Whatever You Say I Am_ The Life and Times of Eminem - Anthony Bozza [113]
Whereas bands such as Korn and the crop of new metal bands that have sprung up in their wake express their rage and childhood hurt more through sound and veiled lyrics, Eminem relates his story in details that at the least allow the listener to decide if he is or is not a misogynist. “I used to really hate Eminem, for two reasons,” says author and journalist Farai Chideya. “One is that he’s a total misogynist and two is that he’s gotten a free ride for a lot of things from the press. Now I’ve taken a step back from my initial reaction to him. I do think he’s an incredible artist who has developed a unique style. And I still think he’s a misogynist who gets a free ride from the press.”
Eminem’s ubiquitous love for his daughter and efforts to be a good father flesh out his persona, and complicate the issue by enabling the public to very easily access through his lyrics a more rounded portrait of a hardcore rapper. In the fundamental message of his art, Eminem sketches himself from all sides: as an angry white man, as the product of a damaged home and a dysfunctional romance, and as a doting, protective, sensitive father. There is enough humanity in Eminem’s work to balance his harshest statements, to lend credence to the belief that it is only a pose. His detractors would say, of course, that the same sensitivity is also a pose.
“I loved people like Dr. Dre and Snoop and they had a whole school of lyrics where bitches ain’t nothing but ‘hos and tricks,’” says Sia Michel, editor in chief of Spin magazine, the first woman to helm a national rock publication. “That school of lyrics had been going since the late eighties, even with 2 Live Crew. So by the time Eminem came around, to a certain point, you were desensitized towards it if you had been listening to hip-hop for a while. What I think happens with women is that you listen to the lyrics and you look at the person as a whole and try to decide for yourself if the person is really, really sexist or not. I think with Eminem, women look at him and say, ‘OK, he raps about Kim rotting in pieces but he’s an adoring father to a little girl.’ He had what to most people would look like a pretty bad childhood and that evokes sympathy in women, that sort of, whatever, feeling about taking care of them and mothering them. And I think he works that very strongly on women as well. He makes anyone think that if he loves his daughter that much, he can’t really be that bad, which is what a lot of young women think.”
Further to that point, Richard Goldstein feels that Eminem’s praise in the mainstream media in 2003 was not analyzed along gender lines and thus represents a dangerous evolution in the resurgence of male domination in American culture.
“The primary subject of Eminem’s music until recently was the restoration of male authority and macho,” Goldstein says. “When he did his famous performance at the MTV Awards and he marched down the aisle with a regiment of men who looked exactly like him, he sort of seized the stage and the crowd was on its feet, roaring. It was this image of a phalanx of males marching, in uniform, seizing the center of attention—it was a very powerful image of male restoration. That is the idea in Eminem’s music that people don’t see that is very frightening to me. I’m not saying he’s responsible for violence against women or that there’s a problem with enjoying his music. The problem is enjoying it without examining it. Once we stop discussing what it means, this stuff will begin to assert itself as a social value. It seeps in, and because it’s so popular and profitable, many other people do the same thing and eventually it’s a ruthless message with this ideology in it. And that is