In the Weird video, director Gus Van Sant juxtaposes seemingly opposite images and allows the viewer to decipher which one is truly "weird". In doing this, he also illustrates themes of human isolation, stereotypes and identity, youth vs. age and rich vs. poor.

Setting is very important in establishing the themes of the video. The subway by nature, is an isolating environment. Mostly found in urban areas, subways are places where many people gather and never have any valuable interaction with each other. It is a place that serves a specific function- it gets the passenger from point A to point B. By putting the video in and around the subway, Van Sant immediately creates an environment where there are no real conversations and where individual faces mean little.

Another important aspect of this setting is the subway's relationship to the city itself. In the video, Van Sant makes this subterranean universe a haven for the outcasts of New York City, the pierced and the dyed. Van Sant quite literally puts them "underground." The irony in this of course, is that in this environment, they are a community of outcasts, which is an oxymoron.

The video takes place on four important "planes," the deepest level being the subway itself. One level up is the subway station, where Hanson plays the part of three homeless musicians. Up one more level is the streets of Times Square, and fourth is the surreal "round room" which seems to float above all of it, occupying no particular time or space.

As Hanson begins to walk through the subway cars, they are confronted with groups of people that are isolated in one way or another. The first group is the most traditional type of subway passenger, the businessman. Dressed in the uniform of cooperate America, suits and ties, the businessmen keep their heads buried in their newspapers as Isaac, Taylor and Zac casually brush past them. The men don't take the time to notice that their usual scenery has been interrupted. In this image, Van Sant not only creates a clash of young and old, and the symbolic distance between them. It is doubtful that if one of the businessmen looked up, he would have any idea who Hanson is. Far removed from their usual audience and the people who would notice them, the brothers become the isolated ones, even though it is the businessmen who choose to stay locked in their worlds filled with meetings and stock quotes.

In another car, Hanson comes upon groups of identical twins. Anywhere else in the world, a set of identical twins would attract attention. We see them as some sort of genetic wonder, the exception to the rule that each of us is different and unique. In this subway car however, they also illustrate Van Sant's theme of isolation. For each of these people, their "twinness" is their identity. In the real world, it would make them stand apart from the norm, isolating them in that way. In this subway car, it completely strips them of their identity. They are no longer a specific set of twins; they are simply twins, a type. This shows how humans are capable of quickly classifying each other, of putting people into neat little compartments so that they fit our expectations. But then Van Sant puts Hanson in the car. Yes, there's a family resemblance between them. Put them in a room of random people and you could probably guess that those three came from the same place. But there are three of them, not two, and they're far from identical, making them, once again, the isolated ones in this environment. But how is isolation possible for any of these people? They're family, brothers and sisters, one of the closest bonds humans are capable of. They're isolated because in this small universe, their relationship is the curse that makes them just like everyone else.