Music Video Analysis

Evanescence – Everybody’s Fool

• The song 'Everybody's Fool' by American rock band Evanescence is a strong video that is aimed at showing young girls that the celebrity life is not as glamorous as they may think. The singer in the video is Amy Lee, the lead singer of Evanescence.

• "My little sister was really getting into these, I don't want to offend anyone, but like really fake, cheesy, slutty female cracker-box idols, and it really pissed me off. She started dressing like them and she was like 8 years old. So I gave her the talk and I wrote a song."

• Quote; taken from a band interview. (http://www.mtv.com/news/1488307/evanescences-amy-lee-hopes-to-get-into-film-rages-against-cheesy-female-idols/)

• The video can be seen as a feminist video as it argues against and targets certain female celebrities that sell themselves, and strip in order to sell products, giving negative ideals to young girls.

• This music video is primarily narrative with small elements of the singer herself singing. The narrative of the song focuses on showing the life of celebrities, both in front of the camera and their actual life as well. Throughout the song the singer works with a company called 'Lies' and at the beginning says 'There is nothing better than a good lie' immediately informing the viewer that the song is going to deal with darker messages than pop songs do, something iconic of the alternative rock/rock genre.

• The theme of 'Lies' continues through the music video with many different advertisements such as pizza, energy drink and a Japanese doll. This creates a parody of both modern day television advertisements and the celebrities that take part in them, selling themselves in order to make money. During the drink advertisements through the mise en scene the words 'be somebody' pop up, this shows that the drink (in truth the advertisement) allow her to be somebody that she isn't, targeting the fake celebrities that pretend in order to make more money. Each scene featuring advertisements end with the singer crying about her situation, showing that she is depressed and that fame is not all it is made out to be. The doll scene also has words that are shown through the mise en scene such as 'use me' this is targeting the media and many businesses and how they use many celebrities for their own gain, in order to sell more and make more money.

• There is a contrast between the advertisements and the actual life of the singer, bright colours and high key lighting are used on set, however in her own life dark colours and low key lighting are used in order to represent the unhappiness the singer faces in her everyday life.

• Following the pizza advert, there is a magazine shoot, where the singer is dressed glamorously in a manner which does represent her true self, again targeting women who sell themselves in this manner. After this the model goes home and violently scratches the images out, showing that she is unhappy with the way that she is portrayed in the media.

• During the bridge of the song, the singer is in an elevator with two glamour obsessed older girls who comment and laugh at her appearance, this is in reference to the song title as through the media, the singer has Everybody fooled as no one knows what her actual life is like.

• During one of the scenes the singer smashes a mirror (smashing her refection) and her hand starts to bleed. This shows that the singer is unhappy with the life she is living (represented by her reflection) and proceeds to break it. The mirror and reflection breaking can also be seen as a metaphor for her broken life.

• Due to the overwhelming unhappiness the singer faces, she almost commits suicide by trying to drown herself, however comes up at the end. This could be seen as a metaphor for what the world, and the media is doing to her, suffocating her and not allowing her to live, they way that she wants too.

• The primary settings for this music video are the TV and magazine sets, and the models apartment. the TV sets are all colourful showing the model supposed happiness, her apartment however is very different. The apartment is dark and dim, not what young children (who the video is trying to give a message to) would expect from a celebrity. This setting is used in order to impart the songs main message, that fame is not what it appears to be, and it has many downsides to it leading to the singer becoming depressed.

• The camera use if the music video focuses on the model face primarily through the use of close up shots in order to catch the models expressions and show that she is incredibly unhappy at the life she has. Through proxemics others are stood away from her showing that she feels alone, and he is very secluded in the life that she has now. There are close ups involving the putting on and removal of makeup, this therefore creates a mask for the singer to hide her pain behind.

• The lyrics of the song, especially the opening ones "Perfect by nature, Icons of self-indulgence, Just what we all need, More lies about a world that never was and never will be" show that the song is about exposing what is fake, when she says "more lies" is referencing the celebrities that are lying and are not in fact happy with their life as is the case with the one in the video. These lyrics show that the women who are portrayed as 'perfect' are in fact not, this is shown in the video when she is shown without make up, the 'lies' part of this lyric is referencing the lies of digital manipulation and is trying to show that no one is perfect, and that by lying, it create more harm than good by sarcastically saying that these lies are "just what we need".

• In the final scene of the song the lyrics "you're not real and you can't save me" are sung by the model to a billboard from one of her magazine shoots. This shows that the side which is portrayed to the public (the model) is not the real her, and it cannot save her, it's her mediated identity and it's not real, but everybody is fooled into believing it is the real her, further reinforcing that the media glamorises fame, and that this is damaging to young people.

• The music video aims to show, primarily young teenage girls that nobody in the world looks like the models and singers that they see in the media, showing girls that they are holding themselves to false standards. It aims to show that you can have fame, beauty and a glamorous life style, but in the end, it won't fulfil you and the one person it will hurt is yourself as you end up lying and portraying yourself in a way that you are not. The song aims to show that there is pain and misery related to fame and that you should be you, not what someone else wants you to be, as ultimately it will only make you unhappy.