Tak 3

1. Farben Nikon Ahamed
Unit 1, 16, 29
Task 3
Eminem - Stan
http://www.vevo.com/watch/eminem/Stan-(Short-
Version)/USIV20000130
Genre & Style
This song is a hip-hop/Rap song that is unconventional as it is very different
from nowadays music videos. Firstly, by looking at this video we can notice
that there is no use of the Male gaze theory as girls are not used to emphasise
sex and to attract males, in fact the only female character in this music video is
the wife of the protagonist

2. Who doesn’t wear shorts or something that appeals to sex and in addition to
that she is pregnant which means that she is not a virgin. A part from the wife
of the main character there are other female characters, but they just appear
for a couple of frames towards the end of the music video and even they do
not show any sexual content.
The reasons why the producers didn’t want to use females to attract males is
related to the message they wanted to tell us and the audience the music
video is aimed at, in fact it is aimed at teenagers mainly and because of that
the use of the Male Gaze Theory wasn’t appropriate as it could have distracted
the audience from the actual message of the music video. The message the
producers and the artists tried to give us needed a sad mood and that’s why
this music video looks so sad and dark.

3. Other than the absence of the use of the Male Gaze Theory, the colours, the
location and the lightning of the music video are quite dark and dull, only few
are the situations in which there is some lively colours embedded.
For example, here, when the protagonist went to an Eminem’ s concert looked
happy and it wasn’t all black and dull, the dresses and the faces of the other
people were quite happy and although it looks like all happy, the son of the
protagonist has a sad face almost emphasising that he got forced to go to this
concert which shows again the problems the main character is causing to his
family.
Symbols

4. Since the beginning of the music video we can notice that Stan is wearing
white clothes which usually means purity and innocence, but in this case it
means lunacy and madness as he looks obsessed by Eminem to the point
where he cares more about his idol than his family.
The colours of the dresses are really important as they symbolise how a
character is feeling; in fact, the wife of Stan is wearing blue clothes which tell
us that she is loyal towards her husband as she has always been supporting
him.
In this music video there is no “dance choreography” because of the same
reason of the absence of the use of the Male Gaze theory; this video has a
specific message to send to the viewers and a dancing scene will not help as it
can distract the audience from the main message it’s trying to send, dancing is
also for a video with a happy mood and this music video, instead, shows and
makes us feel the opposite.
The usage of the lip sync is not that frequent, but there are some scenes where
this technique has been used and they used it when Stan is driving towards the
end and at the very beginning, when his wife is on the toilet.

5. Lip synching is used to make it appear as though actors have substantial
musical ability, they want to simulate a vocal effect that can be achieved only
in the recording studio. Lip synching is also used because it creates a particular
feeling when you watch a music video as it almost looks like the artist is singing
really well even in rough situations and often times lip synching makes a music
video more professional and complete.
Settings
In terms of settings it’ s quite old and everything looks like it is low quality
which can be related to a lower class family, the house is made of wood and it
looks like it’ s not cleaned and hygienic which shows us how poor of a family it
is.

6. Even the outside weather is emphasising how sad this video is as it is heavily
raining and it also tells us how pathetic this situation is as the main character is
obsessed by Eminem.
The weather changes
only once and it
happens when Stan
finishes the concert
and is about to see
Eminem from a
closer distance and in this case it’s snowing which is not a good weather still.
Song’ s
message
As we notice
from the usage
of colours and
dresses in this
video, we can
probably tell that Eminem tried to give us a strong message that is aimed
mostly at teenagers as his fan is based on young people.
The main character of this video is a guy who looks obsessed by Eminem and
he does all sorts of things for his idol, from writing letters constantly to
participating to his concerts to even having an entire room dedicated to
Eminem with pictures on the wall.

7. What the producers tried to show us is how a life of a fan could be ruined if too
much attention is given to a singer and no attention to the family which is way
more important than just someone who makes music. The purpose of this
music video is to tell the audience how dangerous it could be if the family is
being ignored and this message also reaches the siblings of fans as often times
they see their big brothers listening to his music and then they get interested
too; Eminem’s songs contain a lot of swear words and language that children
should’ t learn and say.
Other artists
There is another artist that has been featured in this music video and is Dido,
she is an English singer and songwriter and she had international success in the
1999 with an album called “No Angel” which sold over 21 million copies
worldwide, she also won several awards and she touched the top UK charts
many times throughout her history.
Having Dido featured in this song is
unconventional, but they used her
voice to express better the feelings
and emotions this song should give
out to the audience
Narration
The storyline follows a chronological order, it’s the most common way to tell a
story, but at the same time it’s common because by having a storyline where
the events just move forward in time makes the audience understand better
the message which in this case is a really important message that people
should be able to pick up.
There are some flashbacks that refer to the past of the main character and the
story is still linear
although there are
some flashbacks.

