On
Gay
marshals in all the major American cities flipped off the spin.
Jeff Epperly, former editor of Boston’s GLBT
weekly Bay Windows, articulated
the commonly held belief (promoted by gay writer Michelangelo Signorile)
that John was motivated solely by self-interest:
“Let me say this for the record about Sir Elton: I love his music,
even if John himself is a self-serving hypocrite who’ll sell out his dead
friends and his principles in a desperate attempt to seem hip to Eminem’s
record-buying fans.”
Incensed
activists counted 18 uses of the word “faggot” in Eminem’s album, The
Marshall Mathers LP, which won three Grammys at the event. Jim M. Garry, Executive Director of
GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), issued this
media alert: “We are disappointed that Sir Elton John will
be performing with Eminem at the Grammy Awards. . . . GLAAD is appalled that John would share
the stage with Eminem, whose words and actions promote
hate and violence against gays and lesbians.” In their widely distributed “Open
Letter to Elton John,” Robin Tyler and Adam Thayer were less diplomatic:
“By agreeing to appear on stage as back-up singer to Eminem,
[Elton John] is spitting on the grave of Matthew Shepard and every hate crime
murder victim.”
The P.C. Left Goes To Far
Add
to this the left's insistence that Elton John's behavior in sharing the stage
with Eminem is ‘shockingly inappropriate,’ a statement
which quite frankly hasn't thus far been met with the kind of outrage I felt
upon reading it. How dare anyone suggest that Elton John
"needs to find his conscience," as though he had somehow "betrayed
his people" by singing with this man. Aren't the photographs on the front pages of
newspapers around the world, of Eminem, the so-called
homophobe, wrapped up in a hug with the queerest man in the universe, worth
it?
Sorry, Cynthia. The autistic ideological Left, like the ideological Right, tends to caricature anything deemed hostile, politically dangerous, and incorrect. Doing so makes it easy to malign and trounce its enemies. While those tenured radicals of the left-leaning Academy call for the deconstruction of social texts that are based on binary opposition—this/that, black/white, good/evil, etc.—their disciples on the political front do just the opposite and end up promoting the “dominant paradigm” they allegedly want to subvert. Their mantra is: You are either with us or you are with them. Sound familiar, George W. Bush, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson?
My respect for him notwithstanding, I totally disagree with his take on Eminem. Or, rather, I find it so steeped in mainstream liberal sentiment that I believe he can’t see beyond its tight-fitting blinders. In his 8 Reasons Eminem's Popularity is A Disaster for Women he writes:
For all of his vaunted “honesty" and presumed vulnerability, the misanthropically cartoonish "Slim Shady" persona that Marshall Mathers hides behind requires (at least publicly) a purging of anything that can be associated with femininity. Hence you hear from Eminem (and Dr. Dre) a steady stream of "bitch-slapping" misogyny peppered with anti-gay invective, all in the service of establishing their "hardness." The irony, of course, is that this hypermasculine posturing—so dismissive of women—produces homoerotic tensions in the inner sanctum of hip hop maleness, which then requires Eminem and Dre (and other gangsta rappers) to verbally demonstrate their heterosexuality by attacking gays. It's an embarrassingly predictable process.
“Homoerotic tensions in the inner sanctum of hip hop maleness”? Is this what Eminem means when, in his song “My Daddy’s Gone Crazy,” he raps:
Fuckin'
brain's brawn, and brass balls
I cut 'em off, I got 'em
pickled and bronzed in a glass jar
Inside of a hall, with my framed autograph,
Sunglasses with Elton John's name on my drag wall
I'm out the closet, I been lyin' my ass off
All this time, me and Dre been fuckin'
with hats off
Come on now, really. Do these lyrics reek of heterosexuality and hypermasculine posturing? Consider the alleged “hardness” of words associated with manhood. “Brawn” doesn’t refer to a masculine body-type but to that geekiest of human organs—the brain. And those “brass balls” are “bronzed” as a result of being cut off and “pickled . . . in a glass jar”! Is Eminem’s and Dre’s heterosexuality verbally demonstrated here by way of attacking gays? I think not. And while Elton John’s gayness is alluded to, he is represented through objects (sunglasses and a framed autograph displayed on the rapper’s wall) that speak primarily to his status as a renowned pop star.
I don't think that Eminem "hates" gays or women. He's just a vitriolic, in-your-face, feigning-gangsta rapper who talks a talk that, like it or not, speaks to a great many young people in the United States who feel institutionally disenfranchized from a culture whose traditional figureheads they increasingly regard with suspicious belligerence. Although Jackson compares him to right-wing radio personalities like Rush Limbaugh, Eminem is far from performing at the Republican National Convention. He is not a conformist to the political agendas of the powers that be. To me, he is not about bashing so much as he is about bashing back. Consider this allegedly “homophobic” reference from “Bitch Please”:
So when you see me dressin’ up like a nerd on TV
Or heard the CD usin’ the fag word so freely
It’s just me being me—here, want me to tone it down?
(Lowering voice pitch) Suck my fuckin dick, you faggot!
You happy now?
