Opinion: Review of Eminem’s “Godzilla” music video

Two months after Eminem’s “Godzilla” exploded on the radio, the music video emerged on YouTube and over 113 million people watched the video in less than a week of its release. I think the music video is outstanding because it does show how Eminem and his music have aged throughout the years. 

After I watched Eminem’s music video “Godzilla” I found it really interesting how throughout the video, symbols are used to show the past life of Eminem. I think the whole video is filled with creativity because the music video is directed by Cole Bennett. For those who may not know, Bennett is known as the founder and owner of Lyrical Lemonade on YouTube. According to Rolling Stone Magazine,  he worked with Eminem everyday for 14 hours to create the music video and what I find amusing is how Bennett makes a cameo in the video. He is dressed up as the old school Slim Shady passing out flyers to people in the middle of the video.

What surprised me while watching the video is how each frame describes a previous song or album cover from Eminem’s music. In one frame, Eminem is walking along and he sees himself going crazy while wearing a straight jack. The scene represents  the song “Real Slim Shady” and after he walks past himself, Emienem looks at the calendar to see which character he will be the next day. The three characters he is referring to are Slim Shady, Eminem and Marshal Mathers.

Another great scene is when Eminem stuffs Mathers into the trunk of his car. What caught my attention is how the moon shines in the background. The moon and the car represent the album cover from “Slim Shady LP”  and if you look closely, a flying object can be seen going past the moon. The flying object is an asteroid and it symbolizes Eminem’s song “SpaceBound.” 

Throughout the video  Juice WRLD can be heard singing the chorus and what I found touching is how Eminem and Bennett paid tribute to the late rapper. In the video, Eminem is standing on a pile of his own records and if you look closely,  Juice WRLD’s records are floating in circles around Eminem. Right before Eminem shoots a man with the missile launcher, you can see Juice WRLD stand next to a woman in the background and I thought it was great how at the end of the video, there is a touching video of Juice WRLD saying he hopes everyone did something great today. The ending brought me to tears because it showed what kind of humble person Juice WRLD was.

When I researched the meaning behind the missile launcher, I found out that the missile launcher is a symbol from Eminem’s past songs. The three songs representing the missile launcher are “KillShot”, “Kill You” and  “Toy Soldier.” Another notable part of the music video is when Eminem is standing on the pile of his album and waving his arm in the air. The reason why I found it intriguing is because the scene represents the rap battle in the movie “8 Mile.” 

My absolute favorite part of the music video is when Mike Tyson and Dr. Dre make an appearance toward the end. In the song “I Don’t Give a F…” Eminem jokingly mentions about getting punched by Tyson. I was laughing pretty hard when Eminem got knocked out by Tyson because Tyson’s cameo is a symbol of the song.  When Eminem gets knocked out he is rushed to the hospital where Mathers and Dr. Dre try to help him. What I found amusing is how Dre is just standing there and does nothing to help the situation. His cameo is the symbol from the song “Without Me” and if you listen to the song, you can hear Eminem telling Dre to stop standing there and start operating. I will admit seeing Tyson adding a band aid on Eminem in the operating room is pretty hilarious and I find it intriguing how Mathers kills Eminem at the end because Mathers is signaling how there should be only one character and it should be him.

The “Godzilla” music video is innovative and  I highly recommend people to go watch the video because they will see how Eminem has developed himself to become one of the greatest in rap music history.