OPINIONS

Reader Feedback on "Melts in Your Mouth"

I am a huge Eminem fan and I would like to say that the main problem is a total misinterpretation of his lyrics.People just don't make any difference when he is joking and when he is not. I am a female and I have studied Eminem's lyrics.I can tell you that he is not homophobic nor mysoginistic.He often expresses his feelings of the moment. Eminem's music is his theraphy.It helps him to work out his problems.
--IE
06/07

I think a LOT of people missed the point of this article! It doesn't matter what Eminem's sexual identity is. As the author points out he is not 'gay' by our cultural definitions and never will be. BUT THAT DOESN'T MATTER. Simpson brings up compelling points about the revealing subtext of his lyrics that point to a sense of discomfort in his own masculinity. Fascinating.
--CAS
03/24

This is pretty interesting stuff...YOU FAGGOT! Just kidding. I'm a journalist, too. This is a clever take on the unbelievably talented kid. With tight-assed Army major wife and 13-year-old son, saw Eminem in concert recently. They went crazy over him. He was the most dynamic performer I've seen since Elvis at Hilton, seems like a hundred years ago. Anyway, good piece...gayboy. Hayden Parker imissparis@aol.com
--ehp
09/29

oh fuck u u stupid faggot go suck a dick pussy!!!
--ink
08/07

REMEMEBER!this is my opinion.But, someone should shoot that fucking fagg mark simpson.
--abc
07/06

fuck nerve! a bunch of brady bunch cocksucking dykes.What the fuck makes you think that shit about eminem.My opinion every fucking faggott should be shot in the fucking head.you fucking faggs take this shit too seriously.just because, eminem uses those words doesn't give you motha-fuckers the right 2 judge his ass like some piece of shit. FUCK NERVE!
--car
07/06

fuck that shit.you fuckin faggot.you sick & twisted fuck!
--fuk
07/06

Media is gay.
--KK
05/15

I think Simpson has raised some very valid points about the way we view homosexuality. However, it simply is not fair to judge the artist by the art. You don't know the man. I challenge anyone who doesn't consider Em an artist to give his lyrics a concerned read the way you would, say, Cicero, or Shakespeare. Be sure to take into account that they come from life experiences that are probably radically different from your own. As to the social responsibility involved I have a question: Does anyone really believe that a different soundtrack would have saved the life of a person so disturbed they threw themself in front of a train? I don't. Em didn't make the world the way it is, he just reflected a part we would rather not look at in his art. What's more he has done it in a powerful, thought-provoking and highly marketable way. Mad props and love for the catalyst of discussions like this. Without them we never will overcome homophobia. Rant on Slim.
--B.P.
04/26

ok... is it just me or is everyone that's read this article still in high school?! I'm am slightly disappointed that so much attention was given to such a disgusting non-musician, but Simpson does have real insight. bravo.
--eee
04/26

What a bunch of bull! Young people with brains, a little money and a lot of determination can make a good life for themselves. Women in this country pushed themselves up out of subservience to stand equally among men who used to rule. If men think so little of themselves without the upper hand then they all deserve each other. It's time for guys to dump some of the testosterone and learn to be comfortable with their masculinity, comfortable with their women, and do some attitude adjusting. If sexual pleasure is "all they have left", then let them get hemroids and Aids. THIS is all they'll have left.
--cl
03/08

Very fine sleuthing, Sir. Making sense out of such a confused subject is praiseworthy and a valuable contribution.
--NS
10/29

At last. Mark Simpson has found his oeuvre! This is a brilliant analysis of Eminem, and requires re-reading because of its complex cross-cultural themes, the interpretation of homophobia as a form pro-gay erotica and the modern slant on the Oedipus Complex with Mommie Dearest the single mother being responsible for screwing her blue eyed angel UP! Very interesting. I think Simpson should forget that silly glib book about Morrissey he brought out last year and write a brilliant biorgraphy of Eminem continuing and broadening out the analysis in this piece. Eminem is really the male-madonna, well the only male-madonna we're going to have in this generation, and I think the impact of his image/music on Western society and its implications are very important. So Mark, dip your quill in the ink well and get scratching!
--DF
10/14

