The music video for 'Helena' is highly conventional for MCR's brand of 'emo' rock. The colour scheme is prominently black and red (which is also typical of the band itself, which in keeps with this colour scheme throughout most of their career in music videos). The aerial shot of dancers on the floor is inconsistent and unconventional to the video and genre as it comes across as somewhat light and playful which isn't often attempted by rock bands particularly of this calibre and also opposes the depressing nature of the video itself. The video is set in a church funeral scene, again very conventional to the genre which is often connected to death and depression. In fact, the media has often made examples of such music to be directly linked to suicides of young people - 'The Sun' directly associated the death of a 13 year old girl with My Chemical Romance in an article named "Suicide of Hannah, the Secret emo" with the belief that she was involved in an 'emo suicide' cult. However, despite the band discussing bleaker thoughts and relations to death in their music they claim they cannot be held entirely responsible for fan's behaviour. In fact, frontman Gerard Way rejects the term 'emo' in relation to the band and himself refers to the band's music simply as 'rock'. The reference of 'emo' to MCR is sometimes considered to be an injustice of depiction by the media to make a scapegoat of the band for deaths such as 13 year old Hannah's.
The video carries out a narrative structure and the band's presence is worked into this as if they are performing at the ceremony so the band are a consistent feature throughout - typical of a music video as this is a promotional tool so therefore the viewer needs to know the artist rather than watch the video like they would a short-film. The genre conventions also help to ensure that the video promotes the band as it taps in to the exact target audience of people who would perhaps dress in this way and listen to this sort of music by maintaining the stereotypically 'emo' edge. A lot of close ups are used when showing the band to emphasise their importance as well as the main dancer.
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