Marshall Mathers, widely known as Eminem, but he started off his career under the pseudonym “Slim Shady”. In this blog post we will be only talking about Slim Shady (referred to from now on as either “Slim” or “Shady”) Marshal’s public personality has changed during the years but when he started off as Shady he was the embodiment of the fourth American masculinity characteristic, as defined by Deborah David and Robert Brannon in their book (1976), “Adventurousness and Aggressiveness”.
In their text, they describe how masculinity is characterized by taking physical risks and becoming violent if necessary to achieve your goal. In the beginning of his hip-hop career, Slim did a lot of rap battles and was affiliated with street gangs, he embodied this masculine ideology with his dangerous behaviour and surrounded himself with the same type of people. As we know, there are many stories about rappers from that area being killed or beaten up just to send a message, even good friends of Shady. Back then, rap wasn’t only their way to express themselves through music, it was about honour and territory, and of course what better way to protect your territory and your friends than with violence? Or so would this particular characteristic of masculinity imply.
Another thing that helps provide a good example of why Shady is the embodiment of “aggressiveness and adventurousness” is the way he used to act in public, in interviews and in his songs/videoclips. Masculinity “discourages respect for authority and rules” (as mentioned in David and Brannon’s book) and this is exactly what Slim Shady did whenever he got the chance, and this is how he gained success. In interviews, he would insult the interviewer, he would say controversial things that weren’t previously discussed and use inappropriate for television slang language. Also, much like the picture shown above, there are lots of images of him from that period in his life making inappropriate hand gestures. His song “Just don’t give a fuck” resumes well the character and his philosophy about life at that period.
The expression “Give ‘em Hell” mentioned in the book is used to refer to the encouragement for male violence and it is interesting that even Slim Shady has used the exact same expression in a few of his songs. For instance “Cleaning out my closet” where in the first few verses he encourages children to “give hell” to their parents. The full verse is “give ‘em hell ‘long as I’m breathing” where he kind of refers to himself as the creator of chaos and authority disrespect, in my opinion.
To conclude, of course Slim Shady was just a stage name and stage character portrayed by Marshall Mathers. His ideologies were purely entertainment and success oriented and even though he had the very difficult life that led him to this path, he in no way encouraged or even wished for any of his fans to become like him. He made sure people knew that with certain passages in songs like “Role Model”, “My Name Is” and many others.
Lovers and Fighters | Section 22 