And can an artist not inject any theme or message into his work that he damned well pleases?
I have yet to hear a single compelling reason why not.
Yes, within legal limits. But if other people find that theme or message repulsive then they have the right to say so. They also have the right to protest the artist in any way they see fit, as long as it is within legal limits.
Yes monocracy, I know that. I read it the first time. And my question in return was…just because a song puts forth a theme or message why do we automatically assume that the singer or songwriter is advocating said message rather than simply presenting it as a part of the world?
If I choose to write seventeen novels from the point of view of a serial killer, it doesn’t make me a serial killer…it makes me someone who writes about serial killers. Same would go for a singer who sang about burning down houses all the time. It wouldn’t automatically make him an arsonist.
jarbaby
Yes monocracy, I know that. I read it the first time.
My question in return was…just because a song puts forth a theme or message why do we automatically assume that the singer or songwriter is advocating said message rather than simply presenting it as a part of the world?
If I choose to write seventeen novels from the point of view of a serial killer, it doesn’t make me a serial killer…it makes me someone who writes about serial killers. Same would go for a singer who sang about burning down houses all the time. It wouldn’t automatically make him an arsonist.
jarbaby
Legal limits? What, pray tell, are the legal limits of artistic content?
I would also add that there’s a difference between what’s legally permissible and what’s morally justifiable. Many things are legal, but not morally correct.
There are restrictions that relate to plagiarism and libel. I believe Eminem has already had problems with accusations of the latter. I have the feeling that there are a few more legal restrictions on free speech in the US, but they aren’t springing to mind right now.
I suppose murder would be bad. Rumor has it cutting funds to the NEA might be unpopular.
Have I mentioned my firm belief that the Khmer Rouge was actually an extended piece of performance art satirizing the use of force in emerging industrial societies? I mean, these guys were brilliant: the genocide of an entire country, and they never droppped out of character. What a powerful, genius-laden statement.
And for those of you who’ve followed this far: if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and makes baby ducks, why should we believe it when it says it’s an artist making a satire-of/comment-about being a duck?
Because the whole point of performance, whether it be stage, film, song or book, is to convince everyone that you ARE a duck. That’s why we award actors with accolades of being “Realistic and Convincing”.
ralph fiennes walked, talked, looked and acted like a NAZI in Schindler’s List. It didn’t make me believe he was a NAZI in real life. And no, not all actor’s write their own lines, but not all singers write their own songs, either.
I’ve already conceded that Eminem, due to his recent run ins with the law may not be the best example…but there are plenty of bands/singers out there who walk,talk,act like a duck and are therefore unjustly labelled as a duck, when really it’s just a great performance.
jarbaby
So Homer was actually trying to convince everybody he was Achilles? And Walt Whitman was actually made of grass? Performers perform for a lot of reasons, only one of which is mimesis.
As far as singers getting bad raps while actors slide, it’s just not true. I hear that in real life John Wayne was a wuss, Boris Karloff was a real nice guy, and Jack Nicholson is laid back. But most people would never believe this, because of the parts those actors have played. It just happens faster to rock stars.
In any case, until someone can explain why the Khmer Rouge shouldn’t be treated as just really successful performance art, I’m sticking with the duck thing.
No, but he was trying to make you believe Achilles was real. Just as we’re supposed to believe Owen Meany was real, or Hannibal Lecter.
Go ahead, but did the Khmer Rouge ever say “this is performance art”?
Plenty of musicians are driven to explain to us (Eminem included) that “this is all an act”, even though that shouldn’t be necessary. I don’t think the Rouge ever claimed being an artist.
jarbaby
I needed to get more jellybeans, and on the way to Walgreens I realized that you may have missed the entire gist of my OP. I’m not talking about REAL LIFE. I’m talking about lyrics to a song leading us to believe that they reflect on the real life of the singer OR the songwriter.
If we wanted to be gruesome, we could present pages and pages and pictures and first hand accounts of murder and genocide linked to the Khmer Rouge. But I seriously doubt Sting was a stalker IN REAL LIFE even though he sang about it in Every Breath You Take.
jarbaby
Well, we here in Germany have a tiny little problem with neo fascists coming out of their holes again. And they don´t get new members by offering a retrospective of Leni Riefenstahl movies with “time for your questions”; their vector is music, and the lyrics are pure propaganda. The brain - washing is based on the simple fact that you never see a movie by chance and find yourself repeating the title over and over again for hours after you´ve seen it; but everybody has found himself humming a song theme after it was played on the radio on the way to work ´til noon or later. Music enters your mind via the limbic system, a movie via the neocortex. Ever heard of a march-movie? 
Martin Luther King didn´t gain souls with slideshows, he had a little song everybody knows (still!) and everybody sings (still!)
Of course movies can be (and have been) propaganda, but you have to make up your mind to it to get the message, and how much of this mind-opening process is triggered by the soundtrack, i cannot say.
BTW, as long as it´s not released on Video, you can restrict access to a movie to people of whom you hope they have brains enough to see the difference between hopkins and eminem, which means age 18+ for this movie in germany.
Yes, but how does Eminem act when he’s NOT performing?
Funny how most people can tell that Sting isn’t a stalker in real life despite his lyrics. Sort of contradicts your claim that musicians are judged as people based on their lyrics alone.
In the case of Eminem, if people take his lyrics as a reflection of his real life then it is his own fault. In his lyrics he refers to himself and people he knows by their real names. He writes about actual events from his life. In light of this I fail to see how anyone could honestly believe that it’s “all an act” for him.