8. The video attracts its target audience because the way the producers tried to
represent reality was catchy for the viewers as it was well represented, in fact
the location, props, characters perfectly represent a low class family which is
what most of the audience is part of and because they reproduced well what
the audience is, they got attracted as the media consumers almost feel like
they are part of the music video.
Camera angles
Camera angles are used in effective ways to emphasise emotions, feelings and
even specific situations or details.
For example, we can notice
that at the very beginning
Eminem doesn’t appear and
you can see him only through
posters and short snippets
which makes the audience
curious and subconsciously
aware of the fact that Eminem
is the star image of the video.
These two shots specifically
represent how much Stan is
trying to imitate his idol as he
is wearing the same clothes
and has the same haircut (and same colour).
This is instead a
stabling shot that
appears at the very
beginning and in
the first frames we
have a black fade
transition shot to a
low key lightning
set alongside with diegetic noises of thunder, lightning and rain to reflect the
mood of the song through pathetic fallacy.

9. After showing Stan on
the toilet, his wife
appears and at first it’ s
all dark and you can’ t
really see her properly,
but as she gets closer to
the source of light the
camera moves upwards
showing a mid-long shot to emphasise her face and stomach as she is pregnant
and worried about her husband.
Afterwards, the low key lighting is continued and there is an over the shoulder
shot and a
mirror where
you can
see Stan’s
face, at this
exact frame
you can
notice the
use of the
white colour, his facial expression (that looks almost as an evil smile) and the
use of the lighting to emphasise the mental state of his mind; after this small
scene he opens the door for Dido who looks quite worried due to the mental
sanity of Stan. The singing starts after he slams the door leaving his wife in the
bathroom and you can still hear the rain as a background to show the theme of
the music video.

10. Katy Perry – Last Friday Night
http://www.vevo.com/watch/katy-perry/Last-Friday-Night-
(T-G-I-F-)/USCA31100045
Genre and style
The genre of this music video is Pop and there are many things that can tell us
why this song is pop, firstly we can see that there are a lot of bright colours
that make this video colourful, they also used the Male Gaze Theory which
should attract the male audience and there are a lot of young people as the
producers wanted to create a good representation of what a party for
teenagers should look like and all these things have been used also to attract
the audience they aimed at.

11. The song is quite fast; in fact, the video has a lots of cuts to the beat and it
looks like the
video is like a
mini-film.
About dresses
we can notice
that at the
beginning of
the video the
main
character was
dressed up like an unpopular girl that no one cared about.
Then, when
the party
started she
changed
everything
by wearing
proper
dresses and
by fixing her
hair (she was
wearing a short skirt and a pink shirt to show feminism). She even took out the
outside part of the braces to look better and more attractive.

12. For her the change of clothes was noticeable since she was walking downstairs
as she was
walking in an
awkward way
as she wasn’t
comfortable
with the kind of
shoes she was
wearing due to
the fact that
she usually
wears other type of dresses.
This guy is wearing sport clothes to
show that he is a sportive person
that people should look up to, it also
shows how famous he is and as soon
as the main character changes her
look he immediately notices her and
when he sees her, he spits what he
was drinking which is often times a
stereotypical thing that appears in
films and cartoons that emphasises
the emotion of being amazed or surprised of something which in this case is
the change brought by the main character.
The spit goes on to the face of the
unpopular guy who looks like it’s
having a bad day as he gets bullied
and ignored by the other people.
The glasses, the braces, the haircut, the
dresses and the way he looks show us
that he is probably going to be the

13. unlucky guy who is going to try to flirt with the main character without much
success as he likes her.
In fact, afterwards the unpopular guy dreams a situation in which he saves the
protagonist from the
other guy and he likes
her probably because
he saw for the first time
someone else like him.
Lip Synchyng
Lip synchyng has been used here too and it has been used to show how good
the artist is in singing, it has been used for the same reason of Eminem’ s song
“Stan”; they want to make people feel like the artist is actually singing and lip
synching makes
it more
professional.

14. Dance choreography
Katy Perry – Last Friday night has many dancing scene including some shots
where people were playing Just Dance and this suits the genre of this music
(Pop), so we should expect dancing scene in this genre as it tells us there’s a
happy and
enjoyable
mood and
seen as it
makes us feel
happier it
attracts and
involves the
audience
more.
Message
The message of this music video is related to females specifically, from just the
story of this we can notice that the main character had to change herself to get
noticed by the guy she liked; men don’t usually accept women as they don’t
make the effort to do so, it’s always up to girls to change themselves if they
want to get noticed.
There’s also another message at the end of the music video, specifically when
the parents of the main character spoke to her; they were comprehensive and
let her go even though the house was a mess so that shows that parents
should understand more their children and give more room to play with.

