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Current mood:  argumentative Category: Music
I have this friend who's a big Rush Limbaugh fan. I mean huge.
Several years ago we were talking and this guy who was a talk show host or something came up. My friend's lip curled and he said he hated this guy. I didn't have any particularly strong opinion about the guy, and he was so bland a guy I was surprised anybody who didn't know him personally could have a strong opinion about him.
So I asked my friend (who'm I'll call Michigan Matt, not his real name) why?
He mentioned Rush Limbaugh Michigan Matt replies. And? I ask. Did he make a joke about him? I was gonna tell my friend to get a sense of humor. Turned out there had been no joke. It was simply an informational reference.
So, what's the problem I ask? It took some digging, but eventually it came out that Matt thought this individual hadn't spoken Limbaugh's name with the reverence Matt thought he should.
My friend is twice my age and blind, so I managed not to smack him. And no it wasn't the first time I had to restrain the urge, nor the last.
I told Matt he was just looking for something to be offended by. Such searches are always successful.
Case in point, Eminem has a new single "We made you" out, and a video to go with it. And some people are upset at the politics of it. No, you didn't read that wrong. They're upset about the political content of the song.
The head line read Eminem raps about having sex with Sara Palin. After that I though the whole song was going to be about that. Nope, there is exactly one line lasting maybe three seconds in a 3+minute long song.
Okay, first things first. This song is about as political as a Pepsi commercial. Because a commercial is what the song and video are. More on that in a moment. Just mentioning Sara Palin doesn't make something political. Granted she is a political figure, but that's not all she is. You see running for VP, she became famous. And pop culture being the all-devouring beast that it is, it gobbled her down in two bites.
And that is what this song is about, pop culture, not politics. You see this song slams various icons of popular culture, including Eminem, with a joke running through the song. That joke being these are various women Eminem wants to have sex with, but that don't want to have sex with him.
Earlier I said this song was a commercial, allow me to explain. The way Eminem (and many other musicians) market their albums is to create a pop-friendly song with a hook (think My Name is, and The Real Slim Shady) to get people interested in buying their albums and tickets to concerts. Eminem like to turn this convention on it's head by blasting pop culture with his pop friendly songs. This time is no different. He did not suddenly have a political awakening. I'm sure he would disagree with Palin on most things, if he bothered to think about politics. But I'm also sure he doesn't think about politics 99.9% of the time.
Which I'm happy about. There are too damn many celebrities who are "political".
Now, just to be clear, if these people were complaining about the vulgarity or overt sexuality of the song-I wouldn't have said anything. Not because I have a problem with these things, I don't. But at least those things are actually in the song. And hey, tastes vary. But complaining about the politics of it?
That's like declaring Bigfoot an endangered species.
4:20 AM
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