FAT LES - VINDALOO

Introduction

Fat Les is a British band consisting of Blur bassist Alex James, actor Keith Allen, and artist Damien Hurst. The genre of this song is nationalistic euro pop. The song Vindaloo was released in 1998 for the World Cup in France. The video entails how multicultural individuals come together because of one interest they are truly passionate about.

To what extent is this a narrative

The story is of how one displaced man is singled out from the crowd and is taunted for not joining them but in the end results in him deciding to join the group and cheer with them after being engulfed within the big mass of England supporters. The narrative is linear; a continuingly flowing story which utilizes the proairetic code to drive narrative through anticipation of the storys ending. Because of the proairetic code used, the ending to the story has to be found out by the viewer therefore persuades them into wanting to find out what happens to the main subject, the protagonist.
Shown here is where the outsider is taunted due to him not being like the other people, who are singing and supporting England. This is the moment when the protagonist finally rejoices with the patriotic English supporters.

Genre conventions

Vindaloo meets the nationalistic euro-pop genre characteristics due to its use of various quirky costumes, the patriotic sensation which is exemplified through the lyrics, and the typically used medium shots that have been emplaced which allows the scenery to be of recognisability and connote what themes the video is trying to embody .

Examples of quirky costumes worn by the supporters.

Lyrics and visuals

Everybody is marching and singing to the rhythm. When the non-diegetic kick it is heard, a midclose up shot is used to show the protagonists feet are kicking rubbish which has probably been thrown in his way due to his ignorant attitude towards the crowd and their devotion to the England team, but also I think this was featured to connote the football theme of the video. Bonjour monsieur is related with the character in the video who is dressed as a stereotypical Frenchman.

Sound and visual

An example of how sound and visuals has been linked is when drums can be heard playing whilst one of the characters, who is dressed up as one of the queens guards, is drumming in sync to the music. This complies with Goodwins theory just like almost every other music video. This is another example of patriotism and shows what type of audience this song is trying to attract, which is people who are supportive of football and more specifically, England.

Interpreting, raiding, constructing

Fat Less Vindaloo is a parody of The Verve Bitter Sweet Symphony. They have taken and transformed this music video into not only a football anthem, but also a comedic one too by featuring scenes of the protagonist being taunted in multiple ways such as the car reversing when he jumps onto it which caused him to fall over. At this very moment the lyric nah nah is shown being said by a child who is pointing at the protagonist as though he is shouting ha ha because the man is an outsider and isnt respected because he is not part of the community/group.

(Bitter Sweet Symphony Left Vindaloo- Right As you can clearly tell, both starting scenes are on the same street, the saturation levels are blue and both characters are wearing the same style clothes.

How is Britishness signified

. Multicultural people such as white sumos are meant to represent the stereotypical Asian sporting event. Also, people are seen wearing different costumes such as a nurse, maid and a stereotypical Frenchman costume, which consists of a stripy shirt and beret. All these costumes represent Britain as a multicultural diverse country which welcomes all kinds of nationalities, which is a positive representation of Britain. The stereotypical nature of British people is to find that people from other countries are humorous due to them being different and this is shown through the way the Frenchman has onions around his neck, which is a stereotypical food which French people eat.

Lad Culture

Lad Culture is a subculture which arose in the early 1990s as a generally middle-class figure. Lads are associated with the music genre Britpop which has a stylistic feel of Alternative rock. The Firm is a prime example of what sort of costumes football hooligans would wear, for example the full body tracksuit. A brand which would of been worn in the 1990s by football hooligans is Fila. The sort of magazines which these football lovers would read are FHM, Maxim and Loaded because they are mainly focused at heterosexual adult males in the United Kingdom.