Enrique Iglesias’s “Hero” Music Video Analysis

Starring: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Mickey Rourke

Directed by Joseph Khan

The music video to the song “Hero” is a narrative short film compressed into the time length of the Enrique Iglesias’s song. The video opens with a long establishing shot that shows a blue car speeding down a road in what looks like the desert. A close up shot is used to show a black leather bag filled with over flowing money moving in the wind from the open top of the car.

The video is both a narrative and performance piece as the video follows the story of a couple played by Enrique Iglesias and Jennifer Love Hewitt who are running away from a group of bad people who want to hurt them, Mickey Rourke plays the leader of the men searching for them, presumably they are being chased as they have stolen Rourkes money. While the narrative story is being presented Enrique Iglesias also performs the lyrics to the song while also staying within the narrative of the video through the use of the non-diegetic sound of the song. The lyrics to the song represent the situation within the diegesis, Enrique performs to the lyrics of the song to Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character, and the lyrics are in a way his love letter to her. The performance base of the music video is seen through Enrique Iglesias performing the lyrics to song along with even playing the piano within the music video in time with song.

Video begins with the audience being introduced to Enrique’s character and Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character; they appear to be free and in love. Through the mise en scene and the use of a close up shot shows Enrique to be wearing sunglasses and slow motion shot of the Hewitt’s short skirt shows that they are in a warm location, American desert. The use of these shots and through the mise en scene indicates that he is the “hero” this is then further confirmed with the lyrics to the song “I can be your hero baby”. An underlying conflict is introduced through the close up shot of a bag with American dollars in, suggesting that they are on the run as they may have stolen the money. This is then confirmed with the use of a cross cut showing a man dressed all in black which connotes danger and death. The man appears to be following supposedly due to the money they have acquired. Rourke’s character is shown to be quite unattractive and evil looking face which indicates that he is the villain to the narrative this is juxtaposed to Enrique and Jennifer Love Hewitt’s attractive appearance.

A medium shot shows the couple to be coming out of a building that looks like a church. The shot suggests that the couple have got married with Enrique’s character wearing a shirt and Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character wearing a white dress that could be seen as a

wedding dress.

Propps theory is clearly evident within the music video with Enrique Iglesias character being the hero along with him being the main character throughout the narrative. Mickey Rourke plays the villain who in the end captures the hero and almost kills him. Lastly, Jennifer Love-Hewitt plays the, Heroine as she is the hero’s love interest in the video.

There is a direct link between the lyrics and the video itself with the song being called “Hero” throughout the video Enrique projects Hewitt’s character before meeting his death at the end of the video, he prevents harm from coming to her in return becoming her “Hero”. Intertextuality is present as the entire music video loosely reflects the Bonnie and Clyde storyline. Enrique Iglesias and Jennifer Love Hewitt’s play the role of Bonnie an Clyde and Rourke’s could be seen as the police, he has the power to end their love and tear them apart.

A vast amount of two-shots are used throughout in order to emphasise the powerful love that the two characters have for one another. Low angle shots are used on Mickey Rourke’s character during the confrontation scene in order to emphasise his dominance and threat he has over the couple.

Throughout the video low key lighting has been used to create both an intimate feel that reflects the two main characters but also the underlining that towards their freedom and ‘happily ever after’ that is Rourke’s character. An orange and yellow colour palate is also used to reflect the setting of the desert.

The video ends with a close up shot of Iglesias bloody hand tightly gripping Hewitt’s while she kneels over him crying as the camera tracks backwards to a long shot of the couple as Iglesias character dies in the arms of his wife. The video is able to create meaning and also gets the audience to feel for the characters in the narrative just in the same way it would have done if the video would have been a feature film.