Theories for Production

By Farida Travis & Elodie

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’.

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’.

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

Breaking down the forth 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.

Parody/Hyper conscience

• 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 forth wall’ and hyper Reality.

• 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.

• 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’.