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How Eminem Uses Misogyny to Sell Records |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=33383"><span class="small">Terrence McCoy, The Washington Post</span></a>
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Wednesday, 12 November 2014 13:31 |
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McCoy writes: "Calling out - and then threatening or insulting - prominent women is a frequently-used Eminem device to drive album sales. The mechanism works something like this: Exploit current affairs to target a culturally relevant woman and then leverage the ensuing controversy to ratchet up album and merchandise sales."
Rapper Eminem. (photo: Eminem.net)
How Eminem Uses Misogyny to Sell Records
By Terrence McCoy, The Washington Post
12 November 14
 here’s little that surprises in the new music video by the increasingly anachronistic Eminem. Promoting an upcoming release of a Shady Records compilation, the video shows the rapper in an abandoned Detroit auditorium, clad in gray sweatshirt, free-styling for seven minutes while a silent man in a sunglasses looks on in the background. For many of those minutes, it’s unclear what exactly the rapper is trying to convey. But then he lands upon the point.
“I may fight for gay rights, especially if the dyke is more of a knockout than Janay Rice,” he rapped. “Play nice, b—- I’ll punch Lana Del Ray in the face twice like Ray Rice, in broad daylight, in plain sight of elevator surveillance, ’til the head is bangin’ on the railing, then celebrate with the Ravens.”
The threatening remarks may have been extemporaneous, but the publicity tactic driving them was not. Calling out — and then threatening or insulting — prominent women is a frequently-used Eminem device to drive album sales. The mechanism works something like this: Exploit current affairs to target a culturally relevant woman and then leverage the ensuing controversy to ratchet up album and merchandise sales. (“New Fall Merch Available Now,” his Web site says next to the new video.) Though the tactic perhaps pulls a Piers Morgan by conflating controversy with relevancy, it is nonetheless one Eminem has mastered.
Since Eminem’s arrival in 1999, capitalistic misogyny has buoyed his career. “Eminem’s uber-misogynistic lyric toward Lana del Rey is neither shocking nor surprising,” wrote the Guardian’s Britt Julious. “For 15 years, he has used our culture’s feigned anger toward acts of misogyny, and our obsession with celebrity, as a shortcut to staying relevant. … Attacking women in his singles offers instant selling publicity.”
Though he has rapped of machine-gunning women and murdering his ex-wife, the violent lyrics, rather than derail his career, have in fact burnished it. “Despite the firestorm of controversy surrounding his often misogynistic, homophobic and violent lyrics, Eminem has always been able to transcend hip-hop music’s boundaries in a variety of ways,” wrote Ryan Ford of the University of Iowa in 2004 in the Journal of the Research Group on Socialism and Democracy. “His records get played on rock stations … he has managed to get top billing over more established, veteran rap acts … [and] was able to survive a storm of staunch criticism by the gay and lesbian community” to win two Grammy Awards in 2001.
All of this while he singled out Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. “Christina Aguilera, better switch me chairs so I can sit next to Carson Daly and Fred Durst and hear ‘em argue over who she gave head to first,” he rapped on his hit “The Real Slim Shady” in 2000.
Around that time, he spoke frankly about the anger that sometimes flared within him against women. He told Vanity Fair he had had bad luck in relationships. “I haven’t had the greatest experience with women,” he said. “So if I say, ‘b—-’ or ‘ho’ in a rap or something like that … you can get mad and record something at that moment and that’s how you felt at that moment.” He added: “I’ve seen a lot in my life. I’ve seen groupies on the road and women throwing themselves at you just because you’re famous, and I hate that. … It takes your opinion of women and lowers it. How can these girls dress like this? … How can these girls portray themselves in this way and then get mad if we call them a ‘b—-’ or a ‘ho?’”
In 2009, after several years out of the limelight, Eminem roared back with a fresh barrage, this time targeting the women of that moment: Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Simpson, Amy Winehouse, Kim Kardashian and Mariah Carey. He called Carey a “c–t” and a “whore,” insults that made even Busta Rhymes tell him to cool it.
If anything, the names of the famous women may change, but the act of targeting them does not. “Make no mistake,” the Guardian’s Julious wrote. “If this was two years ago and Lady Gaga was still on top of the world, Eminem would have merely slipped in her name instead of Del Rey’s.”
