I Wanna Get Better By Bleachers: Video Analysis

The music video for “I Wanna Get Better” by Bleachers depicts a man whose girlfriend just broke up with him, which helps him to realize that he does not like who is at this point in his life. He then decides to improve himself and become a better person. While showing his progression, the video also shows the use of multiple different rhetorical terms, including irony, arrangement, and parallelism. These terms are used to tell the story of how the main character came to be in the position where he needed to change and how he realized that it was time for this to happen. The video begins when a couple walks out of a door, with the girl carrying a suitcase among other things, and the boy, Jack, following after her. She tells him that she cannot

The lyrics tell the story of how the main character has dealt with his break up; he went from losing his mind and standing on the overpass, screaming at cars to putting a bullet where he should have put a helmet. That was his turning point, or the moment where he decided that it was time to get better. Arrangement is found in more than just the lyrics, as well. It makes a big impact on the video. This is very evident towards the end; all throughout the video, the patients are telling Jack’s story. This goes on until after the viewer hears about the patients lives; this is the part where Jack takes over telling the story and where he tells about how bad he actually got. Following this is a scene where Jack and his patients all begin singing and playing in a band together. It can be assumed that this is the part where they found other things to take out their anger and get better. This arrangement was a good way to create a feeling of intensity and show pathos. At this point, the viewer feels bad for what the main character has gone through and wants to see him get better, which happens soon after. Another rhetorical device that was made clear in this song is parallelism. Jack repeats many words and beginnings of phrases throughout the entire song. This is shown in the lines, “The love, the love, the love that I gave…”, “I wanna get better, better, better,”, and “I didn’t know I was lonely… I didn’t

Pathos is shown when Jack began to sing in the video, however, it is also shown in the lyrics. He talks about being heartbroken and dealing with it in unhealthy ways, to the point where he tries to kill himself. People will typically get an emotional reaction from this because either they have been in that situation or they cannot imagine being in that situation. The ethos in this song is that Jack is very credible to be telling this story because it is the story of life and there is nobody more qualified to tell it than he is. This video also appeals to logos because Jack understands that he is at a low point and, to most people, the logical thing to do would be to recognize that and fix it. It is not always the easiest or most evident thing to do, but it is the most