Take Care of Yourself. An Analysis of Mac Miller’s Self Care Music Video
Mac Miller’s music video for Self Care was the last he ever released before his passing on September 7th, 2018 from a fentanyl overdose. Released on July 13, 2018 along with the single, Self Care is a track that symbolizes how Mac Miller aims to reach a headspace where he has self control over himself despite his struggles and addiction. This video was released amidst a string of controversies surrounding Mac Miller. His then recent breakup with Ariana Grande and series of drug and alcohol related incidents led to Mac Miller being scrutinized in the media; Self Care was a response to that.
The video of Self Care begins with Mac Miller in a coffin — a direct reference to the similar scene in the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill 2 where the protagonist, The Bride, is buried alive and punches through her grave. The framing of the scene is very small and dark to represent Mac Miller’s psyche during this time. The camera zooms in to ‘invite’ the viewer into this ‘negative space’ — from both a technical and psychological perspective. The only light being emitted throughout the first half of the video is from the flashlight that Mac Miller is holding (It’s worth noting that this music video uses minimal props; relying primarily on camera angles and lighting to completely focus attention on the artist and his message).
As the verse starts, Mac Miller prioritizes lighting a cigarette, one of his vices, before even attempting to escape his situation. This action is a direct reflection of the theme of Self Care as well as how Mac Miller felt about hardship in his life: He is carefree and knows he’ll be alright in the end. It also could be interpreted as his need for vices to get through hard times despite them being harmful. With Mac Miller being inside an airtight coffin, the cigarette smoke would be killing him faster as it would deplenish his air supply. Despite this, he remains calm as he tries to escape this near death situation.
After lighting his cigarette, Mac Miller decides to spend a few minutes carving a message into the roof of the coffin reading “Memento mori”. “Memento mori” is a Latin symbol and principle representing the inevitability of death — translating to “remember to death” or “remember that you die”. This could be interpreted as Mac Miller telling himself that everyone is going to die anyway in the end so he should either take care of himself mentally and physically or keep giving into his vices until the end in an act of self care. The duality of this interpretation of the lyrics along with what’s being presented in the video is further carried on as the video progresses into the second half of the song.
Similar to The Bride in Kill Bill 2, Mac Miller punches his way out of the coffin with his bare hands; a major difference being that he’s not inflicting visible damage upon himself. His knuckles aren’t bleeding like The Brides. This further reinforces the interpretation that he could get through any type of pain or adversity as long as he indulged in his “self care” or vices.
Once Mac Miller escapes the coffin he emerges from beneath a pile of black dirt with the whole frame being dark. The song then shifts from the first half, Self Care, to the second half: Oblivion. While Self Care’s production sounded darker and used production techniques to make the listener sound submerged and heavy, Oblivion sounds much lighter, airy and optimistic. These production choices within the audio are reflected in the visual production. As Mac Miller rises from the coffin and the dirt pile, the screen zooms out to display a large white negative space — symbolizing Mac Miller’s escape from his vices and negative thoughts into a more positive headspace. The shot of him standing atop the dirt and brushing himself off is held in slow motion in a short moment of triumph as the video transitions into a much darker ending. Before Mac Miller is able to properly celebrate this victory, multiple explosions are set off from the dirt, filling the majority of the screen with more of the black from the first half of the video again.
Mac Miller is shown to be falling from the impact of the explosion as the video nears its conclusion. Interestingly, when Mac Miller is shown falling the explosions are missing from the shot and the background is still falling. This could be interpreted as Mac Miller feeling like he’s in a good headspace despite falling or failing. A large part of the album Swimming is about the metaphor of living with a bad situation. The title tracks main verse prefaces this message with the line, “And I was drownin’, but now I’m swimmin’”. Even though Mac Miller is falling in this scene, he feels as though he’s flying. There’s even a scene of him falling upwards from the explosion later in the video to support this interpretation.
As the video comes to a conclusion, Mac Miller is shown to be standing still, contemplating among the explosions. He’s become at peace within this terrible and dangerous situation. His face is either unreadable or shown to be conflicted and in deep thought throughout these scenes. We can’t tell what he’s thinking or how he feels as the video cuts to black. Maybe he couldn’t either.
In the larger context of this video release in relation to the hip hop scene, I believe that the reference to the coffin scene from Kill Bill 2 is vital to this video as a public response to Mac Miller. Typically in hip hop culture when a rapper is faced with controversy or beef the traditional thing to do is to act in vengeance and diss whoever disrespected them. In Kill Bill 2, The Bride is completely driven as a character by this exact line of thought: vengeance against someone who’s targeting or wronging her. The reference to the coffin scene would seem like an act of vengeance against the press or even Ariana Grande but is instead presented as an act of self reflection and admittance. While he may have considered it, Mac Miller had no interest in blaming anyone but himself and was very clear with how he would go about it — by taking care of himself and delving into his vices.
It’s unfortunate that Mac Miller’s methods of self care ended up being what killed him 3 months after the initial rollout of Swimming. An originally positive and self meditative music video of Mac Miller’s intention of getting better ended up being a grim reflection and reminder of the tragedy of his death.
