Trigger warning

SAFER Board member Jen sent me two articles today that I think go hand in hand. The first is this (really great) piece from Jackson Katz on the rampant misogyny on Eminem’s latest album, Relapse [warning: this post got really long, so if you want to get to the uplifting part and skip my complaining about the media, scroll down to the end]. The article focuses on the media’s reaction to the album—a largely positive reaction that rarely mentions or criticizes the multiple descriptions of rape and other violent acts against women. Take for example, these (insanely disturbing) lyrics, from a song called “Stay Awake”:

Fe Fi Fo Fum
I think I smell the scent of a placenta
I enter central park, it’s dark, it’s winter in December
I see my target with my car, and park and approach her tender
Young girl by the name of Brenda and I pretend to befriend her
Sit down beside her like a spider, hi there girl you mighta
Heard of me before, see whore you’re the kinda girl that I’da
Assault and rape and figure why not try to make your pussy wider
Fuck you with an umbrella then open it up while that shits inside ya

Now, I’m really hard to shock most of the time. But that made me double-take, and then it made me recoil in horror. Because it’s really fucking disgusting. Music critics, however, aren’t as horrified. Katz writes:

With a few notable exceptions, such as Alan Ranta on the web site Pop Matters calling Relapse “chauvinistic hate-speech,” the high priests of cultural criticism in the journalistic mainstream seem to have decided that Eminem’s virulent misogyny is no longer even worthy of a mention, much less an appropriate subject of extended commentary and critique. Is it truly possible that women’s lives have been so thoroughly devalued that a multi-platinum musical artist with nine Grammy awards to his name can sing multiple songs about raping and mutilating women and hip sophisticates can’t even bring themselves to utter the words “woman-hating?”

It is as if critics have decided that 1) there is (still) nothing wrong with one of the most celebrated musical artists in the world devoting multiple songs to verbal attacks on women and girls, as long as there’s a catchy beat and the content is rationalized as “dark comedy,” or 2) homicidal misogyny has become so commonplace in entertainment media that there is no further need to discuss it.

Indeed. I went over to Rolling Stone to do my own research. Rob Sheffield’s 4 star review of the album mentions the vile lyrics briefly, and not in the context of how appalling they are, just that the most offensive songs aren’t that good:

In phony woman-baiting and gay-hating rants like “Stay Wide Awake,” he sounds like an old retired hockey coach yelling at the kids on his lawn. In moments like these, he sounds unsure of himself, trying to guess what people expect from him, and that eager-to-please sweat doesn’t suit him. It’s no coincidence that the one where he raps about killing Lindsay and Britney is called “Same Song and Dance,” as if even he realizes how played-out these jokes are — the only shocker is that he left out Nicole Richie.

Aw, poor Eminem. The world expects him to deliver music about raping and murdering women, so he has to forsake his artistic integrity and deliver. Boo hoo. SERIOUSLY?????

Much has always been made of the fact that Eminem’s most violent and upsetting lyrics come not from the mouth of Marshall Mathers, but his alter-ego, Slim Shady. The argument is—I think—Shady represents the unleashed id given full reign and a microphone. While Marshall Mathers wouldn’t ever murder his wife and dump her body in the river while his daughter watches, he can take all of the pain he feels about his failing marriage and channel into an unhinged, fictional version of himself who can can act and speak unrestrained by moral boundaries. Some might call this catharsis. Others might call it a really good excuse to spew hate without facing repercussions because, after all, it isn’t “real.”

There’s a lot of things that need to be unpacked in that argument; a lot to discuss about art and morality, too much for this little blog post. What immediately strikes me though, is that while music journalists are ready to dismiss Eminem’s misogyny as the ludicrous ranting of a fictional character who no one would take seriously anyway (of course!) almost every single review I’ve read talks at great length—and with a good deal of respect—about how the lyrics on Relapse reflect Eminem’s struggles with drug addiction and his own possible childhood abuse. The Rolling Stone review praises the confessional nature of the drug-related songs, and says that the album’s strength comes from the fact that “Em’s doing what he does best: cleaning out his closet.” Sheffield talks a lot about how self-critical the artist is, as well. All of this makes me wonder: how is it OK to treat half of the album’s content sincerely, praising it for its self-reflection, and dismiss the other half as being too outlandish to be taken seriously? How do you write about personal lyrics that deal with abuse without even noting that in the next track, the same artist becomes the abuser? Isn’t there an obvious flaw in this logic? Yes, the id and the super-ego exist together, but one doesn’t cancel out the existence of the other…

At the end of the day I’m not that interested in talking about Eminem the artist or why he should or shouldn’t write what he does. I am, however, as livid at the media response to his lyrics—or lack thereof—as Katz is. Again, he writes:

The silence of mainstream music critics on such matters has been deafening. If an artist’s job is sometimes to be provocative and push boundaries, isn’t it a critic’s job at the very least to ask questions like: What does it say about our culture that Eminem’s lyrics resonate with millions of American men, and even many women? How can we discern the difference between artistic revelation and crass exploitation in Marshall Mathers’ art? Does his vaunted lyrical virtuosity provide us with any insight into the larger belief systems – along with individual motivations — that lie behind men’s sexualized brutality toward women? Is he a brilliant artist exploring important artistic terrain, or is he merely going for cheap voyeuristic thrills at the expense of women, knowing full well that no one will hold him – or his record company — accountable?

…In domestic violence advocacy, there is a term used to describe a situation where people contribute to an abusive man’s behavior by their conscious actions, by their minimization of his crimes, or by their silence. It is called “colluding with the batterer.” It is hard to avoid the conclusion that a society where radio stations continue to play Eminem’s records, people continue to buy them, and critics continue to write about them while leaving out any condemnation of their vicious sexism, is a society that is in profound collusion with the batterer.

If we want to live in a society that prizes the freedom of expression, we also must be responsible for creating a society that values critical thinking and respect. Eminem, or anyone else, can write/rap/sing/paint whatever they want, and theoretically if we all went about our lives with parents and teachers that instilled us with progressive values and had a media that dared to question racism, mysogyny, and homophobia, we would all ingest hateful lyrics and process them ENTIRELY differently. And then, over time, less and less of those lyrics would exists because we would be raising young men who wouldn’t need to create fictional characters to express violent urges toward women. But we aren’t there yet, and we’re not working hard enough to get there. What Katz calls “colluding with the batterer” is also another form of bystander behavior. When we don’t question this kind of “art,” we are guilty.

Which brings me to article number two! The awesome students of Arcadia High School who started a petition to ban songs with mysogynistic lyrics from the school’s prom. The kids got 130 signatures, and got 20 songs removed from the party’s playlist. Madeline Conrique, the senior who started the petition, said she and the Women’s Health and Issues club

“…[weren't] lobbying for the Jonas Bros., Miley Cyrus or other G-rated tunes— they just wanted songs that denigrate or sexually exploit women removed from the play list. For them, Lil’ Wayne is out, Beyonce is in. “We are not trying to push for abstinence,” senior Lani Luo said. “We are just trying to advocate for respect.”

This reminds me of the students at the University of Minnesota who protested a performance by Soulja Boy because of his lyrics about hitting women, and the students at Ohio State University who protested an appearance by Tucker Max, whose writing exploits women in a number of gross ways.

These students are awesome examples of small, important ways resist rape culture. We can’t control what is published or recorded, but we can choose what to buy, what to listen to, and we can fight to control the media that plays in our private spaces. And we definitely can, and should, publicly question hateful words and images when we come across them. I hope one of the kids who signed the Arcadia petition grows up to be a music critic.