Eminem, GLAAD and the VP's Wife. Who's The Real Criminal?

Marshall Mathers III, aka Eminem, aka Slim Shady. The man and the monster everyone seems to have an opinion on lately. Winning three Grammys at this year's awards and receiving a standing ovation for his duet with Elton John, Eminem also drew shrieks of protests from the hundred-or-so vocal protesters who'd gathered outside to protest what they described as "homophobic, misogynist and hate-inspiring lyrics." The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) shared its demonstrating bed with Lynne Cheney, wife of Republican VP Dick and America's 2nd Lady, both bedfellows getting between the sheets to rage against Elton's advocacy.  So what's all the fuss about? Is Eminem a psychopathic homophobe, his music responsible for encouraging the brutal bashing of gays and lesbians? Or is this yet another example of shooting the messenger, like we did with Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho ,  when the guardians of free speech remained silent whilst feminist groups called for the banning of a text that detailed the worst excesses of eighties' consumerism? Could it be that the GLAAD, in its emphatic dismissal of Eminem's message and mayhem, is ready to stand alongside the very people who, in the late 80s, stripped the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) after Jesse Helms tore up Robert Mapplethorpe photos on the Senate floor, howling to all who would listen about the disgrace of good Christian taxpayers' money funding such filth? What price do we pay for freedom of speech?

Much of the brouhaha whipped up by the American media has focused on drawing outlandish conclusions, based on comparing Eminem (the rapping character) to Slim Shady (the extreme and often offensive rapping character) and then suggesting this in some way is a direct mirror of Marshall Mathers' (the recording artist and creator of (the characters) inner thoughts and feelings. It's an easy and very lazy road to take - man writes songs, man sings songs, man must believe what he sings is true. Like most simplistic styles of argument, faced with some scrutiny it crumbles faster than a soggy Sao. For instance, do we honestly think that David Bowie, during his Ziggy Stardust phase, really thought he was Major Tom? Hardly. And though some might argue otherwise, Madonna's pseudo-fascistic, money-hungry role in Evita was almost certainly not a direct replica of her inner psyche. We call it acting, using our imagination. Some might argue that Eminem  has very little imagination, for if he did, “faggot” would never be used so repeatedly. Possibly. But that's a value judgment and one that should be left to an individual's discretion, not to the GLAAD, whose media representative, Romaine Patterson, compared Eminem to Fred Phelps (www.godhatesfags.com) in a recent Advocate interview.Call me old fashioned, but I believe a close analysis of the lyrics, helped by an understanding of their context, is often the best way to see things.

There's no getting around this - Eminem uses the word faggot a lot, and it's not meant as a compliment.  However, Eminem's on the record as saying he uses it as a general putdown, that it's not meant to be taken literally nor to justify the listener's anti-gay feelings.  If you've been paying attention to the debate of which GLAAD has been at the forefront, the most likely section of lyrics from The Marshall Mathers LP you will have seen are: My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge  /  That'll stab you in the head  /  whether you're a fag or lez  /  Or the homosex, hermaph or a trans-a-vest  / Pants or dress - hate fags? The answer's "yes" What GLAAD don't include is the prelude to this, from the song Criminal, which runs as follows: A lot of people ask me.. stupid fuckin questions  /  A lot of people think that.. what I say on record  /  or what I talk about on a record, that I actually do in real life  /  or that I believe in it  / Or if I say that I wanna kill somebody, that..  /  I'm actually gonna do it or that I believe in it  /  Well, shit.. if you believe that  /  then I'll kill you  /  You know why?  / Cuz I'm a  /  CRIMINAL  /  CRIMINAL  /  You god damn right  /  I'm a CRIMINAL  / Yeah, I'm a CRIMINAL  /  My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge/That'll stab you in the head ...etc. For anyone to seriously believe that Eminem wants them to take these lyrics seriously, whether you're thirteen or thirty, is a supreme leap of judgment and requires a huge suspension of intelligence. For further confirmation, Eminem told MTV's Kurt Loder on the Friday following the Grammys, "If I didn't make a statement with Elton John tonight, I don't know what else to do." What else does Eminem need to do to make things clear?

Undoubtedly it's the contradictions in Eminem's work that arouse our suspicions. As you can see in the following excerpt, one minute he's adolescently coarse and crude but the next he's using strong language to criticize the social situations that allow people to deflect responsibility onto others: You want me to fix up lyrics while the President  /  gets his dick sucked?  /  {ewwww} Fuck that, take drugs, rape sluts  / Make fun of gay clubs, men who wear make-up  /  Get aware, wake up, get a sense of humor  /  Quit tryin to censor music, this is for your kid's amusement  /  (The kids!) But don't blame me when lil' Eric jumps off of theterrace  /  You shoulda been watchin him - apparently you ain't parents-  /  So who's bringin the guns in this country? (Hmm?)  /  I couldn't sneak a plastic pellet gun through customs over in  / London  /  And last week, I seen a Schwarzenegger movie  /  where he's shootin all sorts of these motherfuckers with a uzi  /   I sees three little kids, up in the front row,  / screamin "Go," with their 17-year-old Uncle  /  I'm like, "Guidance - ain't they got the same moms and dads  /  who got mad when I asked if they liked violence?" (WhoKnew) What gets lost among the fucks and faggots is how adroitly the rapper manages to criticize American society at the same time as he reveals its worst aspects. It's similar to Hubert Selby Jr's in Last Exit To Brooklyn or Oliver Stone's Wall Stree t. Hence the culture of binge drinking and spousal abuse comes under attack in Drug Ballad: Then in a couple of minutes that bottle of Guiness is finished  /  You are now allowed to officially slap bitches  /  You have the right to remain violent and start wilin'  /  Start a fight with the same guy that was smart eyin' you  /  Get in your car, start it, and start drivin'  /  Over the island and cause a 42 car pile-up And yet why is it that Selby Jr. and Stone are lauded whilst the man whose real name is Marshall Mathers gets harangued for his portrayals of deranged characters?

More recently GLAAD's arguments have switched from arguing for censorship to implying that Eminem's target audience are unlikely to get the subtleties and narrative distances that pervade Eminem's work. On the surface, again, it's been convincingly posited that a twelve year-old is unlikely to see the irony or to accept that Eminem is not encouraging violence. But if we take this to its obvious conclusions, GLAAD could well be arguing that Kevin Smith's Dogma, in which God is beaten with hockey sticks by two youths, somehow encourages religious violence. It's impossible on the one hand to argue that impressionable kids are likely to copy the rapper's lyrics and transform them into action whilst on the other maintaining that irony and satire are acceptable forms of undermining traditional cultural stereotypes and prejudices. As Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello said at the Grammys, "There's two arguments here - either you're for freedom of speech or you're against it." Perhaps veteran gay journalist Rex Wockner summed it up best in his recent column on Planetout.com, writing that maybe the gay and lesbian community should thank Eminem - after all, everyone's talking about us, everyone's analyzing the power of language. And that's an important point to remember next time someone wants you to condemn outright something that you haven't read or listened to, based purely on a report in the media. Out of all this, there's one thing I know for sure though. I don't like seeing  the peak gay and lesbian media body  in America standing side by side with a Republican 2nd Lady who won't even publicly support her lesbian daughter. A strange alliance indeed.

This Essay was published in the journal/online zine Prose-ax