Eminem - Stan

 

 

The song of Stan by Eminem is in the genre of hip-hop and rap music and features the singer Dido. The video is a narrative style, and the lyrics are rapped/spoken by a young obsessive fan who loves Eminem. The video tells the story of this man, named "Stan", who is seen and shown to love Eminem more than his pregnant girlfriend, who is played by Dido in this fantastic video. The lyrics and the music video are both linked, since they are in a story themselves. Didos lyrics which appears as the chorus however isn't linked, but throughout you see her emotions towards the matter. The song is all said as if it is a letter, and this is represented in the video with "Stan" writing to Eminem and speaking in his head what he is writing. The lyrics that stan speaks / writes shows that it is very clear that he idolizes Eminem, and how he contacts him but never gets a reply. A lyric to support this: " I sent two letters back in Autumn, you must not of got em, it was probably some problem with the post office or something". You can see by his facial expressions that he is very eager to get a reply, and that he wants to believe that there was infact a problem with the post office.

Shortly after this, the camera pans across the wall to reveal that it's covered in pictures and posters of eminem, which also gives away another big hint that he is obsessed with him. The song contiunes and Stan has more hatred for Eminem than he did on his first letter. He is very angry that Eminem hasn't replied back to any of his letters. He then raps/speaks a verse saying how much he idolizes him and how he was ignored at a concert with his little brother recently. By the end of it, Stan couldn't handle the fact that the supposibly love of his life hasn't contacted him, therefore decides to drive along the freeway drunk, with his pregnant girlfriend in the trunk of his car. As the song progresses, and Stan writes more letters, he becomes increasingly fustrated and angry with Eminen for not replying to his letters. By the end of Stan's part of the song, all of the amiration he had for him had turned into hate, and Stan couldn't handle that, and subsequently killed himself and his pregnant girlfriend. During the scene where Stan writes the first letter, he looks relatively calm and relaxed, as if writing to Eminem is an escape from real life. While writing the second, he had become more frustrated, which is clear in his face as he looks quite annoyed, and what he says is more criticism than admiration. Finally with the cassette recording, all the initial love and admiration has gone and he is shouting into the recording while 'doing 90 on the freeway' in the rain and dark, after drinking vodka, with his girlfriend in the boot. After the car plunges into the river, there is a clear link between the Dido sung lyrics and what is being seen. The line 'The morning rain clouds up my window, and I can't see at all, and even if I could it'll all be gray' relates to what is being seen, with rain falling onto the car and water filling up the window, which mirrors what is being said in the first part of the line, before cutting to an underwater shot of the grey, murky water, which mirrors the second part of the line. It then goes goes to the underwater shot, which is very grey, which could also mirror the second part of the line.

Eminem then appears. You can see him sitting in a cafe, with what to be seen quite deserted, which shows that he has actually finally had time to relax, and reply back to his fans, and one of them happens to be Stan. He states "come on, i say that stuff just clowning dawg", which tells me and the listeners that Stan was clearly obsessed with the Eminem that appears on television, and not the REAL Eminem. The song and video both combined is very dark, and would make us as the audience feel quite uncomfortable when viewing. The emotion in the song makes us feel sorry for Stan, but Eminem at the same time as Stan killed himself due to the fact that Eminem didn't reply. The use of language in this song is clearly supposed to be aimed at teenagers and older people. If it wasn't for the video, viewers would find it hard listening, and if it wasn't for the song, viewers would find it hard watching.

Alice Kerr