15. Links to other artists
This song is related to “this Friday” made by Rebecca Black who is featured in
this song, we can notice her name when people were playing just dance as her
name had the
most points (to
emphasise her
importance).
The name “Rebecca” also can be heard at the end, by the protagonist when
she speaks to her parents as she blames on her for the mess in the house
which shows us the connection between this song and Rebecca’s song as this
music video has been inspired by “Friday – Rebecca Black”.
A part from Rebecca,
the producers also
used other 90s
artists: Corey
Feldman and Debbie
Gibson who act as
parents of the
protagonist and they
have been featured
in this video because
the theme of this music video refers to the 90s and back in the days they were
two famous actors.

16. Storyline
The storyline of this music video doesn’t follow a chronological order as at the
beginning we can notice that the house looked like it just hosted a party, in
fact even the singer looks confused as the lyrics tells us about what she sees.
After a while, when the
song starts going faster,
it actually goes back in
time to explain why the
house was a mess, the
producers did that to
create suspense at the
beginning so that
viewers would keep on
watching the video to know more about why that happened.
This is the actual first
shot where we can see
people having fun and
enjoying their time at
the protagonist’ s
house. Before this shot
the main character
actually opened the
computer to see what
happened on the last day as she was confused and the producers then used
the same technique to go back to the house after the party to show what is
going to happen after she realises what she did.
This is the shot where
we go back to the
present as she now
knows what
happened on the day
before and from this
scene onwards the
events are in
chronological order as
her parents come in to ask her what she did.

17. Iconography
The video attracts the audience really well as this song had a lot of success, the
producers recreated reality on the way they wanted to and they were able to
attract the audience as the video represents how a party should be, friends,
drinks, cakes games and many other things are included which are related to a
party.
“Last Friday Night” reflects really well its pop image; in the song there is a lot
of bright colours, mostly pink and yellow which are colours that are associated
with pop music videos, especially upbeat ones where the target audience is
composed by people who like bright and cheerful colours, in addition to that,
these colours give off the image of “fun” because that’ s the usual connotation
of parties. Even
though there is not a
proper dancing
choreography you can
still find scene in which
there are people
dancing which again
refer to a typical scene
in Pop videos.
Camera angles
There are a lot of Close ups of Katy Perry as they are trying to make her the
star of the song, the main character; she appears as the main focus at the
beginning and at the very end and obviously, throughout the whole music
video she is
still very
noticeable as
many close
ups of her
have been
taken.
This camera
shot is used in
many music
videos and

18. films too (in films or TV it is ised to show the feelings of a character), it is
usually used to portray the attention to detail to a particular object of higher
importance. In this music video many close ups have been used not only to
emphasise the main “star” of the video, but also because this pop music video
is more a film-like video, so therefore the audience will be more inclined to
know how a character is feeling in order to create verisimilitude
This is a low angle
shot and in this
crowd there are
also a lot of teens in
the backgroud and
this shot has been
used to give to
these young people
a dominance over
the director which shows that no one can stop them.
This is an establing
shot and this type of
shot is used in many
music videos to
introduce the
audience into the
current setting,
letting them aware of
the time and location,
this shot in this case shows the house and the front garden. This kind of shot is
useful in Pop music videos due to the fact that this genre has mini-films as
music videos so this shot is suitable to show the initial setting.
This mid shot is used to
capture a single object or a
person from the chest till
their head, this shot is
commonly used
throughout music videos to
show the main singer in
the same way close ups are

19. used to help promote an astist. In this case, the mid shot has been used to let
people understand the body language of the characters shown in the shot and
mid shots are consistent in a music video, especially in Katy Perry – Last Friday
Night.
Conclusion
Eminem – Stan compared to Katy Perry – Last Friday Night is a unconventional
hip-hop video as there aren’t many things related to a actual pop video, the
most noticeable thing that you cannot find in Eminem’s song is the use of The
Male Gaze Theory where females are used to attract the male audience,
another thing you cannot find in Eminem’s song is the presence of a dancing
scene and bright colours that should tell us that the song is a Pop song. The
main focus of the song “Stan” is to make sure the listeners understand the
message the producers and the artists are trying to send whereas in Katy Perry
you can see the usual things you would find in a pop music video. The
messages that both media text are trying to send are different although they
relate to the same genre and the producers used different ways to tell their
message to the audience.