Longish thread follows review...
In Eminem''s debut film, 8 Mile, we get a glimpse of the profound
contradictions underlying this white rapper's ascent to fame. The
semi-autobiographical movie is set in Detroit's 8 Mile Road area, a
predominantly Black ghetto at the city limit --the colour line of the city.
8 Mile chronicles Jimmy "Rabbit" Smith's struggle to record a demo and to
eventually get a record deal while trying to survive the drudgery of work
and life in a trailer park. The movie seems to show that rap is the
language of the working class and impoverished, that it resonates across
colour lines. However, it's apparent to me that 8 Mile cannot escape the
fact that rap has everything to do with "race", so Rabbit's struggle to
gain recognition as a rapper in an all-Black milieu is characterized by
some very interesting anxieties around Blackness and whiteness.
The movie opens with Rabbit "choking" on stage at a rap competition in a
local club. The all-Black audience boos Rabbit, illuminated on screen in
bright lights, as he strains to utter a word under the pressure of the
glaring crowd veiled in shadows: Rabbit has ventured into the heart of
darkness, if you will. Indeed, Rabbit's presence is met with constant
hostility in this subculture. Despite the tension, Rabbit's all-Black
"crew" of friends is a constant source of affirmation and comic relief: the
only purpose of the Black characters is to provide a foil for Rabbit.
Besides the role of sidekick, Black people are a source of fear and
antagonism for Rabbit, not only within the hip hop scene but within the
workplace as well. For instance, in the factory that Rabbit works at, he is
under constant surveillance by his Black foreman.
In one scene, Rabbit stands in line at the lunch truck while his Black
co-workers rap about their hard working conditions. We can see that rap
here is an organic expression of working class discontent. However, one
Black worker's rap is homophobic and targets an openly gay co-worker.
Rabbit--apparently the great white gay liberationist--intervenes and puts
the (stereotypically) homophobic Black rapper in his place by lambasting
him with witty raps in front of everyone else. 8 Mile blurs fact and
fiction, so the audience can't help but see Rabbit as Eminem, so this scene
is particularly corny considering Eminem's virulently homophobic lyrics in
real life.
An especially interesting aspect of the movie is Rabbit''s allegiance to
and, at the same time, discomfort with whiteness. Besides Rabbit, in this
movie, white people are clearly uncool. Rabbit seems to be embarrassed by
the white, working class culture that he comes from as personified by his
bingo-playing, hard-drinking mother with her Southern drawl. While hanging
out with a friend in front of his trailer, Rabbit mockingly raps about
living in a trailer park with his mom along to "Sweet Home Alabama", Lynyrd
Skynyrd's homage to Southern pride*, while his mother's boyfriend blasts
the music in the background. Rabbit, through his parody, tries to distance
himself from the racist legacy of his heritage.
In contrast, in other instances, Rabbit is deeply invested in upholding
white supremacy. A subtext of the movie is Rabbit's need to protect white,
female sexuality. For example, he savagely beats up a Black man whom he
catches having sex with his white love interest, Alex. The movie also
evokes the racist stereotype of the Black rapist who lusts after white
flesh. We learn that a little girl was raped in one of the many abandoned
buildings on 8 Mile by a Black man. Rabbit is finally convinced by his
friends that they should burn down this building to prevent further such
occurrences because it could have been his little sister Lily (named aptly
for the white, virginal purity she represents).
In the movie's climax, Rabbit is back on stage at a rap competition, but
this time he lets loose his incredible talent. All his Black opponents make
reference to his whiteness, racism, and intrusion. In his victory rap,
Rabbit claims his whiteness. He refuses to deny his identity and the guilt
that the other rappers try to provoke. However, Rabbit goes on to "out" his
archenemy, Papa Doc, as a privileged rich kid who went to a private school,
as if to say that because he is from a trailer park and a "broken family"
that he has a more legitimate claim to rap than this bourgeois Black man.
By the end of the movie, Rabbit forges his independence from the Black
subculture he had penetrated into to go on to record his own demo without
the help of the Black producers and promoters whom he had relied on thus
far. As he walks off into the streets, we know he will fulfil his American
Dream. His white privilege will enable him to outdo the Black community he
learned his trade from.
Like the real-life Eminem, Rabbit's intensity and sharp lyrics set him
apart from white rappers like Vanilla Ice, whom he is disparagingly likened
to by his Black rivals. There is a kind of brilliance in the emotional
intensity of both Rabbit's and Eminem's art that is grounded in a lived
experience of hardship and emotional torment, yet at the end of the day,
neither Rabbit nor Eminem can remove themselves from the social relations
and practices of racism and cultural appropriation: "I am the worst thing
since Elvis Presley, to do Black music so selfishly and use it to get
myself wealthy" (Eminem, "Without Me." The Eminem Show, 2002).
*"Sweet Home Alabama" is a response to Neil Young''s powerful denunciation
of slavery, the KKK, and racist exploitation in the US South and call for
reparations entitled "Southern Man" on his album After the Gold Rush
(1970). Skynyrd countered with "Alabama" on Harvest (1972).
Kheya Bag is a member of the editorial committee of New Socialist and an
activist in Guelph, ON, Canada.
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=03/01/05/6308563
