Sarah Palin, Eminem, and Misogyny in Hip-Hop

Eminem’s new music video for the song, “We Made You” has caused somewhat of a stir in the blogosphere. Most hip-hop focused blogs have blasted Eminem, calling the song a lame, commercially driven gimmick. From a strictly objective hip-hop head perspective, this song is corny, trite, outdated, and painfully superficial for an emcee as talented as Eminem. However, the video has also raised some eyebrows among, shall we say, casual hip-hop listeners. Eminem’s references to former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin has caused the politics-focused media—from the Huffington Post on the left to Hotair.com on the right—to take notice.

In the above clip from The O’Reilly Factor, hip-hop’s number one fan Bill O’Reilly waxes philosophical about rap music, left-wing politics, and misogyny. And by waxes philosophical I mean misinterprets and grossly misconstrues a rap song I doubt he even attempted to listen to. With guest Tammy Bruce, O’Reilly makes three key points, all of which are largely politically motivated and unsubstantiated by the video in question:

1) Eminem, as an artist, “means nothing” and no one over 25 cares about his music at all.

Nevermind the fact that Em is 36, and one of the most respected emcees of all time. Nevermind the fact that original hip-hop pioneers are damn near in their fifties, and still get involved with every new development in the mainstream (just ask Ice-T). Nevermind the fact that it’s been 10 years since the Slim Shady LP was released, meaning that kids who were in college when Em first hit the scene are now 28 years old. If we accepted O’Reilly’s math skills at face, we’d have to pretty much chuck away any relevant facts about age and hip-hop consumption in 2009.

2) The left-controlled media never voices outrage when a figure from the left maliciously criticizes a conservative leader.

So Eminem is a leader of the left-wing, eh? I’m calling shenanigans; how can you call him a leader of the left when he never even cut an Obama track?!? But in all seriousness, this argument comes off uncomfortably awkward as O’Reilly attempts to connect a tangentially related political agenda to a strikingly a-political rap music video.

3) Kids will see this crude misogyny and learn to disrespect women, especially conservative women that “challenge the status quo.”

The direct causal link here is pretty weak. The cultural influence of individual artists does not occur in a vacuum; there is certainly a greater context of misogyny in our nation of which Eminem’s records are only one small slice. Moreover, I question the egregiousness of the video itself, at least in respect to the Palin scene. Does it treat Palin as a hyper-sexed object of lust? Sure. But has Palin subjected her female body to objectification since the moment she entered the national spotlight, selected as the vice-presidential candidate as an exploitative ploy to attract black-fearing white women voters? YES. Sarah Palin’s popularity and rise to fame was made possible by the objectification of her body by her own party. When Palin’s gender is exploited and objectified by the Right for political gain, O’Reilly and other conservative talking heads are perfectly content. We cannot forget the basis for her body’s objectification, and bringing hip-hop and Eminem into the discussion only presents a red herring that ignores how all of us—irrespective of race, gender, class, political affiliation or any other descriptive characteristic—are ultimately culpable for her body’s objectification in pop culture by accepting the exploitative process that created her celebrity status.

Of course, this does not excuse Eminem’s objectification of women, nor should it leave him immune to criticism. Whereas it’s painfully obvious that O’Reilly and his esteemed guest Tammy Bruce barely listened to snippets of “We Made You,” I took four minutes out of my busy day and viewed the video in its entirety. In doing so, I noticed that Eminem does not simply degrade women as sexual objects; the overarching thesis of this song actually endorses one of the most egregiously false and extraordinarily misinformed arguments about female sexuality.

The central claim of “We Made You” is that all women—particularly and especially lesbian women—are defenseless and helpless when faced with Em’s manhood. They just can’t control themselves. This power-of-the-penis arrogance is most evident as Em physically battles Lindsay Lohan’s now ex-girlfriend, Samantha Ronson, for Lohan’s sexuality. The implicit assumption is that Em can, and eventually will, prevail over the butch, gender-norm-defying lesbians that control the women he wants.

It’s the classic “She won’t be a lesbian after me” lame and pathetically misinformed argument made by penis-obsessed men with little understanding of human sexuality. Look dudes, some women are simply not sexually attracted to the male sex organ, period. Get over it. It doesn’t make you less of a man. And it doesn’t give you the right to belittle them when they just aren’t into dudes sexually. It’s not just Eminem that’s misinformed here—it seems to be a huge misunderstanding in American culture. Take mainstream lesbian pornography, which is neither produced for, nor consumed by actual lesbians. Somehow lesbians, whom by definition are not sexually attracted to men, have become a major object of male lust. Eminem’s video, corny as it is, plays into this awkward and contradictory misconception.

I’m not sure what policy could correct these culturally-based misunderstandings, but I do know that videos like these certainly aren’t helping.