Pre-wrapped rap

Rating: 3/10 (2 June 2004)

Much of the action in 8 MILE takes place at "slam poetry" competitions. The best way to describe these events as they are portrayed in the movie is to envision a bunch of over-sized children, standing around a garage/clubhouse, pretending to be Don Rickles spouting insults in the form of obscenity-laden Dr. Seuss rhymes to the pounding rhythms of bad disco; not so much as comedy routines, but as a form of warfare designed to humiliate and degrade an opponent. Rap -- music for people with no musical talent performed for people with no musical appreciation -- has taken the art of poetry and left it beaten and bleeding in the gutter. An art form created to extol on the beauty of life and to reveal the innermost sentiments of the poet has become a popular entertainment composed of superficial crudity, anger and mean-spirited verbal sadism.
Eminem, the great white hope of rap, adds at least one extra element to the mix: Self pity.
Obviously, I don't "get" rap. As poetry, it is as complicated as nursery rhymes, without the innocence. The lyrics tend toward the hateful and condescending, a tough-guy attempt to justify poetry by turning it into a weapon. Melodically, its seems to depend on a pounding beat, which quickly becomes monotonous. And those who defend it as an urban art form, a from-the-streets poetry that cannot be divorced from the racial and social roots from which it sprang, seem to be making a desperate attempt to overlook the inherent racism, sexism and homophobia of the material. If you criticize the message, you're criticizing the source; i.e., to hate rap is to reveal yourself as a racist.
Into this milieu came Eminem, a.k.a. Marshall Mathers, a white boy in a black man's game. Unlike his predecessor, the artificially flavored poser Vanilla Ice, Mathers could at least claim to be from the streets. And apparently he is good at his craft, though personally I can't tell good rap from bad rap. But, it seems his main contribution is that he legitimized rap for white audiences; primarily white, middle-class teenage boys who feel they can now do the "black" thing and not look too foolish (though Justin Timberlake, disproves this). Eminem became sort of the Pat Boone of rap. But, being white, Eminem could still be criticized for his racism, sexism and homophobia by critics who would feel uncomfortably politically incorrect doing the same about black rap. Presumably, minorities have a right to bigotry that whites don't.
Anyway, that is where 8 MILE comes in. It seems to be an attempt to legitimize Eminem as a more mainstream celebrity -- to clean up his image, in much the same way PRIVATE PARTS tried to make Howard Stern look like a swell guy. To its credit, the film doesn't try to give us a major whitewash, preferring instead to perpetuate Eminem's prepackaged image as an embittered rebel. The film has been compared to Prince's PURPLE RAIN, but it perversely has more in common with The Beatles' A HARD DAY'S NIGHT. That landmark musical took The Beatles image of being impish pranksters and joyous musicmakers and centered it in a pseudo-biographical slice of life comedy. Eminem's film does the same in the other direction, placing his crafted image as a put-upon, angst-ridden, victimized teenager against a pseudo-biographical backdrop of urban depression. It is telling that while The Beatles sang about love and longing, Eminem's repertoire seems to consist largely self-pitying rants about how miserable his life is. He seems to appeal to the same core audience that identifies with Holden Caulfield and reads "The Catcher in the Rye" repeatedly -- assuming, of course, that Eminem's fans actually read.
I don't know just how accurate the film is, but I do have trouble believing that improvised poetry sessions would attract large numbers of disenfranchised urban youths, or that a largely black audience would get all charged up over hearing a white boy spouting badly rhyming verses filled with references to "Leave it to Beaver." The film's genius is that even though it is yet another story designed to show white superiority -- even when invading a uniquely African-American culture -- it makes the white boy appear to be the victim of the racism.
As for Eminem, I don't see any long term cinematic success for him. Though he wears the persona comfortably, there just aren't that many roles for mopey, dopey, petulant, perpetually unhappy twentysomething teenaged boys. The film itself will find its place as a cultural oddity and as fodder for trivia games: i.e., What is the only Oscar nominated song not to be performed at the Awards show because of its use of obscenities? Answer: Eminem's "Lose Yourself" -- which, by the way, is the only Oscar-winning song to include the word "vomit." That says something right there.