A real great essay, with some interesting thoughts. I dont feel I am able to judge if eminem is gay or not, but I think that the reactions of some of his fans (first 2 feedbacks) are really interesting. Why the hell are these guys so furious about an article? They imply beeing called a homosexual is a kind of attentat. They dond't give arguments just insults. It is like they themselve have been threaten.
--n.s.
10/14

Listen you assholes, Eminem is not gay and all you people that think he is gay just want a piece of him (all puns intended) Dont you have anything better to do with your time than sitting around saying how Eminem is gay because he raps about homosexuals, I mean really the word 'Faggot' is used as often as "Whats up" It dosen't have a meaning anymore-fuck walk down the street and you hear it constantly not to the homosexuals but to anyone, it's almost a form acceptance in our culture. Now people who sit around saying Em is gay because he raps about homsexuals, says the word faggot is downright stupid. why dont you sit around and write about how he's a wife beater too now, He does Kill his Ex-wife Kim in his Song "Kim" No ones giving a repulsive review to that so far. Everyone needs to calm the fuck down and stop judging him all because of his lyrics. If he has the guts to sing the kind of songs he sings I give him fucking Props, no one has had the guts to do that and look at Eminems success because of it. I think everyone is jealous of Eminem, he has bank and is fucking famous. And as for him making that "Ken Kannif" Skit, He just dosent like ICP, damn How can anyone sit around and say he's gay or quote "confused" about his sexuality-he has a daughter people HELLO! and his Ex-Wife... now how about we turn the tables and start shit with Nsync but no-no we couldnt do that! because half of you assholes have "daughters" who LOVEEEE them dont you... But I really would like to turn the tables on Nsync. I say they're GAY-5 white boys in a "boy band" you know they get it on everynight! Pretty Boys... They look gay...and you know that if eminem wasnt as famous as he is you people would not give a fuck about what he was saying. And as they say THE ONE WITH THE MONEY HAS THE POWER-EMINEM HAS PLENTY OF BOTH! So I think you guys need to back off, you can have your opinion I DONT CARE- but dont call Eminem gay when you dont even know him or know anything about him, and when Eminem gets wind of this.. watch he rips you in a song too-All Props to Eminem, and for all you out there that dont like it Kiss my Ass!
--F-U
08/22

you just a hater don't hate on this mans skills. so you don't like it but whats the hell that got to do with silm. he don't give a fuck about you but you all in his girll. shake them haters off
--am
06/26

Interesting. Your essay on the proposed homosexuality of Marshall Mathers raises some serious questions. An informative and insightful read, but are you condemning him for his homophobic (and supposedly self depreceating) verbal assaults or are you condemning his critics for failing to see the truth behind them? Anyway, thanks for the essay.
--kaw
06/15

