Eminem - Beautiful (Official Video)
There are many different types of context and in the music video, Beautiful by Eminem, he demonstrates most, if not all of them. However in an assignment requiring only 300 to 400 words one can only touch on a few.
In the first ten seconds of the video he provides his audience with some history of Detroit, Michigan, his hometown. "In 1950, Michigan was 1 of 8 states in America that collectively produced 36% of the world's GNP. Detroit was the greatest manufacturing city in the world." He uses these two seemingly innocuous pieces of information to give his audience a contrast of the city; how it once been as opposed to how it is now.
The language demonstrated in the first words the audience hears is a premise of the videos aesthetics and his own life. "Lately I've been hard to reach./ I've been too long on my own./ Everybody has a private world,/ where they can be alone./ Are you calling me?/ Are you tryin' to get through?/ Are you reaching out for me?/ I'm reaching out for you." Just with the opening lines one can assert that Eminem is doing two things; speaking on his sorted history with drug addiction and not being able to reach out for help to get clean and speaking about his hometown. The city of Detroit is infamous for many reasons, however, this infamous city is, as Eminem demonstrates, "trying to get through".
The video starts out with Eminem walking through and abandoned train station. Everything is dark and gloomy giving off an ominous feel. With these aesthetics the audience would have no choice but to feel sad and even perhaps depressed. The videos footage is of regular families in Detroit living in torn down neighborhoods. Much of the focus is on the youth, the ones trying to get through, trying to reach out. Also in the video the audience sees Eminem walking through the streets of Detroit looking at the city he once used to call home. Seeing the rundown streets and cars on the side of the road; seeing the people who smile with sadness in their eyes. One could assert he does this because he wants the audience to be able to relate to what it was like growing up in that city. He illustrates this with the chorus, "But you got to walk a thousand miles/in my shoes,/ just to see,/ what it's like to be me./ I'll be you,/ let's trade shoes,/ just to see what it'd be like to/ feel your pain,/ you feel mine,/ go inside each others minds./ Just to see,/ what we find,/ look at s--t through each others eyes./ But don't let them say you ain't beautiful./ They can all get f--ked, just stay true to you."
