I'm Sorry Mama
According to the book, "Pastimes The Context of Contemporary Leisure", listening to music is something that most people in Western society do everyday. Therefore, since popular culture can be defined as, the most typical pastimes of a particular group, listening to music can be viewed as popular culture. Since the invention of the radio, listening to music has long been considered as popular culture in our society. On any given afternoon in America you can ride down the street and see teens, young adults, and even older adults driving down the street with their radios blaring. One reason for this is the constant change in people's likes and dislikes. Unfortunately, today's society likes controversy, and there are few musicians more controversial than Eminem. Eminem has quickly become one of pop cultures most scrutinized, criticized, commercialized, controversial, misunderstood, and influential artists. Chris Rock was almost right when he said, "something sure has changed in America when the best golfer is black and the best rapper is white." Let's face it, before this white rapper burst onto the US charts in 1999, seeing nearly one in five kids in school wearing orange t-shirts and bleaching their
However, there is one thing we do know about pop culture, and that is that it comes and goes in fads. Just like every other popular artist before him, Eminem will have his time in the spotlight and then slowly fade into the background. By his own admission Eminem even conveys that sentiment in yet another one of his songs and more recently in the November 2002 article of Vibe magazine where he says, "The truth is that I can't rap forever." hair blonde was not something the country was used to seeing. Undoubtedly this change in our youth is due to the commercialization of the music industry today. Nearly every teenager in America has access to MTV. Eminem seemingly paved the way for the musical side of pop culture to change into what we now know it as, a controversy, whether this is a good thing or a bad thing still remains to be seen. As quoted in his song, "Without me", he states, "Though I'm not the first king of controversy, I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley, to do black music so selfishly and use it to get myself wealthy hey there's a concept that works 20 million other white rappers emerge." Keeping all of this in mind, Eminem will strike yet again on November 8, 2002, when his highly acclaimed movie, "8-Mile", hits theatres. Once more, teens are regarded as the main target of the film industry. So the question left is, are these messages that he sends accurate or inaccurate? Eminem is an actor, his movie, his life, his music; it's all an act. He has created an image that makes money. Whether his life at home as a child was as rough as it seems, is still up in the air. However, in his first cd, Eminem sent positive messages to his listeners such as, "No matter wherever you are, you're never too far...you
Some common words found in the essay are:
Moment Entertainment, Cleaning Closet, Elvis Presley, Contemporary Leisure, Chris Rock, Saddam Hussein, Hollywood Saying, Vibe I/m, Don't Fuck, MTV Eminem, pop culture, popular culture, listening music, i'm sorry, sorry mama, i'm sorry mama, makes money, goodbye hollywood,
Approximate Word count = 1178
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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