Analysis: Music Video: Eminem - Stan

 The music video for Eminem’s ‘Stan’ was directed by Phil Atwell and Dr Dre in California in 2000. The video is primarily a visualisation of the story Eminem attempts to portray in his song about an obsessed fan that continues to write letters to him but doesn’t receive replies and therefore eventually kills himself and his pregnant girlfriend.

Eminem’s video ‘Stan’ doesn’t conform to stereotypical music videos from the hip-hop/rap genre, as typically they feature lots of voyeuristic shots of ‘sexy’ women and are solely focused on emphasising the artist to be as ‘cool’ as possible. This is done with the use of big houses, expensive luxurious cars and lots of shiny jewellery. However Eminem’s video is solely a narrative piece with a sleight sprinkle of performance from Canadian actor Devon Sawa. Moreover the duration of normal rap/hip-hop videos tends to be approximately 3 or 4 minutes, but this video lasts for 6 minutes and 3 seconds which further emphasises how original it is in comparison with typical videos from this genre.

Throughout the music video there is a strong repetition of the colour red, typically the colour red foreshadows danger or can portray love/lust. In this instance I believe it is used to show both of these, firstly the repetition of red on the stage, lights and posters portrays Stan’s love for his hero but also portrays the forthcoming danger and violence that is approaching him.

Furthermore when Eminem leaves through a back door of a building to be greeted by a crowd and Stan, most of the crowd are wearing dark or black clothes, whilst Stan on the other hand is wearing a plain white shirt, this connotes that Stan believes he is innocent but he is unaware that his obsession is slowly dragging him towards darkness and doom

The low angled close ups of Stan as he writes his letter to Eminem shows his emotion and how he appears in control of the situation as the low angled shot gives him a strong representation but the camera movement suggests otherwise. The camera movement suggests that Stan is no longer in control of his actions and his obsession is literally making him insane.

With reference to the photograph of Stan and his girlfriend, played by British singer Dido, Stan places a cut out picture of Eminem over his girlfriend this portrays Stan’s priorities as he puts Eminem before his own girlfriend, however the crack along the centre of the photograph could suggest that there is a crack in their relationship due to their lack of communication and how it’s practically a one way relationship between the two of them.

In conclusion, Eminem’s video Stan is far from being stereotypical of the hip-hop/rap culture, due to its full focus on the narrative of the songs story, the video has been given many awards and has been voted as one of the best videos of all time by many different community sites.

Josh Bradley