Letter in reply to Thrall 18

Eminem and the Prolephobes

Dear Thr@ll,
I thought the article "Eminem and prolephobia" in Thr@ll 17 missed the point. So what if a few middle class liberals show their authoritarian prolephobia in calling for state censorship of Eminem? I think the key point about Eminem is that he is not a threat to capitalism, but is a plastic, pre-fabricated product of capitalism, and a disturbing one at that. His "rebel" image and controversial attitudes are a carefully marketed campaign by a record company to make a huge profit. Capitalism is not threatened by a gay bashing and woman-hating rap star who makes money for them. Eminem is an excellent example of capitalism co-opting alienated white, male working class youth, and channelling the anger of this alienated group into scapegoating minorities.
The Mugwump

…and a Reply

Dear Mugwump
I never claimed that Eminem was in any way an anti-capitalist spokesman; nor, for that matter, did I claim he was a pro-capitalist spokesman.

I should also stress that I don't oppose leftists going to Eminem's concerts to protest: I only oppose those leftists who join forces with the political establishment and the far right by calling for the apparatus of the state to be used to prevent people from hearing Eminem's music.

What I was really interested in doing, in "Eminem and the Prolephobes", was using Eminem as a sort of lens through which to view the attitudes of a particular part of society - the "liberal" middle class, which expresses itself politically these days in organisations like the Labour Party - toward younger members of what are euphemistically referred to as "the lower socio-economic groups". Why, I wondered before writing the article, has Eminem been singled out for condemnation by the middle class pressure groups and politicians? After all, many other artists have dealt with the same subject matter as Eminem. In the field of music alone, Nick Cave, Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Costello and the fabulous Mississippi John Hurt have all sung about males killing their girlfriends or wives.

In my view, Eminem is singled out for suppression simply because his fan base consists primarily of a group of people - alienated, frequently rebellious working class "youths" - who are hated and feared by a part of the political establishment which traditionally has been entrusted with controlling them, but which is unable today to employ some of its more subtle methods of control. My article needn't have picked on Eminem to make this point - it could have discussed the campaign against so-called "yob" culture in Britain, or the hysteria about "schoolyard violence" that has gripped America for years now, destroying the lives of countless teens whose alienation and hostility to authority saw them falsely cast as would-be Columbine killers, or the anti-drugs, anti-dance scene hullabaloo whipped up lately in New Zealand by alcoholic newspaper editors.

In my view, then, "Eminem and the Prolephobes" stands or falls on the strength of its attempts to link the social phenomenon of attempts to suppress Eminem with wider developments in capitalism and its constituent classes. The fact that Eminem is not a propagandist for anticapitalism is neither here nor there. If you have any response you want to make to this response, send me an e-mail:
s_h_hamilton@yahoo.com
Cheers
Scott

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