Mark Simpson simply doesn't know what he's talking about in "Melts in Your Mouth." He begs us to see homosexuality as "seditious" and "seductive." Unfortunately, the example he cites is neither. In the existing social milieu, homophobes call one another "fag" as an insult. That's exactly how Eminem took it, and it's exactly how he responded in kind to Insane Clown Posse. How, exactly, has any of this helped to bring about the dissolution of the homophobic society we live in? How, exactly, does Eminem's parody of gay sex (Simpson clued out about the irony in Eminem's lyrics, either purposefully or ignorantly) portray cocksucking as "seductive"? Maybe if this were Pansy Division. Not if it's Eminem. Simpson asks us to understand that the only sex on Eminem's albums concerns gay sex. He's right. But he's wrong in assuming that Eminem is somehow approving of homosexuality. I suppose if Eminem fills an album with heterosexual rape, then we could apply Simpson's logic to this fictious album and say that Eminem is simply talking about the real beauty of hetero-sex. Except that this is the most egregious double-speak I've ever heard. Simpson clings to "Stan" as the song by which we should interpret the rest of Eminem's work. Again, this logic is so twisted it looks like Cher's hair after a tornado. Would anyone suggest that we interpret Francisco de Goya's "black" period paintings SOLELY in the light of his earlier aristocratic portaits? Would anyone suggest that we dismiss The Beatles' "Abbey Road" because "I Love You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah)" is mindless pop pap? Simpson suggests that we do. To the contrary, it seems more reasonable to interpret "Stan" in the light of the rest of Eminem's work -- which is to say, "romantic" (sic) song and tune aside, "Stan" is probably a song more about the sickness and perversion that Stan feels than a truly forthright portrayal of a male fan in lust/love with a rock star. The heart of Simpson's piece is really a chapter lifted right out of Susan Faludi's "New Yorker" article on the straight porn industry (c.1995). To wit: Men feel so de-masculinized in the post-modern age that they hyper-masculinize themselves in order to "find a role" in society. Part of that involves demonizing others -- women (in Faludi's article) and gays (in Simpson's article). Gee, thanks for reading Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Mark Simpson; she said this years ago. Simpson's primary excuse for Eminem -- and notice that it's not redemption, just a rationale for the homophobia -- is that Eminem's just bashing gays in order to build himself up. Poor little lamb: We're supposed to smile and tsk-tsk quietly while Eminem seeks to "find himself" in this feminized world. What Eminem's REALLY doing, however, is setting up a straw man and then tearing him down. Like the semi-fictional Roy Cohn in "Angels in America: Millennium Approaches" -- who put it much more simply and eloquently -- gays are "homos." It doesn't mean they suck cock and fuck each other in the ass. It means they're politically impotent, culturally insignificant, powerless, passive, weak. It's everything Roy Cohn -- and supposedly Eminem -- don't want to be. Eminem buys into this ad nauseum. He sets up this straw man over and over and over...hence, albums replete with references to homosexuality (listening, Mark Simpson?). Unlike Cohn (who made himself powerful despite taking his lover to "meet Ronald Reagan"), Eminem feels powerless in the face of Faludi's "backlash." So what does he do? He beats up on this "weak, passive, femme" homo. He fills his lyrics with invective directed at the "fags," and preens and puffs up and struts as he shows how he lords it over them, dispossesses them, defeats them, stops them from doing "whatever it is" they want to do (to him, notice; yet another attempt to make his wounded ego more important than it really is). Simpson invites us to pity poor Eminem: Poor Eminem is just as "neurotic, mother-identified/mother-hating, homeless, vulnerable, narcissistic and passive" as the faggots he murders in his lyrics. We're supposed to smile wanly and be dismissive of Eminem as he (as my 5th grade teacher used to say) "tears others down to build himself up." Only, Mark Simpson misses the whole point. Eminem isn't just "tearing down" someone else. He's advocating death, dismemberment, violence against a group of people who are, still, defenseless and powerless. Even as some segments of our society are beginning to see that the Roy Cohn stereotype of homosexuals is false, Eminem builds it back up again and tells us it's not a stereotype -- it's really how those pussy fags are...leering after me (and your kids, too!), bitchy, whiny because I'm not barebacking them, femme (women are up next for the attacks, I suppose), etc. And then Eminem takes his logic to the next level: Do as we've always done. Take back the night, men! Go bash a few faggot skulls in! Be manly again! Just ONE Matthew Shephard? Hell, every fence in Am-fucking-merica should have a dead faggot tied to it every mile-post! BE A MAN! Ridicule those pansies! TAKE BACK YOUR MASCULINITY! Crack some faggot bones! "If they beg, make 'em pay" -- not $50 every day, but with a little hetero-masculine castration! Yeah, that's the ticket! To which Mark Simpson invites us to tut-tut and be dismissive because it's all just "neurotic" Marshall Mathers trying to weakly lay claim to a lost, forlorn masculinity that belongs to the 19th century. Maybe Mathers is royally fucked up. Maybe he's unable to come to terms with modern masculinity, and he doesn't know how. Neither did two boys in Wyoming. Mark Simpson wants us to be dismissive of this. I don't think we should be.
--TCE
05/22

Jesse, Read this! It's actually really interesting - especially toward the end, when the author gets into a discussion about how Eminem's "homophobia" is really just a manifestation of his own poor sense of "masculine" identity, and how it reflects in the more generalized sense that so-called "crisis of masculinity" unfolding today. Very very telling :)
--KMH
05/21

yikes.
--ms
05/16

I have my own feedback with this ol' fucked up article that will pretty much sum of every ounce of bullshit that some of you put on here.... "YOU HATE HIM BECAUSE YOU AIN'T HIM!!!" Fuck all of you who have something bad to say about Em!! Did you learn when you were younger that "Jealousy gets you NOWHERE!!"
--MMM
05/14

