Textual Analysis of Music Videos.

The Music video I’m analysing is “Eminem- without me”. The video’s director is Joseph Kahn, who is famed for directing other videos for controversial artists like Eminem, such as, Lady Gaga and Brittany Spears so directing such a music videos with several forms of intertextual referencing, was not particularly difficult as it is familiar territory for Kahn. The music video, although not a typical and familiar hip-hop video, still retains conventions of a hip-hop video. Eminem, at times, sports baggy tracksuit wear, whilst sporting some jewellery. He also has his “posse” in the video, showing he is affiliated with a crew, which is normal within the hip-hop scene.

The lyrics and visuals,link very well with each other as the video ultimately follows a linear narrative as although there are several times where the video seems to go off topic, we understand that the whole concept of the video is Eminem, as a super hero, is on a mission to save a child from listening tohis album as he is under-age. As the video at times has a comic book template, it can be forgivenwhen he goes off topic. He goes on to criticise several other political and musical figures who have previously criticised him, stressing to them that no matter what they say, he is here to save hip-hop, hence the whole super hero theme, he associates with this video and also answers why the video is called “Without Me”. This pretty much makes the video straight forward with its concept.

The rhythm used for the song,

is rather face paced which has en

couraged the use of fast editing for the video. This also adds to the comic book theme used making everything snappy and quick like most comic book stories, to add an exciting element to the story. At the end of the video, Eminem’s crew, D12, seem to have captured Bin Laden and there is the use of a famous comical fast-paced "Benny Hill" chase in which Bin Laden proceeds to surrender. This also emphasizes superiority which hip-hop artists always retain but toward women in most cases, showing that Eminem in this case mocks the US government, run by George Bush at the time and shows he has a crew greater than the government and outlines their inability to find Bin Laden which most see as a conspiracy theory.

There are several uses of close-ups on Eminem in this video. This enables him to be the focal point of the video to ensure that his message is successfully being spread to the audience. The video portrays Eminem as a rather idiotic character, as he plays several roles within the video and in some cases, results in himself getting hurt in situations. This video is rather typical of Eminem, as he has several videos which also follow this humorous aspect he has used in this video. A video such as “D12- My Band” is about Eminem being the leader of his group and how he gets all the recognition, and the crew end up turning on him, for some publicity and in that video there are several uses of comedy, such as when the bandimitate being a pop boy band and a Spanish mariachi band. “Without Me” ultimately follows the pattern of comedy Eminem uses in several of his videos.

The video has several intertextual references. He addresses his feuds with artists such as Moby, Chris Kirkpatrick and mocks Dick Cheney and his wife, MTV and the FCC. He also addresses his superiority in the hip-hop scene by drawing comparisons to Elvis Presley and his success in a music art form with a big African-American following.

The video follows a linear narrative in the sense that you get from the beginning to the end with an understanding of the story and concept. However, due to the intertextual referencing used throughout the video, it is not straight forward as it seems, which displays aspects of a concept-based video.

Although the video ultimately has a concept and has a clear agenda to appeal to a younger audience through the comic theme used, the video creates several forms of irony as he tries to avoid a young kid from listening to his album. The video is very light-hearted and has a feel good factor with it and is very humorous. However, there are several references to other artists and celebrity figures, which are quite caricature styled to emphasize for comical effect, that have criticised Eminem, thus making it, quite controversial.