But with the rise of social media, in which the public can bypass mass media to voice discontent, there are signs Eminem’s use of misogyny as a tool to sell records may not resonate as it has in the past. As the national debate over issues raised by Elliot Rodger, the catcalling video and Jian Ghomeshi rages, the pushback after Eminem’s attack on Del Rey was immediate.
Singer Azealia Banks only had this to say to Del Rey: “Tell him to go back to his trailer park and eat his microwave hotpocket dinner.” Her message was then re-tweeted 8,400 times.
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FOCUS | It's Time to Work on America's Agenda |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=7122"><span class="small">Elizabeth Warren, Reader Supported News</span></a>
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Wednesday, 12 November 2014 10:20 |
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Warren writes: "The solution isn't for the president to cut deals - any deals - just to show he can do business. The solution requires an honest recognition of the kind of changes needed if families are going to get a shot at building a secure future."
Elizabeth Warren calls on Democrats to continue to fight. (photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Elizabeth Warren: It’s Time to Work on America’s Agenda
By Elizabeth Warren, The Washington Post
12 November 14
here have been terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Election Days for Democrats before — and Republicans have had a few of those, too. Such days are always followed by plenty of pronouncements about what just changed and what’s going to be different going forward.
But for all the talk of change in Washington and in states where one party is taking over from another, one thing has not changed: The stock market and gross domestic product keep going up, while families are getting squeezed hard by an economy that isn’t working for them.
The solution to this isn’t a basket of quickly passed laws designed to prove Congress can do something — anything. The solution isn’t for the president to cut deals — any deals — just to show he can do business. The solution requires an honest recognition of the kind of changes needed if families are going to get a shot at building a secure future.
It’s not about big government or small government. It’s not the size of government that worries people; rather it’s deep-down concern over who government works for. People are ready to work, ready to do their part, ready to fight for their futures and their kids’ futures, but they see a government that bows and scrapes for big corporations, big banks, big oil companies and big political donors — and they know this government does not work for them.
The American people want a fighting chance to build better lives for their families. They want a government that will stand up to the big banks when they break the law. A government that helps out students who are getting crushed by debt. A government that will protect and expand Social Security for our seniors and raise the minimum wage.
Americans understand that building a prosperous future isn’t free. They want us to invest carefully and prudently, sharply aware that Congress spends the people’s money. They want us to make investments that will pay off in their lives, investments in the roads and power grids that make it easier for businesses to create good jobs here in America, investments in medical and scientific research that spur new discoveries and economic growth, and investments in educating our children so they can build a future for themselves and their children.
Before leaders in Congress and the president get caught up in proving they can pass some new laws, everyone should take a skeptical look at whom those new laws will serve. At this very minute, lobbyists and lawyers are lining up by the thousands to push for new laws — laws that will help their rich and powerful clients get richer and more powerful. Hoping to catch a wave of dealmaking, these lobbyists and lawyers — and their well-heeled clients — are looking for the chance to rig the game just a little more.
But the lobbyists’ agenda is not America’s agenda. Americans are deeply suspicious of trade deals negotiated in secret, with chief executives invited into the room while the workers whose jobs are on the line are locked outside. They have been burned enough times on tax deals that carefully protect the tender fannies of billionaires and big oil and other big political donors, while working families just get hammered. They are appalled by Wall Street banks that got taxpayer bailouts and now whine that the laws are too tough, even as they rake in billions in profits. If cutting deals means helping big corporations, Wall Street banks and the already-powerful, that isn’t a victory for the American people — it’s just another round of the same old rigged game.
Yes, we need action. But action must be focused in the right place: on ending tax laws riddled with loopholes that favor giant corporations, on breaking up the financial institutions that continue to threaten our economy, and on giving people struggling with high-interest student loans the same chance to refinance their debt that every Wall Street corporation enjoys. There’s no shortage of work that Congress can do, but the agenda shouldn’t be drawn up by a bunch of corporate lobbyists and lawyers.
Change is hard, especially when the playing field is already tilted so far in favor of those with money and influence. But this government belongs to the American people, and it’s time to work on America’s agenda. America is ready — and Congress should be ready, too.
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A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran |
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Wednesday, 12 November 2014 07:22 |
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Young writes: "I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq."