It’s one thing to write a song about a man who kills his wife, and another to write a song in which you kill your own real wife. The latter is, at the very least, creepy. People have been committed for less.
There is some difference between Sting, Anthony Hopkins, and Eminem, at least perceptually. It seems to me that the artists who are most identified personally with the character/attitudes of their work are the ones who have a very narrow range. Yes, Sting sang a song about being a stalker, but he also sang about being a teacher (which was autobiographical BTW), and about losing love, and about unrequited love, and so on and so forth. Anthony Hopkins’ many portrayals have been detailed above as well. When it comes down to folks like Eminem, who present an image very consistently, both on and off the stage, people tend to identify the material and artist much more closely. They effectively typecast themselves in the public perception. To be fair, Eminem hasn’t been around for long, so this isn’t all that fair or warranted in his case, but that’s the way it is anyway.
The whole question of where the line between material and personality is drawn pretty much sank Andrew Dice Clay a few years back. Now, if he had a couple more characters in his repertoire besides “The Diceman,” he might still be around. But he didn’t, and when he got protested quite a bit, got lots of hate mail, death threats, and had dwindling opportunities, he eventually just faded away. All his protests that he was “just playing a character” were not enough to save him even though he was very popular for a while.
Thank you so much for saying this!
One of the things that has pissed me off the most about the whole Eminem bit is the number of people (artists included) who start waving the flags of free speech and anti-censorship the minute he is criticized.
I’m astounded that so many miss the obvious point that criticism of Eminem is the exercise of free speech, not an attempt to stifle it.
I will gladly take up arms against anyone who says Eminem should be censored, or that he should should somehow be prevented from saying whatever it is he wants to say.
But I’ll also throw my lot in with those who have the courage to hold what he says up to the light of day and say, “This is not a good thing” or “I am concerned about the effect of these words.”
God bless ol’ Boy George, who is the only artist I’ve heard with guts enough to come out and make such statements about Eminem. Perhaps there have been others; I haven’t really been following to controversy anywhere other than in the mainstream press.
But from my uninformed viewpoint, most of the rest of the rock or artistic community seems reluctant to speak out – either because they’re cowards who don’t want to align themselves against an enormously popular artist, or because they make the mistaken assumption I highlighted a moment ago.
I realize this wasn’t the OP’s question, but I think the most important thing we need to ask about Eminem is not whether he’s “like” his songs in real life, not whether his songs are really intended just to “hold a mirror up” or as parables or whatever other theory has been advanced here.
The most important question is “What effect does Eminem’s music have on the greater number of people who listen to it?”
I’ll be glad to shut up about Eminem the moment someone can mount a convincing argument that the majority of his listeners don’t take what he says at more or less face value.
Remember, I’m not talking about the guy in the cubicle next to you who tells himself, “Boy, I better listen to Eminem so I can imagine what a cutting-edge type of guy I am (and consequently, I better come up with some convincing theory explaining away what seems to be very clear and unambiguous in his lyrics).”
I’m talking about the fevered punk of 15 whose other major source of culture is the WWF…who wouldn’t know a thoughtful, reflective or compassionate moment if it bit him in the ass…who pretty much is made up of the same white trash material as Em himself.
Again, convince me that this individual (who I believe fits the profile of the vast majority of Eminem’s fans) is not really influenced for ill in any significant way by Eminem’s music – that he does not incorporate any of Eminem’s sick thoughts into his own way of thinking about life – and I’ll happily clam up.
Well, I have absolutely conceded defeat on the Eminem issue. I Do believe that he should be allowed to write whatever he wants to write, BUT he is a dick in real life, so perhaps he’s not the best example of “art vs. real life”
But! An interesting example of art vs. real life WOULD be Tony Clifton, wouldn’t it? Andy Kaufman created a misogynistic, offensive, smarmy character and portrayed him AS IF HE WAS REAL, in fact fooling people into thinking he was an actual person separate from Kaufman, and yet Kaufman was hailed a genius for it. We did not for a second think that Kaufman actually felt or lived the way Tony Clifton did. (is that the characters name? It looks wrong when I type it.)
AND I still feel that a lot of people in this world find it difficult to separate a musical reality from an actual reality. Monocracy, for example, believes that the Beastie Boys are drugged up sex addicts, based SOLELY on their music rather than actual interpersonal experience with them. (If I’m incorrect Monocracy, let me know)
In any event, this has been a helpful discussion I think…at least from my point of view.
Jarbaby
Uh, yeah, Sting DID sing about a teacher having an affair with a student.I never heard that was autobiograhpical, do you have a link? It’s not that I don’t believe you, but I am curious. Sting also sang about stalking someone (as previously mentioned), and he also sang about killing his 6 brothers over a woman. There are more, do you want me to listen to my CDs to pull them all out?
Since jarbabyj brought up Kaufman, “It’s just an act.”
The logical leaps Eminem detractors are making are still silly.
Eminem is a dick. I don’t know the guy, but he seems that way. He waves a gun at his estranged wife. Maybe got into a fight or two.
If George W. Bush had done the same things when he was twenty, his spin artists would have us believing that they were “youthful indiscretions.”
Then Eminem sings a song, so I am told, about cutting out a woman’s vagina while raping her.
Would someone please tell me what in gibbering fuck this has to do with Eminem’s minor offenses, which appear relatively common among those of Eminem’s socio-economic background? They don’t even come close to proving that he is a “duck”, as it were. The world is a simple place for people who assume causal relationships without any proof.
As for the Khmer Rouge…they killed people. Let me know when Eminem starts gunning down his loyal fans with Chinese-made assault rifles and maybe I will admit that you have a point.