Photo from eminem.com
Eminem is spent. The classic three-album run he scored at the turn of the millennium (The Slim Shady LP, The Marshall Mathers LP, and The Eminem Show) was enough to secure his stature as a legend, showcasing a formidable technical and lyrical talent that was unafraid to shock and potentially alienate his fan base. But unfortunately, his shock value relied in no small part on homophobia and violent misogyny. And he’s still doing the exact same thing he was doing 15 years ago to his detriment as both an artist and a potentially relevant cultural figure.
Railing against gay people on a mainstream record in 2000, as he did on The Marshall Mathers LP, wasn’t terribly difficult. Eminem defended his lyrics by citing the use of the word “faggot” in battle raps, saying: “The lowest degrading thing that you can say to a man when you’re battling him is to call him a faggot and try to take away his manhood […] ‘Faggot’ to me doesn’t necessarily mean gay people. ‘Faggot’ to me just means taking away your manhood.”
Eminem’s excuse attempts to decontextualize the word, but instead demonstrates why it’s so dangerous. Even when Eminem isn’t talking about gay people, he still believes calling someone a gay slur is the most degrading thing you can say to a “man.” By “man,” he of course means “a straight man.” I wonder whether Eminem would still use the word if he thought there might be an actual gay man at one of these “battles”—imagine how much more degrading it would be then.
It’s also remarkable how similar this excuse is to the one he offered for his use of the same word in his technically dazzling but incredibly homophobic 2013 single “Rap God”: “It was more like calling someone a bitch or a punk or asshole. So that word was just thrown around so freely back then. It goes back to that battle, back and forth in my head, of wanting to feel free to say what I want to say, and then [worrying about] what may or may not affect people.”
This is not the battle. In Detroit, Eminem was not rapping for the public; as a superstar, he is. This is why his recent line about Lana Del Rey “Bitch I’ll punch Lana Del Rey twice in the face like Ray Rice” (at 14:50) is particularly insidious. Eminem spat this particular couplet at a cypher promoting Shady XV, the new compilation album from his vanity label Shady Records. Eminem not only knew this would be viewed by millions, he wanted it to be. And his mindset has not changed since he first threatened to smack Pamela Anderson 15 years ago on The Slim Shady LP.
He knows these tactics will court him attention, but he’s on a far too large platform to peddle such archaic-seeming “shock value.” Many of Eminem’s straight, male fans have never even seen a gay person or had either a friendship or a relationship with a woman. It’s bad enough that many of the films, songs and television shows ingrained in American cultural consciousness are deeply homophobic and/or misogynistic. But when someone who’s still at least somewhat relevant is broadcasting those same prejudices, it might suggest to those people that nothing has changed. Eminem’s time has come, and there is nothing more he can or should contribute to music.