Johana P.Martinez
Jeanina Perez
March 8, 2010
WST 3015
Blog 4
The song I chose for this blog is 97 Bonnie and Clyde by Eminem. First time I heard this song was in middle school, back then Eminem was a hit and everyone would sing his songs. Hearing it now and analyzing his lyrics, this song is full of hatred and violence towards his wife. Which is actually being portray by Eminem's alter ego slim shady, shady is the one singing about how he killed his wife, her new man and her new child. Eminem perpetuates violence towards women who have either cheated on men, neglected their children, or abandoned their marriage life to start a new life with someone else. As mention in the article about "The Incidence of Violence Against Women," the author Kirk states "That at least 20 percent of teenage girls and young women have experience some sort of violence. Kirk also mentions how men use intimidation, threats, and force to established and maintain control of their partners (261)." Which in this song it clearly depicts how Slim Shady violently kills his wife because he dint get his way with her, she was probably fed up with the arguments she had with him so she left him and got a new boyfriend had a son and was beginning a new life. Since that's not what Slim wanted, he decided to take matters on his own hands.
Neither race nor class makes a difference in this song, the only thing is gender. This song is directed to women who didn't do what her partner wanted and decided to live their own life the way they want, but since some men have this machismo ego, they feel threaten when their partner does something out of the ordinary that they react sometimes with anger and violence. Violence is used in this song by explaining the way he killed her, and how things like arguments and unfaithfulness led to the actual killing. As women you would think that all men are thinking this way after hearing this song but in the article "I am not a Rapist," Stolenberg talks about how men in Duke university is actually doing things to make women feel more safe around campus and overall around men (285). The song address physical violence with lyrics such as "and dont worry about that little boo boo on her throat, its just a little scratch it dont hurt," and "No more fighting with dad no more restraining order," these lyrics aren't making fun on what just happen but more of an awareness to women to not do anything stupid with men.
This song will help in a feminist discussion forum, because it will explore the many ways men try to deal with feelings of betrayal, fighting and other stuff. It also will help women to see how sometimes being in an abusive relationship can be dangerous and also how the story line in this song is true, that there are men who beat their wives, or mentally abuse them and how some of them actually end up killing their love ones when they feel defeated or afraid of being left alone.
Work Cited
Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. "Violence Against Women." Women's Life: Multicultural
Perspective. 5th ed. New York: McGrawHill, 2010. 257-75.
Hedges, Warren, Andy Moose, Carlton Leftwich, and Erick Fink. "I Am Not a Rapist!" Interview by John Stoltenburg and Jason Schultz.
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When I actually listen to words in Eminems song I cannot believe he is a recorded artist. But I do not think that Eminem is specifically in violence against women when it comes to the music scene, most rap songs completely degrade women. Also though maybe not on the literal scale that Eminem used in this song, but I think the problem on a macro level is definitely the music industry.
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