The music video for Eminem's "Without Me" utilizes various postmodern film techniques and references numerous TV shows and films to blur reality and fiction. It references shows like ER, Batman, and Survivor by recreating scenes. Eminem also directly addresses the camera, breaking the fourth wall. The video parodies clips from movies and TV shows to comment on pop culture and reality TV. By mixing techniques like parody and breaking the fourth wall, Eminem's video keeps the audience questioning what is real and what is not.

1. Theories for Production
By Farida Travis & Elodie

2. Intertextuality
• Intertextuality is one text making
reference to another text.
• This post-modern theory is used in
Eminem’s video ‘Without me’. An
example of this is when Eminem acts as
patient and is lying down in a gurney
being pushed down the hospital hallway.
This is a reference to the popular
American medical drama ‘ER’.

3. Another example is when Eminem is dressed as
Elvis Presley dancing in a bathroom. On the
bottom-left hand corner there is the ‘E True
Story’ logo, however this is flipped backwards.
The video therefore references the well-known
TV channel ‘E’, which bases its channel on Pop
culture. As well as ‘E’ the video references the
popular American news channel ‘CNN’.

4. The video also references
American reality TV shows ‘The
real world’ and ‘Survivor’.

5. Breaking down the fourth wall
• In the music video ‘Without me’
Eminem is breaking down the
forth wall by looking directly into
the camera whilst rapping. This
gives the illusion that he is
personally rapping to the
audience and building a
connection.

6. Parody/Hyper conscious
• A parody is a mocked version of a storyline or clip, in ‘Eminem –
without me’ we are able to see this. An example when Eminem
mocks Robin from the film Batman, while Dr. Dre mocked the
character Blade.
• “Without Me" was parodied on “All That”, a skit show on
Nickelodeon, as "Without Meat". It was also parodied on MADtv, a
skit show on FOX, as "What's on TV?".
• Eminem also dressed up in various costumes as Osama bin Laden as
he is chased by D12.
Hyper Conscience is when we are aware that it is
not reality, during Eminem without, Eminem
constantly reminds the audience that it is not
reality by using techniques such as ‘breaking the
fourth wall’ and hyper Reality.

8. • When Eminem opens the music video he is mimicking
various TV shows from start to finish such as batman,
playboy mansion, reality shows and entertainment shows.
• The main thing what he does is that realizing that he does
something different to other rappers which is he talks
about life but makes it out to be a parody of the truth and
truth in the joke, vice versa.
• He has a one of a kind trend which makes his significant
skills as a rapper and social satirist because the rudeness
and gross-out humour in the music video were too detailed
for some to believe that it was anything but real.

9. • Eminem is all about blurring the difference between reality
and fiction, humour and horror, satire and documentary, so it
makes perfect sense that what he shows in his music video is
no more or no less "real“.
• Eminem follows an order throughout his lyrics and kinds of
makes the audience engage in his own reality based on what
his experiences of life are and how without him it wouldn’t be
the same such as the lyric ‘Now this looks like a job for me so
everybody just follow me cause we need a little controversy
because it feels so empty without me’.

10. Reflection
• After completing this task I have gained understanding in
different post-modern theories and how they can be used to
represent a message, genre etc. I now have insight on how to
apply these theories. Furthermore which theories would work
best within my music video successfully.