Tomas Young died the day before Veteran's Day. (photo: PBS)
A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran
By Tomas Young, Reader Supported News
12 November 14
A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran
Tomas Young, a wounded Iraq War veteran and outspoken critic of war, passed away at the age of 34 on Monday evening, just before Veterans Day, which is also known internationally as Armistice Day. Common Dreams is republishing a letter he penned to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney last year.
To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young
 write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.
I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.
You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.
I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.
Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.
I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.
I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.
I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.
My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.
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The Choice of the Century |
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Tuesday, 11 November 2014 13:55 |
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Reich writes: "If you want a single reason for why Democrats lost big on Election Day 2014 it's this: Median household income continues to drop. This is the first 'recovery' in memory when this has happened."
Economist, professor, author and political commentator Robert Reich. (photo: Richard Morgenstein)
The Choice of the Century
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
11 November 14
he President blames himself for the Democrat’s big losses Election Day. “We have not been successful in going out there and letting people know what it is that we’re trying to do and why this is the right direction,” he said Sunday.
In other words, he didn’t sufficiently tout the Administration’s accomplishments.
I respectfully disagree.
If you want a single reason for why Democrats lost big on Election Day 2014 it’s this: Median household income continues to drop. This is the first “recovery” in memory when this has happened.
Jobs are coming back but wages aren’t. Every month the job numbers grow but the wage numbers go nowhere.
Most new jobs are in part-time or low-paying positions. They pay less than the jobs lost in the Great Recession.
This wageless recovery has been made all the worse because pay is less predictable than ever. Most Americans don’t know what they’ll be earning next year or even next month. Two-thirds are now living paycheck to paycheck.
So why is this called a “recovery” at all? Because, technically, the economy is growing. But almost all the gains from that growth are going to a small minority at the top.
In fact, 100 percent of the gains have gone to the best-off 10 percent. Ninety-five percent have gone to the top 1 percent.
The stock market has boomed. Corporate profits are through the roof. CEO pay, in the stratosphere. Yet most Americans feel like they’re still in a recession.
And they’re convinced the game is rigged against them.
Fifty years ago, just 29 percent of voters believed government is “run by a few big interests looking out for themselves.” Now, 79 percent think so.
According to Pew, the percentage of Americans who believe most people who want to get ahead can do so through hard work has plummeted 14 points since 2000.
What the President and other Democrats failed to communicate wasn’t their accomplishments. It was their understanding that the economy is failing most Americans and big money is overrunning our democracy.
And they failed to convey their commitment to an economy and a democracy that serve the vast majority rather than a minority at the top.
Some Democrats even ran on not being Barack Obama. That’s no way to win. Americans want someone fighting for them, not running away from the President.
The midterm elections should have been about jobs and wages, and how to reform a system where nearly all the gains go to the top. It was an opportunity for Democrats to shine. Instead, they hid.
Consider that in four “red” states — South Dakota, Arkansas, Alaska, and Nebraska — the same voters who sent Republicans to the Senate voted by wide margins to raise their state’s minimum wage. Democratic candidates in these states barely mentioned the minimum wage.
So what now?
Republicans, soon to be in charge of Congress, will push their same old supply-side, trickle-down, austerity economics.
They’ll want policies that further enrich those who are already rich. That lower taxes on big corporations and deliver trade agreements written in secret by big corporations. That further water down Wall Street regulations so the big banks can become even bigger – too big to fail, or jail, or curtail.
They’ll exploit the public’s prevailing cynicism by delivering just what the cynics expect.
And the Democrats? They have a choice.
They can refill their campaign coffers for 2016 by trying to raise even more money from big corporations, Wall Street, and wealthy individuals. And hold their tongues about the economic slide of the majority, and the drowning of our democracy.
Or they can come out swinging. Not just for a higher minimum wage but also for better schools, paid family and medical leave, and child care for working families.
For resurrecting the Glass-Steagall Act and limiting the size of Wall Street banks.
For saving Social Security by lifting the cap on income subject to payroll taxes.
For rebuilding the nation’s roads, bridges, and ports.
For increasing taxes on corporations with high ratios of CEO pay to the pay of average workers.
And for getting big money out of politics, and thereby saving our democracy.
It’s the choice of the century.
Democrats have less than two years to make it.
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bama is trying to rush the confirmation of his new Attorney General through the Senate before the newly elected Republican majority takes over. But there are plenty of reasons why Senators on both sides of the aisle should have great pause before approving Loretta Lynch.
