Rabbie Burns reincarnated? (Eminem in general)

Member Name: pje

Product:	Eminem in general
Date:	29/08/01 (189 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lyrical genius.

Disadvantages: Obnoxious and offensive.

Marshall Bruce Mathers III was born on October 17th, 1972,
in St. Joseph, Missouri, he grew up without knowing his father, living in one trailer park after another and being shunted from school to school. Always an outsider, he was victimized by bullies. Once he was knocked unconscious and lapsed into a coma for several days. It is claimed that this triggered his subsequent
anti-social behaviour. The only constant figure in his childhood, apart from his mother, was her brother Ronnie, and he killed himself when they were both 19. Surely his disaffection towards the world is an inevitable consequence of these experiences.

Now I risk being called a lily-livered bleeding-heart liberal who blames everything on society rather than the individual here:
but do you really think he would write the stuff he does if he had grown up with nice middle-class parents in Chipping Sodbury?
No, you don't. By the way, if you do call me a lily-livered bleeding-heart liberal I'll smash your face in (...if that's okay with you.)

Some young American misfits get their revenge on society
by taking a gun into school and shooting people, but Eminem
has found a much more dangerous weapon: words.

Being subversive with words is a valuable way of debunking society's hypocrisy. Personally, I like to pass comments like: "Ooooh isn't this entertaining" whenever there's a bloody murder (or a body being dug up, or a post-mortem) in a popular TV show or film. This does not go down well. Try it yourself sometime. Being made to face their own rubber-necked voyeurism makes people uncomfortable. It's much easier to condemn others.

A former governor of the B.B.C. has murdered dozens of people. Her name is P.D. James - she writes murder mysteries. So that's all right then. That's fiction. Murder for entertainment. That's fine. But rappers like Eminem can't be classed with proper writers can
they? And anyway, Eminem is poor white trash, he can't possibly have the intelligence to invent a satirical character... Just remind me, who is it that's being accused of prejudice here?

Slim Shady is an obnoxious misogynist homophobic scumbag. There's no doubt about that. But will the real Eminem please stand up? No, probably not. As with Ali G. the question is one
of intent. Reality or spoof? Sexism or satire?

Only they know their own minds. We can never know for sure. And so we have to make a choice: Do we give them the benefit
of the doubt, tolerate what they do and admire their talent?
Or do we condemn, censor and ban?

After investigating the suicide of a 17-year-old Eminem fan, a coroner described the lyrics of Eminem's song(?) "Rock Bottom"
as "pretty miserable stuff." But then again, I expect he would have said much the same sort of thing about "Romeo & Juliet"!
Eminem - the Shakespeare of his generation? (Maybe he will prove it someday by writing sonnets and dedicating them to
a man, but I'm not holding my breath!)

And what about Tennyson:

Come not, when I am dead,
To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,
To trample round my fallen head,
And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save,
There let the wind sweep and the plover cry;
But thou, go by.

Or in other words:
I'm going to top myself and when I'm dead you can all **** off.

Oh yes, poetry is much more than daffodils and urns you know,
and poets have often been controversial figures. Lord Byron was famously described as being "mad, bad and dangerous to know."

So is it all just a case of history repeating? Well, it could be...

A Scottish music promoter has come up with the incredible suggestion that Eminem might be a descendant of Rabbie Burns! Supposedly there is a striking resemblance between th
em - well, it is the silly season!

But, with hindsight, his forenames (Marshall Bruce) should have made it obvious that the he has Scottish roots, and according
to his gran (Betty Kresin) Eminem's great-great-great-granny, Ailsa Macalister, was born in Edinburgh in 1847, and emigrated
to New York in 1870. Oh, and any young American anti-hero can be compared to Holden Caulfield the alienated character from J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher In The Rye - a title gleaned from... ...auld Rabbie! Round and round we go as history encircles us.

Does this sound familiar:

"Poetry, dramatic poetry in particular,
has a bad effect on its audiences,
who learn to admire and imitate the faults it represents.
We cannot, therefore, allow poetry in our ideal state." ?

Those are the words of Plato in his vision of a perfectly ordered society "The Republic" ...circa 375 BC. Maybe the Ancient Greeks had an Eminem of their own to contend with.

There really is nothing new under the sun.
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Vex not thou the poet's mind
with thy shallow wit:
Vex not thou the poet's mind;
For thou canst not fathom it.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
(Poet Laureate 1850-92)
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