Whatever You Say I Am_ The Life and Times of Eminem - Anthony Bozza [120]
The white rapper with a story to tell has piqued the interest of sectors of the media and populace that had hitherto ignored this thing called hip-hop. They finally had a reason to learn about it, whether it was to discover how or why or if it was dangerous that this blond white kid was a hardcore rapper, or to better comprehend American youth, most of whom had something to say about Eminem. In 2002, Eminem explained himself and his roots more clearly than he ever had, through two accessible, engaging, masterful pieces of art: 8 Mile and The Eminem Show. Those Americans that hadn’t done so before, listened, and though they hadn’t shown the same courtesy to generations of black rappers, mainstream America wanted to understand Eminem, to relate to him, to take care of him.
America has adopted Eminem like a troubled foster child whose problems could no longer be ignored. An unlikely cross section of Americans also wanted to define themselves in his image, to embrace him, to find similarities between their lives and his, no matter how tenuous. It was more than celebrity-worship, it was the casting of a white, male icon, one who could only become so because the values of the times made his harshest moments acceptable, virtually unnoticeable. He was also acknowledged because he spoke from, to, and about the moral heart of mainstream America. Eminem’s values were not learned through a life on the streets; they were learned as the oldest child of a single mother who was struggling to get by.
“People now understand that this is a pained guy,” says Shelby Steele. “He didn’t have the best, most classic American childhood. And he’s obviously singing about it. America gives people like that a chance. I think at the beginning they thought he was another Vanilla Ice, a kind of fraudulent figure who was stealing the thunder of rap music, who was being really extreme just for its own sake. Now people sense that there’s something more to it, that it has its own authenticity. He won a point there, won a battle. How long he’ll keep going, I don’t know. But people have given him a chance.”
People had given Eminem and, by extension, what he meant to them, a chance. Maybe in Eminem mainstream America sees what their kids could have been. Positive or negative, there is something about Eminem that reflects our culture back at us. To some, it isn’t a pretty picture. “Eminem is a paranoid male personality with a sense of aggrievement that is out of proportion to reality, which is then projected through his music so that millions of people sign on to the paranoia,” says Richard Goldstein.
The contradictory values embodied in Eminem’s lyrics meet subtly and uncomfortably, titillating, taunting, and aggravating, sometimes all at once. He explores the depth of his most violent fantasies, lampoons every norm and authority, and in his merciless dissection of his own white American family unit, he exposes conditions common to many. Eminem was shunned and embraced for the same act, meaning that America not only has changed its mind since he arrived on the pop-culture scene, America, too, has changed. He is the voice of a generation who loves no one truly (but his daughter). Maybe that fact alone is the reason why America fell in love with him. As Richard Goldstein says, “You find women picking guys who are like Eminem and getting into relationships with damaged guys. The real character Eminem portrays is very, very damaged. A guy who wants to be at the top of a male pecking order is not going to be able to be intimate with you. Is that