Textual Analysis of music videos

I am analysing Eminem's music video to the song 'stan' featuring Dido, directed by Philip Atwell & Dre. The genre of this music video is rap, the video possesses many characteristics of that genre, for example, a lot - but not all - of the lyrics are mimed, the colours and lighting in the video are very dark and a lot of the locations look like they are in poor areas and look very grimey. This presents rap as a very street born genre.

 According to Andrew Godwin, there is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals either illustrating, amplifying or cotradicting the lyrics. This statement is validified throughout this music video.

Here we can see that during the line "I wrote you but you still ain't callin," the video shows that he is writing a letter to Eminem. As the audience, we know that he is writing to Eminem for many reasons, the fact that he is miming the words as he is writing them down gives the audience a look into what would be a private conversation between two people (in letter form,) but the basis of the rap song is that we are told what Stan is writing in his letters and this shows us his psychopathic tendancies towards Eminem. Also, we know that he is writing a letter to Eminem because one of the most predominant parts of mise en scene in the shot is the envelope on the table that is addressed to Eminem.

 


 Another relation to the lyrics and the video is when the line "I scribble addresses too sloppy when I jot 'em," and during this line, Stan aggressively scribbles on the piece of paper that he is writing on. The aerial shot of him writing shows his resemblance to Eminem which also highlights his obsession to the audience. A lot of the shots during this sequence also illustrate the lyric: "I got a room full of your posters and your pictures man."

One of the most simplistic yet obvious relationships between the lyrics and the video is during the line "My girlfriend's pregnant to, I'm 'bout to be a father," during this line the video cuts to a shot of Dido sitting on a bed with her pregnancy bump obvious. The room around her is dark which focuses all of the audiences attention on her, the shadows above her eyes suggest that she is tired, both physically and metaphorically.

 The second verse of the song mostly focuses on the anger that Stan feels towards Eminem because he hasnt yet responded to any of the countless letters that he has sent him. The anger that Stan is portraying is seen through the aggressive tone that he uses during the line "FUCKED UP you dont answer fans," the emphasis on the 'fucked up' shows the listener that he is angry even though he calms himself before he says it, "I aint mad," here the lyrics actually contradict eachother.

 In this sequence the video illustrates what the lyrics are saying, the line "we waited in the blistering cold for you," is shown in the video by a shot of Stan - only wearing a tshirt - and his little brother literally standing waiting for Eminem to come out whilst its snowing only to be disappointed when a girl lunges at him and causes the guards to take Eminem away. This sequence shows the ignorance of Stan because he doesnt realise that Eminem didnt leave through choice, he was taken away by his security team for his own safety but because Stan is practically a stalker he just sees it as Eminem intentionally 
ignoring him.

 Another of the most obvious ways that the video illustrates the lyrics is when Stan says, "remember when we met in Denver," and the video literally shows Stan and Eminem meeting in Denver.




In this video it is hard to find a close relationship between the music and the video because there arent many distinct beats that the video can cut to. However, in the scene where Stan is in the car recording the cassette for Eminem, the shots cut from a close of of stans face to a shot of the mirror which a picture of Eminem is hanging from, this makes it seem as though he literally feels like he is talking directly to Eminem because he is looking at the picture.


 As well as this, the fact that Stan has a picture of Eminem hanging from his mirror highlights more his obsession with Eminem.


In this video there are very few shots of Eminem in the main part because its meant to be more of a story based video as opposed to a performance based one. However, when Eminem is shown the shots/point in the story show him to be superior and very famous. For example, when Stan and Eminem meet in Denver Eminem looks disapproved when Stan hugs him which makes him out to be disloyal to his fans, also, the part in the video when Eminem is dragged away by his security guards

As an audience we see that Eminem did not voluntarily leave, he was forced to by his security so we see that Stans allegations are unreasonable.

A lot of videos by Eminem are based around a story and are not performance based, his video to 'When I'm Gone' is similar in the way that it tells a sullen story about how Eminem does not want to be a bad father to his children. However, in this video the main character of the video is actually Eminem where as in 'Stan' another person is the main character.

This video has very few sexualised displays, however there are some notions of looking, doors and windows are used throughout the video. The beginnig of the film starts with the camera looking at then going through the window to the house, this suggests that the recipents of the house arent meant to know that they are being filmed which adds to the secrecy of Stan's obsession with Eminem, this idea is later reinforced by the fact that Stan's own girlfriend is shocked by Stan's secret obsession when she finds the room that he has dedicated to pictures of Eminem

Another feature of looking that has been used is when Stan looks in a full length mirror, reflecting back in the mirror is not a reflection of Stan, but an image of Eminem looking back at him. This creates an element of confusion in the audience because it is as though Stan wants to BE Eminem, perhaps he is jealous of his which is why he is so obsessed with him? This is also an example of the music video images contradicting the lyrics because it is being suggested that Stan does want to be Eminem but the lyrics suggest that he wants to be WITH Eminem.


There is one main intertextual reference in this video, the shot of Eminem performing on stage shows the performance side of the stars image, the video makes it obvious that he makes eye contact with Stan which creates a connection with the two characters and the facial expressions show how relevant the eye contact was to each character. Stan's facial expression shows that he feels as though a connection was made between the two because of the eye contact where as Eminem simply saw it as accidental.

This music video is narrative-based. The basis of the video is that it tells a very private story, there are many aspects of the video that are actually very dark and disturbed, this is shown through the potrayal of Stan's basement that he has obviously dedicated to his obsession of Eminem. The video actually puts across a very severe message, it shows the audience the burden that some fans put on celebrities, one the audience sees the end of the video they see the guilt that Eminem must feel.

In conclusion, this video contains many links between the lyrics and the video, this is because it is a narrative-based video and tells a story based around the lyrics. It has few - but not as many as a performance based video - links between the music and video. Eminem isnt featured constantly throughout the video, the main protagonist is Stan.