The music video,
“Elastic Heart”, made by Sia depicts her struggles of achieving a personal
relationship with someone because of the conflict between herself and her inner
demons. Sia’s personal struggles are then illustrated by Shia Labeouf’s and
Maddie Ziegler’s bizarre choreography dance fight within a gigantic bird cage
in her music video.
Firstly the scene is
set up between Shia Labeouf and Maddie Ziegler at opposite ends of a gigantic
bird cage (0:00), while this does provide a strange sight to see, Sia sets this
up as a way to appeal to our pathos to let us see how Sia feel and to drag in
viewers who want to see what is going to happen in this music video, as
explained by Texas A&M, “The pathetic appeal invokes the
audience’s emotion to gain acceptance and approval for the ideas expressed”. The
first two lyrics in the song that is correlated with this scene are, “And
another one bites the dust”, “Oh why can I not conquer love”. This cluster of
lyrics is inferring that one of Sia’s relationships has died and ending, thus
making her question whether or not that she can ever get a stable relationship
or even trust the thoughts in her head. But despite her confusion and
hesitation within her, she pursues a relationship regardless, letting us know
by singing, “and I wanted it i wanted it bad”, “But there were so many red
flags”, “now another one bites the dust” , “yeah let’s be clear I’ll trust no
one”. These lyrics also appear in the scene in the music video at (0:33),
where it shows Shia Labeouf confronting Maddie Ziegler, trying to intimidate her,
but eventually when Sia sings, “But there were so many red flags”, “now another
one bites the dust”, Maddie harasses Shia with a mocking laugh while Shia
retreats looking like he realized his mistakes.
Furthermore after this
confrontation at (1:00) in the music video Shia finally tries to fight Maddie
in this well-choreographed scene, Shia is then made to look like he is losing
this fight with Maddie as she chases him around and thrashes him around, till Shia
retreats to the top of the cage where he hangs, while Maddie rest at the bottom.
This is a representation of Sia’s confrontation to fight her inner demons and as
well as another appeal to our pathos. Here Sia tries to run away from her inner
demon that causes her to get into toxic relationships, she first tries to run
away like Shia, even trying to escape and get far away from her demons, but she
can’t escape because she’s locked in her own personal cage and she can’t escape,
which is represented by the bird cage locking in Shia and Maddie. During this
scene Sia sings, “I’ve got thick skin and an elastic heart, but your blade it
might be too sharp”, “I’m like a rubber band until you pull too hard, I
may snap and I move fast”, “But you won’t see me fall apart”, “Cos I’ve got an
elastic heart”. In response to this scene once again appeal to our pathos,
letting us know that even though she will get pulled down by her downfalls she’ll
eventually come back in full force, not letting her scars stop her from
fighting.
Eventually Sia has to
face her demons because like Shia at (1:50), hanging from the top of the cage
out of reach of Maddie is physically taxing. So once again Sia tries to face
her demons again, at (2:08) Shia is depicting this through trying to be
friendly to Maddie, offering his hand to show he’s not an enemy to her, despite
his efforts Maddie ruthless bites his finger off. Once again this scene is a representation
that Sia cannot trust her inner demons or even try to coexist with it, so once
again at (2:30) she engages in battle with herself again trying to defeat her
own shortcomings.
Lastly as Sia gets a
hold of her issues they leave her alone in the cage, but unlike the demons Sia
cannot leave this cage that she built around her, meaning that she is reluctant
to let people know about her inner self. This ideal and appeal to our pathos is
represented in the music video at (2:50), Shia is fighting Maddie but before he
can get her hands on her she leaves the cage, leaving Shia stuck in the cage
while she mocks him. Finally Shia and Sia come to the realization that they are
forever trapped with their inner demons and that they cannot run or fight their
demons, so in a literal sense they both must get elastic hearts and just live
with the pain and endure it throughout their life, they can bounce back from
the pain but they have to feel it first. Even though the Maddie at (4:06) try
to get Shia to leave the cage, he cannot because the cage is a metaphor for the
elastic heart, it protects Shia from any other damages but he’ll before be
trapped with his demons, preventing himself and Sia from opening up to other
people.
This music video shows
us the pain that Sia and other people who develop ways of protecting themselves
from other can also be detrimental to them because it prevents people from
getting to let them know them since they have isolated themselves in their own
cage, thinking that they can live and run from their pain rather than break
free and face them.
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