Do you think you could pick a original topic to write about, you are only the 7 millionth person who has done the same story. Look anaylizing his lyrics like it's a therapy session is retarded. Do you really think Marilyn Manson goes out to lunch dressed like that, no freaking way. It's called shock value and it sells records.To take Eminem literaly would be like electing Andy Kaufman president, it's absurd. I would like to clear something else up as well. When you call one of your friends a fag, for example "hey you just stepped on my foot fag" That dosen't mean that im saying you embody everything about a gay person, gay people or gay males are almost exactly like straight people except for one difference. GAY MEN HUMP EACHOTHER IN THE ASS! Now im a whatever floats your boat kind of guy but to me and other straight males that is absolutly revolting. So when you call your friends a fag it's really just an abbreviated version of saying you hump other men in the ass. If gay men can't understand that that is off putting without getting offended well there just to damn sensetive.
--hi
05/10

Who cares if he's gay or not. He's rich and that's what is all important to our society. If he's found a way to make stupid people lay down money for his foul mouth lyrics and drama, good for him no matter what he sticks in his mouth. What concerns me is that this kind of "SHOCK THE MONKEY FOR THE MONEY" SHOULD be a wake up call for a soceity that lives for money, sex and shocking our fellow idiots.
--ALN
05/09

Very well written. Very well said.
--SD
04/27

what a bunch of crap. was there even a point to that? i don't think the author even convinced himself of anything and the only insight was that Eminem "is fucked up". which is self-evident and Not worth Nerve paying for.
--JV
04/25

Ahh, what a load. Eminem talks about faggots and dykes because it gets people's attention. see, now he has every damn body's attention. So many men in this country call someone a faggot on a daily basis. I don't think it is so much because the world is chock full of latent/bi-curious guys, it is just another (and quite obvious) way of singling people out for being different. People called me a faggot when I was a kid because I was the one black kid who listened to Metallica and Frankie Bones... I don't think too many people thought I was gay, it was just an expression of suspicion and envy for my will to be different. Eminem has probably experienced something more or less like this, and is probably aware that the best way to get under the average American male's skin is to say that he is weird, i.e. a faggot. PS that thing about the giant black phallus is ridiculous.
--DC
04/25

JTP wrote: 'Show me a man who constantly professes his hatred for "fags" and I'll show you a homosexual' Nice, concise summary of the argument of the article, J--you are to be congratulated on your exegetical skills. Of course, the fact that it is a totally ridiculous premise, emanating from a ludicrous homosexual fantasy about the whole world really revolving around THEM (i.e., ANY attention to the issue of homosexuality, however oppositional, is IN REALITY just suppressed homosexuality--one wonders just how full of themselves a group of people can possibly BE in order to read the reactions of others in this way?) is another matter.
--ATR
04/21

