A Sober Analysis

Writer, director, actor, comedian, singer, songwriter, and DJ; Donald Glover (A.K.A Childish Gambino) is clearly a one size fits all kind of person. Over the course of his career, he has been nominated for 131 awards and won 41 of them, making him a jack of all trades, but definitely not a master of none.

In 2014, Glover released "STN MTN/Kauai" on October 2nd and 3rd having released "Sober" as a single a month before on September 14th. On January 10th, 2015, a music video for "Sober" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx96Twg-Aew) was released which follows the story of an intoxicated Glover dancing in a take-out diner trying to impress a woman waiting for her food.

The narrative is a linear one as it follows a series of events in the same way we would perceive them, each happening in a chronological order. While this technique is used heavily, many narratives have non-linear portions such as flashbacks or parallels between past and current events such as the music video for "Four Out Of Five" by the Arctic Monkeys (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71Es-8FfATo). These may not change the overall narrative style but "Sober" is completely linear, the story laying itself out in an an easy-to-digest and relatable fashion.

As a story, "Sober" is a realistic one as it mostly follows Glover's advances on this woman having surreal moments such as when Glover is dancing on a table and all the lights flicker to the beat and his movements. These moments are obviously not a reality but may be Glover's interpretation of the events happening around him.

The video as a whole has many parallels to Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzZ_urpj4As) with its story and some Glover's movements, but one of the major differences is the ending. At the end of the song, Jackson and the love interest are together and embrace each other while the ending of "Sober" has the girl leaving with her food. Glover then walks over to the same exact seat he started in, and slumps back down. This ending is both closed and open, as we know for a fact that these two characters will probably never see each other again, closing their story off, but we have no idea what happens to Glover's character after their brief interaction leaving his open.

While following basic narrative patterns found in any story driven medium, "Sober" does it in a very loose manner. While the characters are on a "journey" together, it is a very basic and day-to-day situation which has been spiced up with the afore mentioned surreal moments. There is also a goal for both characters, Glover's being to sing and dance to impress this love interest, and her goal to simply get her food.

As a music video, the narrative is quite a subjective one as it starts off without any music and has ambient sounds coming from the street outside. This continues throughout the video and takes prominence again when the music is lowered as the perspective of the video becomes subjective to the camera, giving us the sound perspective of someone looking in from outside the diner. We also hear the music like it's being played over speakers from inside the diner, as there's no clarity to it. The video also has a lot of foley as we hear the effects of the characters movements and actions as they sit down and move around, putting us more into the scene. At the end of the video, the music fades out and the ambience and foley take over once again, brining the perspective back to Glover as he sits back down.

Overall, the video portrays a surreal reality of the age-old story boy meets girl, but with a twist. Things are going great but just before the perfect ending everyone dreams of having, reality kicks in and forces the audience to sit back down just where they started, exactly like Glover. The video relates to the idea of an escape from a mundane life and gives the viewer just that, only to take it all away at the end.