RM - Bon Jovi - It's My Life Deconstuction

Band: Bon Jovi
Song: It’s My Life
Genre: Rock
Director: Wayne Isham
Audience: Primary Audience 30-55 but secondary audience 14-25
Year Released: 2000

Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life” music video features narrative as well as performance elements. The video is focused around the two main protagonists whom are called Tommy and Gina. This is anchored by the lyric “For Tommy and Gina, who never back down” as well as the male protagonist's mum calling him “Tommy”. As well as this the video also focuses on Bon Jovi performing “It’s My Life” live in front of a crowd, which has been done in many of their videos “Livin’ On A Prayer” and “You Give Love A Bad Name” being two examples.

Tommy and Gina on the phone to each other before Bon Jovi gig

The opening sequence to this video contains the male protagonist in his bedroom trying to watch a live stream of Bon Jovi’s performance, who gets interrupted by a phone call from the female protagonist asking “where are you?” During this sequence there are lots of close-ups as well as the camera panning. The audience can also hear the introduction of “It’s my Life” during the phone call but stops when Tommy has put down the phone. This is also followed by the pace of the video quickening, as Tommy runs, this is anchored by the song starting “Woah woah”. The camera tracks the protagonist throughout his sequence.

Jon Bon Jovi, from Bon Jovi, lip-syncing

After these sequences the video cuts between Bon Jovi and Tommy. Whilst the focus is on the band Bon Jovi the attention is more on Jon Bon Jovi, the lead vocalist, who is lip-syncing throughout the video. These two aspects of the music video are common conventions. As for when the audience focus on Tommy the video shows the challenges he has to face which feature; being chased by dogs, running a marathon, posing for pictures, rolling under a jack-knifed truck and falling into cars, until he reaches his goal. This video has references with Vladimir Propp’s theory of stories. The video ends where Tommy has completed his challenge to get to the gig just before Bon Jovi finishes the song “It’s My Life”

Gina and Tommy together during Bon Jovi gig