duh, I meant J. Edgar...
--jv
04/17

This is a little confused, and confusing. Tell you what, so was Herbert Hoover, and while that has turned to a fabulous joke it doesn't mean squat in terms of his virulant and deadly homophobia. Same with this nit wit, and I don't mean the author. I mean Mathers. Below, I have attached what i think is a more appropriate idea of Mathers as not gay but as queer theorist: Eminem: Queer Theorist First off, I wish to make a bow to the way that budding queer theorist Eminem has broadsided duality in his very name while remaining within, and critiquing, a history of white rap. Almost the Wallace Stevens of our day, he has suggested that there is an M in the M, but also a delicious M&M in the mix. But just one tantalizing M&M, not an entire bowl of primary-colored, white Mickey Mouse gloved, Baldwin-tricking candies� M as in Fritz Lang, M as in Dial M for Murder, M as in Modernity? Modernity in Modernity as if to give full expression to Frederic Jameson�s notion of post-modernity. Of course, M and M is also just plain old Marshall Mather�s intitials. This intense polysemy marks Eminem�s critical work from the get-go: his is an exploration into the dialetics not just of race, but of gender, or more specifically into the troubled binaries of murder/victim, homosexual/homophobe, rapist/victim, and vanilla/chocolate. Think Vanilla Ice and M & M and you�ll see what I mean. This I believe, via irony with a touch of very charming self-effacing humor, is what he would call his dialectical critique of tasty names for white rap stars. Did you ever notice how when critics talk about black rap artists, they suggest that the violence and hatred in their songs is about telling reality as it is. However, often, when critics discuss MinM�s songs they talk about him using the microphone as therapist. Angry shouting is for black people is the implication, while angry shouting at an hourly rate and while regulating a medication regime is for whites. MinM hates everybody, critics say. It is equal opportunity: the gays, his wife, his mom, women in general -- everyone it seems. Elton John, who you will remember as a friend of Di, another fabulous theorist of the polysemous nominalizing process herself -- the roll of the, the action of expiring, the action of recoloring fabric, or a world, to a pretty pink color � even Elton is going sing with him. He can�t be so bad on gays, now can he. And Melissa Etheridge isn�t outraged. Now, one reason that I am treating MinM as a queer theorist and not, say, as a mere careerist, or as a Jungian, or as an independent-weekly music critic, is because I have learned in the last few years that a queer theorist is someone about whom you write without reading. You just need an outrageous title or two and a line or two particularly offensive to our notions that language is transparent. I don�t know much about MinM, so I am a perfect critic of his work qua queer theorist. With my credentials in full view, I press on: Never having heard a single song by MinM, I notice the following things about his music: people seem to care that he talks about murdering his wife and sticking jagged knives in gays, his mom, lesbians, transvestites and transsexuals. The newspapers love to repeat the violent things he wants to do to people. People are offended, (so 1991, who are we all? Catherine McKinnon for God�s sake?), by his suggestion that the Columbine shootings were not a tragedy but well-executed payback to bullies. This is a refreshing new critical view, I�d suggest, a twist of received wisdom. Haven�t you heard enough about the bereaved parents of the bloody corpses strewn about the halls of that school. God, isn�t it about time someone break the silence that in fact America loved the tragedy, and never really properly thanked those who brought it to them. I think, in fact, perhaps the community of Columbine should thank MinM for his enriching the process of their grieving. Let the anger against the victims in. They abandoned you; they died. Punch the pillow, rhyme into the microphone, damn them, those dead kids. Hurrah, gun-toting deManian deconstructionists! In fact, wouldn�t it have been nice if he would have thrown Jean Benet Ramsey, Matthew Shepherd, and Nicole Brown Simpson into the mix? People seem to care, and notice that MinM says things that sound threatening and seem to encourage others to do violence, but they say, his art surpasses all judgment of his art�s content. And, people ask rhetorically, who are we to even tiptoe through the tulips of his free speech. All of this I hear. I keep, as you can tell, a very attentive ear always to the tracks, hearing what�s coming from miles off without ever actually seeing what it is that is coming. So, what I can tell you about the upshot of this important theorist�s works will prove, you�ll agree I�m sure, to be visionary. I see the future because the pesky present is not in the way. Since MinM says all the things we want to say, he will be crucified. By, one can only imagine, his own dependence on our attention. We are creating this dependence to his detriment, his theories require silence and meditation, not crowds, cameras, and awards. Thus, my solution, in order that his oeuvre not be cut short or watered down by too much time spent away from his sound board, is that we all just let him be. He is a national gem, and think about the fate of Gender Trouble, for instance. People were running around saying, do drag, subvert, and win! And Judith Butler had to, and still has to say, no no no, that�s not what I meant, that�s not it at all. Of course, I�m not suggesting that Butler�s responses to the perform-the-subversive upsurge are anything but ridiculously jargonish, not having read them. . .however, if we could spare the efforts that I�m told Butler has had to exert for a decade, wouldn�t queer theory move faster toward its ultimate goal which is of course the reduction of all language to gobbledygook sprinkled with comments about fisting qua intersubjectivity. So, I will not exalt Eminem, MinM, nor M&M. There will be cravings, as there are after any first M&M, for more of him. Desires for him, and theorists like him, will come on faster and thicker until, sated by his performances of dialectic, we will suddenly realize, as with that other seminal queer theorist, Newt Gingrich, that his theories are so strong that they have become our thought. They have converted us to non-subjects, taken our will and bent it via the use of abstract mla language. Gingrich with his Deleuzian notion of the contract and masochism; MinM (masochism inside masochism) with his notion of cruelty as that which glorifies the position of the victim as necessary and produces surface area from which victims can speak. J. Vincent
--jv
04/14

