THE EMINEM SAGA

Please don’t expect me to excoriate Eminem. If there’s one thing worse than misogynist, violent, homophobic but brilliantly funny hip-hop, it’s humorless, tedious culture warriors of right (Lynne Cheney) or left (GLAAD’s Joan Garry) trying to shut down hideous youthful exuberance. Eminem’s lyrics are vile but they are also deliberately ironic. They have an edge when you listen to them that is truly innovative. And they’re often funny. I think Elton John is to be congratulated for agreeing to duet with Eminem on the inspired track, Stan, about a crazed fan. Engagement, involvement, interaction is far healthier than the snooty condemnation required by the gauleiters of the cultural left. Man, one of them has even wheeled out the old epithet “Uncle Tom” to describe John. Besides, I don’t think pop music should somehow be socially responsible. The point of pop music is to push cultural edges and to get exactly the kind of reaction coming from the usual suspects that Eminem has duly provoked. Don’t his huffing critics realize they are doing exactly what he wants them to do? Have they learned nothing from their endless Kulturkampfs? (By the way, the best piece I’ve read on Eminem was by the terrific writer, David Plotz, of Slate. You can read it here.) In fact, there are some real cultural silver linings to Eminem’s success. He’s a wonderful antidote to p.c. nonsense – proof that the younger generation isn’t buying p.c. liberal cant which is now the orthodoxy for MTV execs. (The other good sign is that they’re still smoking cigarettes.) He’s genuinely post-racial – a young white kid from Detroit who is the new millennium’s definitive example of what Norman Mailer once called the “white negro.” His music transcends racial categories and is therefore truly transgressive. I don’t give a hoot about his 28-year-old adolescent homophobia. I’d be a little disconcerted if the next generation of straight (or gay) adolescent males were politically correct on the issue of homosexuality. And, in fact, Eminem is so obviously, deeply, weirdly transfixed by homosexuality that it doesn’t take a genius to figure out he obviously has some issues himself. So bring him on, I say. We should be able to listen to music that both offends and delights, shocks and intrigues – and that’s what Eminem does, all at once and in irrepressible, irresistible confusion.