Textual Analysis

Artist: Eminem

Song: "My Name Is"

Video Director: ?

This video refers to his past life and is a kind of reverse psychology that is trying to preach the message that you don't want to be like him and you don't want to live your life like that. It is an extremely sarcastic video and mocks a number of people including his Mum, Dad and previous school teachers as well as himself in some ways.

The video features many conventions of rap video such as numerous low camera angles that exaggerate his power as a musician and his opinions and what he is trying to convey through his music. As with all of his other videos everything that you can see throughout the music video is relevant in some way and tries to portray how Eminem visualises in his head.

According to Goodwin's Theory;

Demonstrate genre characteristics: There are many close ups of Eminem which are also sometimes taken with a fisheye or wideangle lens to promote an ambience that is almost trying to be a bit 'in your face' which is conventional of rap music video. There are many references to Eminems childhood and the difficulty he faced whilst growing up, for example 'I found out my mom smokes more dope than I do'. As well as his grief at his failed relationships with his mother and father.

Relationship between the lyrics and the visuals: For 80% of this music video the visuals closely relate to the lyrics that are being sung, for example the section where he chases his english teacher with a stapler.

Relationship between the music and the visuals: The way the video is cut is closely related to the beat of the song, a lot of the cuts used to edit this footage together occur on a beat which adds a feeling of flow and ease to the video.

Demand of close-ups from record label (motif): As I mentioned previously there are many wideangle or fisheye close ups of Eminem which a motif of his music videos and style, whether it be eminem actually rapping or one of his characters that he plays in the narrative of the video.

Intertextuality: Eminem uses a number of 'real life' characters in his video which he parodies, these can be anybody from rockstars such as Marilyn Manson to political figures such as senators. He also uses his video within his video as a kind of television show which we can see two people watching. This is more a typical convention of postmodernism than intertextuality (which is still post-modern) and is in a way breaking the 4th wall.