Will the real Slim Shady please stand up? After coming under fire for the homophobic lyrics in his new song “Rap God” (sample lyric: “”Little gay-looking boy / So gay I can barely say it with a straight face-looking boy” and “You faggots think it’s all a game ’til I walk a flock of flames.”), Eminem is once again backtracking on the hatred he’s spewing.
In a just released interview with Rolling Stone, he’s called out on the lyrics, and his response is…deeply unsatisfying.
RS: You’ve made it clear again and again that you don’t actually have a problem with gay people. So why, in 2013, use “faggot” on that song? Why use “gay-looking” as an insult?
Eminem: I don’t know how to say this without saying it how I’ve said it a million times. But that word, those kind of words, when I came up battle-rappin’ or whatever, I never really equated those words?.?.?.
RS: To actually mean “homosexual”?
Eminem: Yeah. 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. And, not saying it’s wrong or it’s right, but at this point in my career – man, I say so much shit that’s tongue-in-cheek. I poke fun at other people, myself. But the real me sitting here right now talking to you has no issues with gay, straight, transgender, at all. I’m glad we live in a time where it’s really starting to feel like people can live their lives and express themselves. And I don’t know how else to say this, I still look at myself the same way that I did when I was battling and broke.
RS: I kind of thought you were doing it because when you’re rapping as Slim Shady, part of your mission is to annoy people.
Eminem: Well, look, I’ve been doing this shit for, what, 14 years now? And I think people know my personal stance on things and the personas that I create in my music. And if someone doesn’t understand that by now, I don’t think there’s anything I can do to change their mind about it.
Sorry, Eminem, but wouldn’t a rapper who is as “brilliant” as you’re purported to be find some other way to insult people, or better yet leave the insults out altogether? Are we supposed to believe that all those listening to songs that advocate antigay violence are savvy enough to see the alleged commentary at hand? For all those still interested in washed up rappers or who want to channel their inner 13 year old boy, The Marshall Mathers LP 2 is out today.
NateB79
He gets the publicity every single album. Each new album is the same thing. He uses faggot like most people use the, gay people get in an uproar, he says it’s not coming from hate, it quiets down again. Til the next cycle.
the other Greg
“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'” – Alice in Wonderland
Kieran
If this punk directed the kind of raw hate towards black or Jewish people in his crap music he’d be history in the entertainment industry. He’d quickly be labeled as “Hitler Jr” or “Grand Rapper of the KKK” and his career would be over. But this little shit knows he can get away with attacking gay people….. and so it goes on…..and gay people get attacked and murdered because of our silence.
Mr. E. Jones
I remember back in the early 1990’s American Klansmen were trying to convince people that n!gger isn’t just a slur at blacks. It was a slur at lazy, ignorant people.
Whites were offended and started denouncing this action and insisting nigger was a racial slur directed at blacks.
It took two years before the Klan and Neo-Nazi’s gave up, because everyone they presented this argument to, thought they were imbeciles, and liars, and rightly so.
Today hets have managed to convince the world that it’s ok to use gay slurs, because hets have decided that those words don’t mean what the LGBTQ community thinks they mean. And everyone has accepted their definition, with little concern about what the gay community feels.
What a world we live.
Mr. E. Jones
I remember back in the early 1990’s American Klansmen were trying to convince people that n!gger isn’t just a slur at blacks. It was a slur at lazy, ignorant people.
Whites were offended and started denouncing this action and insisting n!gger was a racial slur directed at blacks.
It took two years before the Klan and Neo-Nazi’s gave up, because everyone they presented this argument to, thought they were imbeciles, and liars, and rightly so.
Today hets have managed to convince the world that it’s ok to use gay slurs, because hets have decided that those words don’t mean what the LGBTQ community thinks they mean. And everyone has accepted their definition, with little concern about what the gay community feels.
What a world we live.
Pistolo
He doesn’t use the n-word, no matter what “character” he plays he doesn’t use that word. He also seems to think of faggot as a synonym for “bitch” and “punk” which are denoted to effeminate or cowardly men which plays heavily into the connotation of the word “faggot”.
He still is homophobic in my eyes, don’t care what he says. He’s still a homophobe. Those of us who had to go to school listening to our peers sing his homophobic songs didn’t really hear any convincing rationalizations in the lyrics.
jimbryant
Eminem has a tired old marketing strategy based on the same old formula. All he really cares about is money. At 41, he’s probably figured out that a few more years of money-making is all he’s got before his credibility totally expires.
There’s a use-by date to multi-millionaires with increasingly croaky voices claiming to still have connections to poor 15 year olds from the hood.
Scribe38
@Pistolo: actually he did when he started out on underground battle tapes… Years after he made it a magazine (rolling stones?) uncovered and went after him on the n-word use. Nothing ever really came from it. I don’t think he should use either word, and that’s why I stopped years ago from buying his cds. Gay people say it all the time… Blk people say it all the time doesn’t fly. If you don’t belong to that group certain words shouldn’t come out of your mouth. And if it does, don’t be surprised when people call you r@cist/homophobic/pieces of sh!T
Mr. E. Jones
@Pistolo:
He doesn’t use the n-word, no matter what “character” he plays he doesn’t use that word.
Some years back an old mix tape of his surfaced where he said the only thing black girls care about is money. There was a furor over those lyrics from the black community, and Eminem immediately apologized, and denounced those lyrics. Amazing what pressure from certain communities can do to make this man apologize.
jimbryant
Oh, and if he’s playing character, why doesn’t Eminem play an anti-Jewish charactter? Maybe his tongue is stuck too far up his producer Rick Rubin’s behind for him to do that.
jimbryant
If Eminem and Rick Rubin were having sex with each other, who would be the top and who would be the bottom?
Mr. E. Jones
@jimbryant:
Emenem would be the bottom, no matter who he’s with. Look at his body language when he’s pictured with other males–always looking submissive. I guess that’s why he throws out anti-gay slurs, to feel butch.
Pistolo
@Mr. E. Jones: Oh yeah, he’s always quick to correct racism. I even read a quote from him where he said he would advise people to not use the n-word because it isn’t “ours” to use. But he must really not feel threatened by gay people because you can just go gangbusters on the word, according to him.
I am so mad, I’m breathing fire over this with molten lava in my veins. This is why just legalizing gay marriage isn’t enough, if someone can go out there with lyrics like THIS and not totally be cast out…there’s still disgusting, rampant homophobia.
Elloreigh
“It was more like calling someone a bitch or a punk or asshole.”
If that’s how Eminem defines it, then I have no problem with saying he’s a faggot according to his own definition of the word.
Also, I nominate him for “Douche of the Week”.
anna27
He’s a bully and picks on the people he knows he can get away with picking on.