The music video for "Everybody's Fool" by Evanescence aims to show young girls that the celebrity lifestyle portrayed in media is often fake. It depicts the lead singer's character struggling with depression as she plays roles in exaggerated advertisements and photo shoots. Scenes alternate between her glamorous on-camera appearances and dark, lonely reality. The video suggests that fame leads many celebrities to portray unrealistic versions of themselves, which can negatively influence young viewers by promoting false standards of beauty and lifestyle.

1. Music Video Analysis
Evanescence – Everybody’s Fool

3. • The song 'Everybody's Fool' by American rock band
Evanescence is a strong video that is aimed at showing
young girls that the celebrity life is not as glamorous as
they may think. The singer in the video is Amy Lee, the lead
singer of Evanescence.
• "My little sister was really getting into these, I don't want
to offend anyone, but like really fake, cheesy, slutty female
cracker-box idols, and it really pissed me off. She started
dressing like them and she was like 8 years old. So I gave
her the talk and I wrote a song."
• Quote; taken from a band interview.
(http://www.mtv.com/news/1488307/evanescences-amy-
lee-hopes-to-get-into-film-rages-against-cheesy-female-
idols/)

4. • The video can be seen as a feminist video as it argues
against and targets certain female celebrities that sell
themselves, and strip in order to sell products, giving
negative ideals to young girls.
• This music video is primarily narrative with small elements
of the singer herself singing. The narrative of the song
focuses on showing the life of celebrities, both in front of
the camera and their actual life as well. Throughout the
song the singer works with a company called 'Lies' and at
the beginning says 'There is nothing better than a good lie'
immediately informing the viewer that the song is going to
deal with darker messages than pop songs do, something
iconic of the alternative rock/rock genre.

5. • The theme of 'Lies' continues through the music video with many
different advertisements such as pizza, energy drink and a Japanese
doll. This creates a parody of both modern day television
advertisements and the celebrities that take part in them, selling
themselves in order to make money. During the drink
advertisements through the mise en scene the words 'be
somebody' pop up, this shows that the drink (in truth the
advertisement) allow her to be somebody that she isn't, targeting
the fake celebrities that pretend in order to make more money.
Each scene featuring advertisements end with the singer crying
about her situation, showing that she is depressed and that fame is
not all it is made out to be. The doll scene also has words that are
shown through the mise en scene such as 'use me' this is targeting
the media and many businesses and how they use many celebrities
for their own gain, in order to sell more and make more money.

6. • There is a contrast between the advertisements and
the actual life of the singer, bright colours and high key
lighting are used on set, however in her own life dark
colours and low key lighting are used in order to
represent the unhappiness the singer faces in her
everyday life.
• Following the pizza advert, there is a magazine shoot,
where the singer is dressed glamorously in a manner
which does represent her true self, again targeting
women who sell themselves in this manner. After this
the model goes home and violently scratches the
images out, showing that she is unhappy with the way
that she is portrayed in the media.

7. • During the bridge of the song, the singer is in an elevator with two
glamour obsessed older girls who comment and laugh at her
appearance, this is in reference to the song title as through the
media, the singer has Everybody fooled as no one knows what her
actual life is like.
• During one of the scenes the singer smashes a mirror (smashing her
refection) and her hand starts to bleed. This shows that the singer is
unhappy with the life she is living (represented by her reflection)
and proceeds to break it. The mirror and reflection breaking can
also be seen as a metaphor for her broken life.
• Due to the overwhelming unhappiness the singer faces, she almost
commits suicide by trying to drown herself, however comes up at
the end. This could be seen as a metaphor for what the world, and
the media is doing to her, suffocating her and not allowing her to
live, they way that she wants too.

8. • The primary settings for this music video are the TV and magazine
sets, and the models apartment. the TV sets are all colourful
showing the model supposed happiness, her apartment however is
very different. The apartment is dark and dim, not what young
children (who the video is trying to give a message to) would expect
from a celebrity. This setting is used in order to impart the songs
main message, that fame is not what it appears to be, and it has
many downsides to it leading to the singer becoming depressed.
• The camera use if the music video focuses on the model face
primarily through the use of close up shots in order to catch the
models expressions and show that she is incredibly unhappy at the
life she has. Through proxemics others are stood away from her
showing that she feels alone, and he is very secluded in the life that
she has now. There are close ups involving the putting on and
removal of makeup, this therefore creates a mask for the singer to
hide her pain behind.

9. • The lyrics of the song, especially the opening ones "Perfect
by nature, Icons of self-indulgence, Just what we all need,
More lies about a world that never was and never will be"
show that the song is about exposing what is fake, when
she says "more lies" is referencing the celebrities that are
lying and are not in fact happy with their life as is the case
with the one in the video. These lyrics show that the
women who are portrayed as 'perfect' are in fact not, this is
shown in the video when she is shown without make up,
the 'lies' part of this lyric is referencing the lies of digital
manipulation and is trying to show that no one is perfect,
and that by lying, it create more harm than good by
sarcastically saying that these lies are "just what we need".

10. • In the final scene of the song the lyrics "you're not real and you can't save
me" are sung by the model to a billboard from one of her magazine
shoots. This shows that the side which is portrayed to the public (the
model) is not the real her, and it cannot save her, it's her mediated identity
and it's not real, but everybody is fooled into believing it is the real her,
further reinforcing that the media glamorises fame, and that this is
damaging to young people.
• The music video aims to show, primarily young teenage girls that nobody
in the world looks like the models and singers that they see in the media,
showing girls that they are holding themselves to false standards. It aims
to show that you can have fame, beauty and a glamorous life style, but in
the end, it won't fulfil you and the one person it will hurt is yourself as you
end up lying and portraying yourself in a way that you are not. The song
aims to show that there is pain and misery related to fame and that you
should be you, not what someone else wants you to be, as ultimately it
will only make you unhappy.