mark simpson.. .you are my pagan god
--MIB
04/11

Well, Cherise, to me, that "crap" is a relief. To finally hear a mixed response. It was my girlfriend and I bopping around to Slim Shady while we debated the seriousness of the homophobic remarks that I never saw reflected in anyone's commentary - why can't you like music and find it obnoxious at the same time? Aren't those contradictions part of life? As a gay hip-hop fan I've gotta know that there's a lot of people I admire who don't have similar respect for me. But I can and do respect the work of people who differ with me and even discredit me. I'm just gonna keep disagreeing and keep listening and keep living and talking back. - 20-something dyke in Philly
--A
04/10

Re those asking about the author and where to find more of his stuff: he's a Brit writer. I don't know what US publication he writes for, but his by-line often appears in British broadsheets and style mags. His website is at www.marksimpson.com.
--RS
04/07

Best thing ever written on eminem
--JAL
04/06

So many words to belabor the obvious. Show me a man who constantly professes his hatred for "fags" and I'll show you a homosexual.
--JTP
03/31

Talk about overanalying. What a lot of crap about non-music.
--hjf
03/29

Sophistocated and very well-written insights (that I agree with entirely). What else does this author write, where does he publish? RSVP
--NH
03/27

That was the stupidest article i have ever read. Whatever happened to education accompanying the ability to write. I hope Nerve posted that article to elicit meaningful responses about a more equal world out there and not because they actually support ANY of the crap i have just had the unpleasentry to read. ~Cherise (Bi fem in Chicago)
--cj
03/26

What an intelligently written and interesting article.. I will look at Eminem in a different way now.. Where can I read more by Mark Simpson... Bonjour from Montreal !
--gh
03/24

People have a tendencie to take him way too seriously. I find that funny. He is a pop icon. That's it. Yea I'm sure he's had a hard life. Who hasn't. But it's a show. Dre, picked him up on his label cause he has talent. Other then that he was built up to be what we see. If you look back there has always been the token white raper. And he's the new one that's all. He is just getting noticed more.
--IB
03/22

I am quite agreeable with author this article. I lately was discerning this freakery in Em's behavior and song. Thank you for your work in this field. With best regards, D.
--dd
03/19

fuck u motherfucker
--ih8u
03/19

Ditto JSM. I belive Eminem and his lyrics are disturbing, but this author obviously has a chip on his shoulder and I would love to knock it off for him. Homosexuality, no matter what contemporary culture smears in our face every single day, is deviant behavior. The fact still remains that violence to anyone that is homosexual, or different from ourselves, is deplorable and idiotic not to mention dangerous to our society! I do believe that much of hip-hop(RAP) is disturbing and pretty much crap, but if you look closely there are some really good tracks and artists.
--TSR
03/15

ALL GAY MEN LIKE TO THINK OTHER MAN HAVE SOME HOMOSEXUAL TENDENCIES.THEY ARE FULL OF SHIT AND SO IS THE WRITER OF THIS ARTICLE.THE WRITER IS REALLY STRECHING.MAN WHO LOVE WOMEN FIND HOMOSEXUALITY REPULSIVE .THE BELL CURVE DOES NOT EXIST IN SEXUALITY.
--TRG
03/10

