Race. .. and Other Four Letter Words: Eminem and the Cultural Politics of Authenticity

Abstract

Rap superstar Eminem has become the new poster child for everything that's dangerous about contemporary popular culture. He's crude, juvenile, and foul-mouthed. His lyrics are violent, misogynistic, and homophobic. He's corrupting our youth, poisoning our culture, and laughing about it all the way to the bank. Or so the story goes. This essay argues that much of what underpins the moral panic surrounding Eminem is a set of largely unspoken questions about race, identity, authenticity, and performance. In particular, this paper examines the ways that Eminem's status as a White man who has achieved both critical and commercial success within a predominantly Black cultural idiom serves to challenge dominant social constructions of race in the United States by de- and reconstructing popular understandings of both Whiteness and Blackness.