"Stan" Eminem - Music Video Analysis

"Stan" is a narrative music video. However, there are some beats where we see people singing. The narrative is organized in 3 acts as any short film. The part of the video before the song starts and the 1-st chorus is exposition. We learn essential things about characters and their relationship between each other. For instance, we see that a girl is pregnant and her boyfriend Stanley treats her very cruelly because of his obsession with Slim Shady (or Eminem). First letter to Eminem is an inciting incident, where the conflict is established. This is still a normal "fan" behaviour, but we recognize that Eminem hasn't been responding for some time already. That is ACT I. Then we see progressive complications of characters: Stan becomes a little mad because Eminem doesn't respond. And as a consequence the life of his girlfriend becomes even worse. Progressive complication soon come to crisis when mad Stanley drives a car towards the bridge with his girlfriend in a trunk. And the video reaches its climax when the car goes off the bridge. This is ACT II. The ACT III is the answer of Eminem to Stan and realisation what he did. This is the resolution of the story.

In this music video Eminem the singer plays a protagonist who tries to teach Stan ethics and morality, even though it's too late. This is a subjective character identity since there are three points of view in the video: Stan's, his girlfriend's and Eminems's. "Stan" shows how obsessed a fan can be and what it can do to his relationships. Eminem is also represented as a huge star, otherwise, nobody would be so obsessed with him. It also develops two paradoxes proposed by Richard Dyer: the star should simultaneously be ordinary/present and extraordinary/absent. Presence and absence is depicted with autograph session and inability to see Eminem all the time (Stan writes letters). And the concert shows that Eminem is extraordinary, and the moment when he reads and writes letters show that he is quite ordinary. Moreover, he wears glasses which is meant to show that he is intellectual. This bit with letters is supposed to demonstrate the separation between the Star persona and the "real" who is depicted as compassionate, caring and thoughtful. Dido's track and appearance as Stan's girlfreind add a sympathetic angle to her situation, which is an extra reinforces for us to take her and Eminem's side, alienating the audience from Stan.

Symbolism also plays a significant part here. For instance, water is an inner symbol of the story. We can see and hear rain in the very beginning of the video. Thunder also plays the role and it is present throughout the whole video. Creators use low key (expressive) lighting to emphasize the mood of the characters. There is a bird's eye view shot in the beginnig when Stanley's girlfriend needs to use the bathroom. We can clearly see the separation between the charactes, which is accentuated by the lighting. The basement where Stan writes his letters is quite dim and creates an impression of madness. Posters of Eminem on the walls help this impression a lot. There are many flashes in the shots because of the lightning which also implies some instability. The editing is very fast paced, which also indicates emotional instability of Stan. When Eminem writes his letters there are now flashes, it is quite bright and calm, which means that he is emotionally stable. So we can see that Stan is presented as a villain here, whereas two others are presented as protagonists. That's how the video put forward the idea that an obsession with a star can have very tragic consequences. 

The relationships between lyrics and music and visuals is illustrative, which means that images provide literal representation of the lyrics. There is almost no lip synching in the video, only some bits. This may be because creators wanted to concentrate on the idea rather than on the singer who, despite that, is still accentuated. So we see Eminem as a thoughtful man, who cares about all of his fans. But at the same time he somewhat plays the role of teachers, who tries to say that obsession with anything is dangerous.

Star Image in the Album Covers

A-ha is a Norwegian pop-rock band. This is a cover of one of their last album. The picture is very bright and colourful. However, the use of red, white and black establishes a certain mood. The lead singer as well as the guitarist looks at the audience from the picture, but we don't see eyes of the guitarist. The man who plays the piano looks somewhere else which gives him quite a thoughtful look. So the only one who directly looks at us is the lead singer, which implies that he is the most well-known member of the band and he is most open to the audience. Other members seem somewhat mysterious. However, all of them look very cool, which clearly states that this is a pop band.

Colours of the cover show that their music is quite bright and an illustration shows that it is quite sophisticated and maybe even unusual, but not too unusual. You can clearly see the name of the band and the name of the album, however, they are quite unusually positioned. Still, the name of the band is much bigger which probably implies that we should know this band and the album is name is not so important, because they all are good. But another reason for this may be a special design and special colours that are immediately recognizable, so it is not the name, but the picture that audience knows.

"Kings of Convenience" is also a Norwegian band. It is an indie rock band who songs incredibly pleasant and enjoyable songs. And that's what the cover of this album suggests. Members of the band don't look at us, so this is more about their music than themselves. The colours are beautiful, but calm. And the fact that they sit under the palm on the beach with no people there apart from them adds more pacification to the overall image of the group.

One of the members of the band is playing the guitar, so we assume that this is a dominant sound of the band. The second member of the band looks on a sunset, which gives him a thoughtful look. There is not much we can see in the picture, which gives us a subtle feeling of isolation. And this actually demonstrates somewhat profoundness of their songs and their lyrics.

The name of the band is very clear, but the font is quite small and doesn't occupy much of the picture. The name of the album is even smaller and it looks as it was written by hand, which adds some sincerity to the image of the band.