Star Image Textual Analysis

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Marshall Bruce Mathers (better known by stage name Eminem) is an American HipHop rapper who was signed to D12 record label for a few  years but later left to pursue a solo career therefore signed to his own record label shady recorders. He has achieved ten number one albums on the billboard 200. He has also sold more than 33 million track downloads and 39.6 million albums in the United States alone.


When Eminem became known in the music industry his star image was established as a naïve and comical artist, due to his previous music videos that contained intertextual references about other celebrities and music artists’ personal lives. For example in the music video ‘Just lose it’ he plays different roles in the video, through intertextual references he imitates one of Micheal Jackson’s video brining a sense of humour for the audience. Throughout the video close ups and low angle shots of Eminem are used giving him a centre of attention power, the low angles show that he is dominate in the video and also to gives emphasis to his star persona and help promote him as a star. Eminem also uses intertextual references in his previous videos e.g. ‘without me’ and ‘The Real Slim Shady’.

However Eminem’s star image motif matures slowly, this is seen through his new look in ‘Not Afraid’ album; black hair, smart and simple clothing. His recent music videos don’t contain humorous intertextual references which helps him deliver a serious approach towards the viewers, its also notable that he throw the ‘Silm Shady’ alter ego to the side.

By analysing Eminem’s career as an artist from when he started and now I can say that his brand image has changed in a significant manner. I believe that Eminem wants his fans to look at him at a different angle.