O the homophobia! (And homoeroticism!) Question: who’s the “you” Eminem is addressing in this excerpt? Faggots? No. It’s the people who are on his case about using the word “faggot.” He’s not attacking gay men but the attitude of activists that have labeled him "antigay." Check out this so-called homophobic and misogynistic diatribe (from “I Remember”) that has whipped activists into a frenzy:
You
fuckin punk, pussy, you fuckin faggot,
sissy, fuck
And by the way, a 380's a fuckin sissy gun
If you're gonna shoot somebody use a fuckin real gun
You little bitch
Next time you say my fuckin name in a song
Don't be subliminal about it
You wanna fuckin diss me, diss me you fuckin faggot
You fuckin punk, pussy, you fuckin
little bitch, fuckin cunt
That
folks take these laughably silly lyrics seriously
is beyond me. Taken out of context, it would be easy to use this excerpt to
demonstrate Eminem’s virulent homophobia and misogyny. But the “you” here is Erick Shrody, a.k.a. Everlast, who like
Eminem is a straight white male rapper. Shrody verbally bashed
Eminem and the ever-sensitive Eminem is bashing back. While
he uses terms that traditionally excoriate women and gay men, the object of
Eminem's attack is neither gay nor female. This
is significant. By not
using these words to refer to what they commonly signify—women and gay men—I
submit that Eminem broadens their meanings and helps
subvert their power to classify, define, and hurt.
I’ll
ignore my urge to draw on semiotic theory here and instead offer a personal
example. In 1971, at the recording of his hateful song
“How Do You Sleep?” peacenik John Lennon was videotaped calling Paul McCartney
a “cunt” (this can be seen in the Lennon documentary
Imagine). That was the first time I ever
heard this term applied to a man, and from then on, in my mind, “cunt” has been a much less stable and gender-specific invective.
While feminists and gay activists wring their hands and decry Eminem's
vitriolic vocabulary, I encourage everyone to follow his
example and start calling obnoxious straight guys (when appropriate,
that is) “bitches,” "pussies,” “faggots,”
and "cunts." Now, that would be a real revolution.
F**k you, Bitch!
Ultimately, it all comes down to language and whose language is dominant—the politically correct rhetoric of the Left or the raw street rap of Eminem and millions of people like him. Clearly, the Eminem phenomenon is seen as undermining the discourse the Left has sought mightily to promulgate among the masses. Recounting an Eminem concert he attended during the “Anger Management” tour, presumably on a sociological mission, Jackson describes this stirring moment:
At
one point, Eminem ripped off a string of angry expletives
about his mother, (something like "F-you, bitch!") after which a
sizable cross-section of the 18,000 person crowd joined in a violent chant
repeating the verbal aggression against Ms. Mathers
(and no doubt other mothers by extension).
“F-you”? Who the fuck ever says F-you? Eight
year-olds flirting with the notion of being naughty?
The language of Jackson Katz (“a string of angry expletives”) and the
language of Eminem (“Fuck you, bitch!”) appeal to,
and are endorsed by, the expectations and assumptions of their respective
audiences. Not unlike Eminem,
…Eminem’s success tells us something about ourselves—something that progressive, feminist, egalitarian and nonviolent people in this era of white male backlash and militarism find quite disheartening.
I concur with the theory that language constructs our “reality.” In order to preserve and promote their version of “reality,” ideologues prefer to freeze signifiers and stabilize cultural signs so that their political positions are all that’s signified. When judged solely according to the concepts and sentiments of the progressive, feminist, egalitarian discourse of left-wing activism, yes indeed, Eminem is a monster.
The language and ideology of the dominant class has always been used to demonize those who don’t speak or subscribe to it. When, as in the case of Eminem, that language—and the entire ideology it supports—is threatened, the true conservatives run to the rescue. In order to make an uncomfortable phenomenon fit into their world view and vulnerable to critique, ideologues employ reductionist tactics like stereotyping. Hence Eminem is a "bully," an “abuser,” a “misogynist” and "homophobe" who “advocates” the rape of women and “promotes” violence against gays. But is Eminem really all these things? Again, let’s go the texts—in this case, from the rap "Just Don't Give A Fuck":
I'm a caged demon, on stage screamin like Rage Against
the Machine
I'm convinced I'm a fiend, shootin up while this
record is spinnin
Clinically brain dead, I don't need a second opinion
Fuck droppin the jewel, I'm flippin
the sacred treasure
I'll bite your motherfuckin style, just to make
it fresher
I can't take the pressure, I'm sick of bitches
Sick of naggin bosses bitchin
while I'm washin dishes
In school I never said much, too busy havin a headrush
Doin too much rush had my face flushed like red
blush
Then I went to Jim Beam, that's when my face grayed
Went to gym in eighth grade, raped the women's swim team
Don't take me for a joke I'm no comedian
Too many mental problems got me snortin coke and
smokin weed again
I'm goin up over the curb, drivin
on the median
Is this the voice of a misogynist advocating the rape of women? Or is it the voice of a fucked-up, substance-abusing, working-class kid who, while high in eighth grade, has a brief adolescent fantasy? Is this the voice of a tough-talking bully, this self-described “caged demon,” a “fiend” with “too many mental problems” who snorts coke, smokes weed, shoots up, has “headrushes,” and is “clinically brain dead”? The persona Jackson and other activists construct of Eminem and treat as ineffable, along with its “hypermasculine posturing,” is hard to see here. This guy has bounced the curb and is driving on the median not because he’s a hypermacho hot rod. He’s just zoned out of his freaking mind.
Check
out his so-called misogyny: “I can't
take the pressure, I'm sick of bitches / Sick of
naggin bosses bitchin while I'm
washin dishes.” Because
he uses the word “bitches,” language-police are quick on the draw and swift
with the trigger: A misogynist! But is Eminem referring
to women here? As I’ve demonstrated, Eminem
doesn’t use this word exclusively for females.
How do we know these “bitches” aren’t asshole men in a position of
authority over the dishwashing persona of this rap? After all, in the very next line it’s the “bosses”
who are “bitchin”—and the vast majority of bosses
in the economic sphere, as feminists rightly point out, are men.
The Real Radical
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