Alex's Similar Text Analysis

Eminem- Stan

Eminem, real name Marshall Bruce Mathers III, is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter and actor who was first overlooked and taunted by many due to him being white, where black and Latin rappers were the norm, but has since been hailed by many as one of the greatest lyricists of all time. His rise to fame started with his major-label debut album “The Slim Shady LP” in 1999. The following album, “The Marshall Mathers LP”, became the fastest selling hip-hop album in history, selling over 1.79 million copies in the first week just in the US and earning the title of Fastest Selling Solo Album Ever in the Guinness Book of World Records. It has been certified 9x platinum by the RIAA in the US and has sold over 19 million units to as of August 2009. In all he has released nine albums and appeared in nine films, including 8 Mile for which he was nominated for sixteen awards, of which he claimed ten.

The third single from “The Marshall Mathers LP”, “Stan”, is by Eminem featuring British pop singer Dido. It peaked at number one in the UK and Australia and is ranked #290 in The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, as well as #45 About.com’s Top 100 RapSongs.

The lyrics tell a fictional story of a fan obsessed with Eminem who writes to him but receives no reply. The first three verses are from Eminem as Stan trying to contact him (the first two being letters and the third a voice recorder), while the fourth is Eminem attempting to write to Stan, only to realize that he’d already heard of his suicide on the news.

Eminem himself alongside “DJ Mark, The 45 King” produced the song using a slightly modified break from Dido’s “Thank You” as its basis. The opening lines of “Thank You” are also sampled as a chorus. It has a slow tempo and the programmed sounds have a very dark and depressing feel to them.

The original music video is 8:15 minutes long, but due to many censors in the verses and a shortened intro skit, the short MTV version is 6:00 minutes. It was nominated at the 2001 MTV VMAs for Video of the Year, Best Direction, Best Male, Best Rap Video and Best Cinematography. It was also ranked as #1 and #3 of MuchMusic’s 100 Best Videos and 50 Most Controversial Videos respectively.

It is a closed, single narrative structure with some parallel editing showing Eminem (appearing as himself) on his tour bus reading fan mail and Stan (played by Devon Sawa) in his house with his girlfriend (played by Dido). Although the video is non-linear with its many flashback scenes, it closely follows the lyrics of the song.

The intro skit of the video starts with an establishing shot of an open window, tracking towards it as a thunderstorm rages outside. We then see a mid-shot of Stan in the bathroom as he bleaches his hair in the sink (this shows his idolism of Eminem, since he bleaches his hair blonde). We then see an over-the-shoulder shot from behind him, showing his expression in the mirrors reflection as his hair turns blonde and he smiles. There is then a shot of Dido, seen to be pregnant, walking across the hall and knocking on the door to check on him. He fiercely opens it and shouts at her, showing his violent nature is not uncommon. A two-shot from the mirror has he her asking what he’s doing and expressing her concern about him “taking this too far”, which shows how much she cares about him and his well-being. He stares at the mirror and asks her if she likes it absent-mindedly, as if he is actually talking to someone in his own head, possibly Eminem himself. His mood switches when she keeps calling him “Stanley” and he shouts and raises his hand which visibly scares her. He then grabs her, pushes her towards the toilet and leaves the room and she sits. This sequence shows that this is their lifestyle and that his abuse has become the norm.

The music then begins with Dido singing the chorus, seemingly to calm herself down after the encounter with Stan. The camera then tracks downwards from a side view mid-shot of her on the toilet, through the floorboards to a long-shot of Stan in the basement. Then camera then sweeps across the room where we see a montage of Eminem photographs, posters, magazine cut-outs etc covering the walls and some parts of the ceiling. Stan sits at a cluttered desk where he has a number of envelopes with the same address on them (presumably Eminem’s) ready to send and a small television with an Eminem documentary. He then starts to write a letter as the first verse begins. The lyrics for the verse are the words from his letter and he says them out loud along with the track as he writes. The first line also has the sound effect of a pencil scratching paper.

The first verse has Stan writing to Eminem saying that he’s received no reply and his first two letters must not have gone through. He shows his devotion, mentioning his room full of posters and pictures as well as referencing some of Eminem’s old underground material, going as far as to say he’ll name his child Bonnie after his song “Bonnie and Clyde ‘97” if it is a girl. He mentions how similar they are, because of them both being fathers and empathizes about his uncle’s suicide, saying he had a friend who did the same thing. He ends by claiming he is his biggest fan and hopes for a reply.

The shots of the first verse are parallel edited and are mainly of Stan in the basement as he writes, alongside Dido upstairs as she sits alone, seemingly worried and feeling neglected. Some close-up shots of Stan’s face show him to have a dark and demented side to his obsession with Eminem. There is also one mid-shot of Eminem in his tour bus as he reads a letter. There is also the use of special effects when Stan is looking in the mirror in the basement and sees Eminem performing in it.

The first chorus begins with Stan finishing his letter and going back up the stairs to the main house. We then see a two-shot from the kitchen showing Dido looking through the fridge and Stan watching television. They start arguing and then he starts losing his temper to the point where he falls on the floor, before he storms out as Dido looks helplessly on. This all shows more of their abusive relationship and Stan’s instability. Alongside the shots of this scene, we see shots of a post office were a single letter falls of a trolley unnoticed. We see a close up and then an extreme close-up of the letter which reveals that it is Stan’s letter to Eminem.