The author obviously has nothing better to do with his time. So he thought he'd drum-up some weird-ass tabloid-style allegations of Em being gay that he'd never be man enough to come out and say to the guys face just so anyone leisurely browsing through the web would be like "What!? Em gay!?" and bother to give his page a Web Hit. The author is also obviously a closet racist. Why does Hip-Hop and Rap have to be a "black phallus" or a black anything for that matter. I can remember being called a "nigger-lover" as a kid because I liked HipHop/Rap. I can also remember being an outsider in dances and gatherings based around HipHop/Rap because when we were kids "white america" disaproved of it. And this racial tension caused the other racial groups to not respect and see white kids as quite the equals. There were a lot of people that came before Em to push-open the doors to the Dance Halls and let us make our way to the DJ booths, etc. And now as an adult (born in '69) it makes me feel good to see groups like Eminem and ICP get their just deserved recognition. They're not "good rappers" / being white.. there just "dope MCs" case closed, end of story. People like the author have earned the moniker of being called "Player-Haters". An individual or group that attacks another due to a secretive internal envy
--GDH
03/05

extremely interesting article. its nice that someones finally figured out that eminem is confused about who he is.
--JG
03/02

finally! jesus this needed to be said. If ever anyone was giving someone like Paglia fuel to shoot at liberals, it was the p.c. establishment's hand-wringing over this detroit white trash's personal issues. People with sensible shoes do not need to go around whining about how rocknroll is america's secret adoption agency. Eminem dueting with Elton Fruitcake was a fucking brilliant coup, I'm glad he acted stoically yet sublimely with that. I was in an argument about him and I called Eminem "A gay anti-hero" - thank God someone in the press elaborated on that point. Cheers. -lil'a
--
03/01

Great perspective, although I take it a few steps further... I put Eminem and others who use "faggot" and "dyke" to emasculate men and masculinize women in the same category as Bob Knight of the Family Research Council. Bob Knight's life is totally obsessed with gay male sex and gay male sex culture-- he writes and publishes about it, goes into lavish details when he goes undercover at sex clubs, and his entire life is consumed by how awful and wrong it is. Eminem does it too, although his stems from resentment that he was teased and taunted as a "faggot." There is 'something' about sex between people of the same sex that both repulses and titilates men like them. They think it's sick. (The whole lesbian sex fantasy isn't a fantasy if the women aren't playboy bunnies or if they're thought to really be "dykes"-- then it's gross.) It doesn't mean that Eminem is gay or that Bob Knight is gay either. But to be so preoccupied with sexuality that they claim is not their own is quite weird and hints at a latent interest or curiousity in the very acts that they claim to revile so deeply.
--HAK
02/27

AMAZING!!!!!!!! The article was a witty and thrilling expression of what caused Em's homophobia. Peace!
--MCM
02/25

Cool article. Why hasn't anyone said this before? And re that post from someone disappointed because there was no happy ending: surely the point of the piece is that you can't reduce life and art and subjectivity to reassuring Public Service Announcements?
--GV
02/24

fantastic...damn good insights!
--Pat
02/24

Great article. It hits at the heart of the matter (or Mather): Regardless of what Em's sexuality might or might not be, he grew up culturally queer, a self-confessed "timid" boy in a rough neighborhood. That's why his work can't be easily dismissed according to the usual sexual/cultural paradigms. His music, his brilliant, demented music -- screams of vulnerability and fear in a genre where bravado rules. No, I'm not excusing him. I'm saying he deserves to be called on his homophobia, which he has been, and then looked at a little more closely for what he is: A pure, conflicted reflection of the world we live in.
--cr
02/24

I think I missed the point of this article. Or perhaps the author did? Does he even know what his point is? There is too much phychobabble 101 in here. I agree that there should be concern over the lyrics that Eminem sings, but I haven't yet heard one single discussion that acknowledges him for what he is. Musically and rythmatically, he is amazing. He sends out a disturbing message, wrapped in a whole hell of a lot of art.
--JSM
02/23

Eminem is the saddest excuse for an "artist" I've ever seen. Neither his music nor his lyrics are even remotely creative. There are teenage boys all over America who have said all the same things; we just don't know about them because they're in detention.
--Kali
02/22

i think i enjoyed this article. i think. though its author seemed to have a few too many targets in mind. the one i hoped he would eventually get to -- in an overt way -- is that regardless of eminem's psychological make-up or even his sexual orientation, his lyrics foster intolerance of gay people, plain and simple. let him say what he wants, but let's worry ourselves with what he is saying, not with why we think he's saying it, because whatever his intentions are, he is responsible for what he says.
--wk
02/22

send feedback on "Melts in Your Mouth"

back to "Melts in Your Mouth"