This thread here http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=54492 got me to thinking a bit, and then the pain stopped I thought I would post this and ask for opinions.
There has been a bit of discussion here about the rapper EMINEM (I think that’s how it’s spelled) and how he does a song about killing his wife in front of his daughter and I think I remember another song he did about shooting his wife for cheating or something like that.
Anyhow, um people seem to be really pissed at him for this. I guess you can get pissed about anything you want to get pissed about but I was wondering if there is any diff between Eminem saying do this and that in a song and Vincent DiNofrio killing and bleaching women in The Cell? How about HHH the pro wrestler “cheating at sports” and saying homophobic remarks?
It all kinda’ seems like they are getting paid to do this. Maybe I’m off base here but have any of you seen an interview where this Eminem fellow says “Yeah well what I put in to my music is what I really think. See killing my wife is one of my goals and I’m just waiting for the right time. Maybe I’ll do a song about molesting my daughter too and then do that. Yeah, that would be cool. Werd.”? I don’t really dig his music but that has more to do with my general dislike for rap than the content. I do have an MP3 of that song he did with Dido because I trhink she has a pretty voice and in that song he says the stuff he writes is “clownin’ dog” which I take to mean in jest of as fiction.
Now I suppose you can make a case for are having a responsibility to be ethical or that if it is not a responsibility it should still be despised for being vile and glorifying evil, but how many of you are looking forward to the next “Silence of the Lambs” movie while saying Eminem should be reviled for his work?
I personally think the music is crap but he could be singing about rainbows and Teletubbies and it would still be crap, meanwhile Darth Vader kicks ass and he blew up planets and cut his son’s hand off.