Wednesday, May 20, 2015




In the song Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd, the music video sets and represents the song in an interesting way. Through using imagery and symbolism, the song can be depicted in many ways. The video is set in what seems to be a British middle school. Everything in gray and bleak, no color and no creativity besides the poem presented from a boy in class. When the teacher reads the poem aloud, the poem is not rich in words nor well written in general. But the poem represents that when children spark creativity, the teachers will shut them down to keep that bleak and gray image. It is to keep the children in order, like a brick wall. The video proceeds to show the children lining up in to be transported on a conveyor belt in desks and chairs, wearing distorted and plump faced masks. A mask is typically to hide ones identity, also symbolizing that they are hiding their true inner self. So when the students are transported on conveyor belts into masks, it represents how the teachers are taking away their true intentions by shaming them into what they want them to be. A school is a society that shift shapes it's students into what they want them to be. Of course people can go out of line with this program, and that is what happens throughout the song through the chorus lyrics. 

If you think about it, teachers are the people raising our children. They spend about 6 to 7 hours a day, if not more depending on extra curricular, all into school. The ones that are teaching and influencing our children are those who are teaching. The ring in the song, "We don't need no education" depicts that the children are saying that if education is just going to make them another brick in the wall, and take away their originality, then they would rather be without it. The music video then continues to show that the children with masks are being dropped into a meat grinder, thus turning them into meat. This is symbolism for the teachers just recycling their ideas or program into generations and feeding it to the generation after. That the meat is a symbol of society force feeding us the things that they want in order to control us into forming a brick wall. When the song sings, "If you dont eat yer meat, you cant have any pudding,", meaning if you do not follow our program, eating our "meat", then you will not be rewarded or treated like a human being should. 

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