Do You Know A Jeremy? Pearl Jam’s controversial video called “Jeremy” was produced in 1992. Jeff Ament and Eddie Vedder wrote the song. The director is Mark Pellington. This video starts with flashes of newspaper articles, and a boy alone in the woods drawing frantically. Throughout the video there are still-shots of his parents ignoring him as he screams for their attention. School kids also ignore him or point and laugh at him. Jeremy is in the woods alone in most of the video. Towards the end, the viewer sees him in the woods thrashing about, ripping branches off trees and tearing down his paintings. He screams with rage and eventually realizes what he feels he must do. The next day he walks into the classroom, and throws…show more content… The band sold more than 15 million copies of its first two albums and they received four awards for its music video “Jeremy”. Grunge music came out of Seattle in the mid 1980’s. It is a subgenre of alternative rock. Hardcore punk and heavy metal inspired it. Grunge became successful in the early 1990’s because of bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden. In January 1992, Nirvana’s “Nevermind” replaced Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous Mind” at number one on the Billboards 200. (The Billboard 200). Two people inspired “Jeremy”. The first, a 15-year-old boy named Jeremy Wade Delle. He was a sophomore that recently transferred schools. He killed himself with a .357 revolver in front of his second period English class. He was late coming to school and was instructed by his teacher to go get an attendance slip from the front office. He left to get his gun and returned to class. He walked in and announced, “Miss I got what I really went for.” (Miller and Nevins para. 4). Delle put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger in front of his teacher and…show more content… Throughout the video you see Jeremy in the woods by himself. He draws pictures of mountains and he is standing on top. It shows he thinks he is the king of his world. Pearl Jam sings, “King Jeremy the wicked/ Ruled his world.” (Ament and Vedder line 10-11). Jeremy spends a lot of time in the woods entertaining himself. Without guidance he is forced to shape his own mind and determine what is right or wrong.
The parental neglect is shown in the video and lyrics. In the song, “Daddy didn’t give attention/ To fact that mommy didn’t care”. (Ament and Vedder line 8-9). Jeremy tries on two different occasions to get his parents attention and they sit still staring. They do not look at him or acknowledge him. Also in the video, there is an outfit for each parent in the woods on a piece of paper. The clothing symbolizes that Jeremy wishes his mother and father were there with him so he makes “fake” parents out of their clothes and keeps them in the woods to have a feeling of having a