It will probably come as a big shock to some people, and might even piss some people off, but I'm a big fan of Eminem, and when he put out his latest release, it didn't come too soon. Here is what seems to be his own YouTube page, to which I just became a subscriber. I highly recommend the currently featured song video "We Made You". I was going to feature it on my blog as part of a Sabbat series for Beltane, but unfortunately, embedding has been disabled for this, and possibly all Eminem videos. I suppose I could download a player for the song. However, while the song is great and stands on its own merits, it would just not be the same without the video.
Bill O'Reilly and others really need to calm down, although I do see their point. The same predictable crowd who would skewer an artist who criticized a leftist politician or other such figure are just as predictably silent about Eminem's rendition of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in this video. Let's be just as clear, however, in noting that many on the right would be similarly silent (if not outwardly applauding) any such skewering of a feminist or any leftist figure. Sarah Palin, while a prominent part of certain parts of the video, is not the only target being skewered here. He also goes after such entertainment icons as:
Britney Spears, Ellen Degeneres, Lindsay Lohan, Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer, and various others. In one scene he is in jail with Amy Winehouse. Interspersed among them all are numerous Star-Trek stylized sequences, as well as an Elvis Presley Jailhouse Rock inspired theme. Marshall Mathers, in fact, appears in various guises throughout the video, and manages to be provocative, outrageous, or downright hilarious. In many cases, he manages to be all three.
At the beginning, he requests for Jessica Simpson to sing the chorus, and a Simpson look-alike appears at various intervals throughout the video, in parts wolfing down a humongous hamburger. Although of course it is not really Simpson either acting the role or singing the chorus, whoever does both are quite good, especially the chorus singing. However, make no mistake-Mathers is the star of the video, and many of his expressions-whether confused, pretentious, lusting, or just his deadpan personas-almost put him on the level of a Charlie Chaplin type figure.
The point to the video, at least to me, is not an attempt to slam Sarah Palin or any politician, or in fact any celebrity. The point is not making fun of them so much as all of us who, in our star-obsessed, celebrity driven madness, are ready to roundly denounce and denigrate them at the slightest opportunity. Yet, we can't seem to get enough of them, can we? Sarah Palin was in fact put in this situation, a bona-fide celebrity who was loved yet loathed by many. Yet who are any of us to judge her, or for that matter any of the people, known as "stars", represented on this video?
As the song points out in the chorus sung by "Jessica" to the "rock star"-
"We're the ones who made you."
