whatever you say I am —
"Anybody with a sense of humour is going to put on my album and laugh from beginning to end."
Who is the real Eminem? According to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), he is a dangerous and irresponsible purveyor of hate and violence. According to Eminem, he's just Marshall Mathers, a regular guy who invoked a tough guy named Slim Shady. His album is full of dark humor (not unlike the dark humor of The Fight Club). "Anybody with half a brain is going to be able to tell when i'm joking and when I'm serious," he says. But I'm not always sure. I guess my half-brain isn't working right. Does he mean he hates "fags?" Does he mean it when he says he wants to kill his wife, fuck Jennifer Lopez without a rubber, etc, etc?
Personally, I do find many of his lyrics funny. However, there is an unmistakable tendency in those lyrics to take some very disturbing directions. For example, he seems to have an obsession with killing his wife and stuffing her in the trunk of his car. He is very specific about this. Even more disturbing, two of his songs, Kim and Just The Two of Us describe just this scenario while he is, at the same time, being really sweet and nurturing towards their child. As if he wants to rid himself of his woman and have her child just for himself. I've known so many mothers whose "ex" made life hell for over custody issues. Or is it just that she dared be something other than his property? Sure, there is a lot of humor in his handling of dark subjects but, as they say, "much truth is told in jest."
I think Eminem has a perfect right to say whatever he wants. No democracy should censor art or pop, however shocking or disgusting it may be. Eminem is the enema for the stale, saccharine platitudes and pieties that kids are force-fed these days by their PC teachers and counselors. It's clear from his huge popularity that Eminem has tapped into a rising tide of rebellion among middle-class white kids who are sick and tired of the canned, humanitarian schmaltz of their antiseptic, namby-pamby, culture-starved schools.
Camille Paglia, Professor of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia
Reprinted from the TV Guide
His recent filing of divorce papers is reassuring. It shows the difference between the way Marshall Mathers deals with a bad marriage as opposed to Slim Shady. Personally, I can't understand why a woman would want to stay married to a man who had her name plus "rot in pieces" tattooed to his naval. Could it be that he's "a millionaire husband" as she mentioned in the oft repeated quote?
Many people repeat the concern that if Eminem is "only joking" many of his fans will take him seriously and do what he only sang about. I have a big problem with that line of thinking. I think people are responsible for their own actions. People have always been blamed for what someone else "under their influence" has done. Look at the law suits against singers like Ozzy Osbourne. He dared to sing a song called "Suicide Solution" which is really about alcoholism rather than suicide but the mother of a suicidal kid still blamed him for her son's death. People blamed Jim Carroll of The Basketball Diaries for murder in the classroom because of a superficial resemblance to a scene in a movie based on his book. (But the scene didn't even appear in the book itself.) Most people don't remember but Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther sparked a wave of suicides back in the 19th century. About the suicides, Goethe wrote, "But just as I felt relieved and lighthearted b ecause I had succeeded in transforming reality into poetry, my friends were confusing themselves by believing that they had to turn poetry into reality, enact the novel and shoot themselves! What actually took place now among a few, happened later en masse, and this little book that had done me so much good acquired the reputation of being extremely harmful!"
It's probably true that some people are influenced by what they read and see and hear and put into practice what is only talked about in a work of art. Is this a reason to censor it? Is this a reason for the artist to practice self-censorship? I say, "NO." Let human stupidity NOT be taken as a legitimate limitation on what people may express.
Eminem's music, in particular the songs "Kim" and "Stan," is a continuation of a tradition in music and American art in general: the Gothic murder ballad, which has been with us ever since the blues or Appalachian folk music. "Stan" is just like an Edgar Allan Poe tale, if you think about it. Johnny Cash shot a man just to watch him die. This is something that's had a very solid, longstanding role in culture.
Self-styled moralists are getting up in arms about something that has always been part of the literature of development. If you're a kid, you have to learn about violence, about hate, about death, about fear. That's part of becoming an adult. And if it's not fed to you by Eminem, you're going to get it from your own nightmares. The illusion that kids need to be protected from that is connected to a kind of fetishizing of innocence, which is unrealistic.
Ann Powers
Music critic, the New York Times
Reprinted from the TV Guide
That's Just the Way I Am
Most of us feel hemmed in by the pressure to give a "nice" impression on the world no matter how we feel. That's one of the reasons why we experience Eminem as such a liberating force. Not only doesn't he come across as "nice," he goes as far away from "nice" as any singer that comes to mind.
I'm the bad guy who makes fun of people that die
in plane crashes and laughs
As long as it ain't happened to him
- Encore
- Mosh, Em's rousing anti-bush-fascism-blood-for-oil video.
- Michael Jackson
- Jeers
- Cheers
Other Music I Like
Hole in the Infinite