white, skinny teenager, the hearing-impaired art prodigy, the teenager with a broken family, the good student with good grades, the introverted, silent transfer student, and the good-looking teenager. They are all subjected to the same kind of abuse from their peers. They are all subjected to different forms of violence from their classmates, some throwing their most valued possessions at them, some beating them up, and some standing by indifferently without anyone stopping them. Towards the end of the video, the teenagers plan to pick up a torch in the darkened classroom, the torch signifying that the darkness has passed, and the light has come. The teenagers use the “torches” to light up each other’s hearts and warm each other up. As the fire burns down the school, it is a symbol of bullying in the schoolyard that is being destroyed. At this point, there are other images where another person who looks like the bully appears to stop the bullying when they are being bullied. This is a call to action for everyone to speak up when they see bullying in schools and not to be an ‘accomplice’ on the sidelines.

Ziting Hu

Gina Arnold, Daniel Cookney, Kirsty Fairclough, and Michael Goddard ‘Introduction: The Persistence of the Music Video Form from MTV to Twenty-First-Century Social Media’, Music/Video: Histories Aesthetics, Media, pp.4