The second verse is another letter from Stan, where he is obviously frustrated. He starts off optimistic, but wavers a bit by the second line “I ain’t mad/I just think it’s fucked up that you don’t answer fans/”. He also expresses his annoyance at Eminem for apparently ignoring him at a concert and refusing to sign an autograph for his little brother Matthew, who he described as loving Eminem even more than himself. The deterioration of his sanity then shows through when he says “Sometimes I even cut myself to see how much it bleeds/it’s like adrenaline, the pain is such a sudden rush for me/”. He also talks about how his girlfriend is jealous of his love for Eminem, but she doesn’t understand. He ends the letter with “Sincerely yours, Stan/P.S. we should be together too" which shows his growing obsession.

The style of the shots during the second verse are very similar to first, except they are slightly faster and more haphazard, showing that Stan is gradually losing his mind. The letter is written at the same desk and we still see Dido sitting alone upstairs. We see other scenes of Eminem’s show with him performing and Stan and Matthew in the front row, as well as him leaving the building and the brothers waiting outside in the snow to meet him, but bodyguards drag him away. We also see tracking shots of Stan’s desk with Eminem’s album artwork as he writes of his self-harming, suggesting that he believes he is following Eminem’s example. At the end of the verse we see Stan take a photo of him and Dido and replace the image of her with a torn picture of Eminem, showing his devotion and that he would rather be with Eminem than his girlfriend.

The second chorus shows Dido wake up during the night to see Stan with asleep with an Eminem magazine. She sneaks downstairs to the basement, as we see Stan wake up and notice she is not beside him. The camera tracks downwards through the floorboards from the bedroom to the basement and we see Dido enter and shockingly discover the doctored picture that used to be of her and Stan. Stan then appears behind her and grabs her. We then see a black car racing through torrential rain, the sound of the engine serving as a sound bridge for this shot and the opening shot of the third verse.

The third verse begins with Stan driving the car and shouting into a tape recorder. He has now clearly gone over the edge and freely expresses his anger and resentment towards Eminem for not reply to him for “six months”. He mentions his sorrow and the goes on to further vent his anger, saying "I hope you can't sleep and you dream about it/And when you dream I hope you can't sleep and you scream about it/I hope your conscience eats at you and you can't breathe without me/”. He then interrupts himself by shouting “shut-up bitch I’m tryna talk” to the back of the car. He then continues with “that's my girlfriend screaming in the trunk/But I didn't slit her throat I just tied her up, see I ain’t like you/cause if she suffocates, she'll suffer more and then she'll die too”, again referencing Eminem’s “Bonnie and Clyde ‘97” where he fantasizes about slitting his wife’s throat, before putting her in the trunk and dropping her off in a lake. Stan then wraps up and reveals he is “almost at the bridge”, implying he is about to drive off. He realizes too late that he has no way of getting the tape ton Eminem, saying “oh shit, I forgot, how am I supposed to send this shit out?”

The shots of the third verse show close-ups of Stan in the car as he drives at “90 (mph) on the freeway” through the rain. There are some over-the-shoulder shots from behind him showing a picture of Eminem hanging from the rear-view mirror. We also see an oncoming car’s headlights in the distance. While he vents his anger, we see sped-up flashback of Stan wrecking the television and furniture with a baseball bat and ripping the posters of the walls in the basement. Near the end of the verse, there is a road block which he ploughs through and drives off the bridge. The car falls in slow-motion, splashes into the lake and sinks.

The fourth verse is Eminem’s reply to Stan, apologizing for not doing it sooner and he had been busy. He asked about Dido’s pregnancy, sent an autographed cap for Matthew and apologized for missing them at the show. He then expresses his concern for Stan’s attitude and tells him not to take his lyrics seriously by saying, “but what's this shit you said about you like to cut your wrists too? /I say that shit just clowning, dog, c'mon - how fucked up is you? /”. He advises him to get counseling and to treat Dido better, before telling him about a similar story that “made him sick” some weeks before about “Some dude was drunk and drove his car over a bridge/and had his girlfriend in the trunk, and she was pregnant with his kid/
and in the car they found a tape, but they didn't say who it was to/” Realization then hits him what the name of the man was and that it was the Stan he was writing to.

The video addresses many serious issues, such as domestic abuse and psychotic fan obsession. Although he sometimes writes songs of a violent nature, many expressing thoughts of his ex-wife, this video seems to show him from a more realistic point-of-view, as a man who writes songs and performs them rather than the psychotic wife-beater of his artist persona.

The shots of Eminem reading mail in his tour bus and performing onstage show him as an entertainer. His reply to Stan’s letter shows him as a regular human being, watching the news and giving advice on his relationship. It shows famous people as powerful, but unable to control how others receive their actions. Eminem may have used this song and video to show critics, some of who oppose his use of profanity and violent scenarios in his songs, as well as his fans that he is an entertainer whose lyrics and thoughts are his own and should not be taken so seriously.

Stan is used in the video to represent the people who worship their idols as Gods, which Eminem is against. Stan is shown as unstable and highly psychotic. Throughout the video there is torrential rain, along with loud, non-diegetic thunderclaps and lightning flashes which can be said to connote the inner, violent turmoil and instability of Stan’s mind, as opposed to the calm atmosphere of Eminem’s tour bus. Many of the shots in the basement track around him either at a high-angle to show his engrossment in the letter, or low-angle which shows shadows on his face and gives him a more demented look. In the first verse, his expression shows him as slightly out-of-touch, yet he seems to be writing to an old friend. In the second begins to really lose his mind and shows his anger and frustration through his words, expression and body language. By the third he has truly lost his sanity and shouts and screams in anger and rage.

Dido is shown as an innocent victim of Stan’s psychotic behavior, as she had nothing to do with the letters and she still paid the price. Her vulnerability was further portrayed by her pregnancy and scenes where she would silently sit in corners on the floor. Her body language when she argues with Stan connotes pleading, as opposed to his frustration and anger.