Eminem

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Name: Marshall Mathers
Also Known As: Eminem, Em, Slim Shady
Occupation: Rapper, actor, record producer
Medium: Music, film
Works: 8 Mile, The Death of Slim Shady (TBD), Music To Be Murdered By: Side B, Music To Be Murdered By, Kamikaze, Revival, SHADYXV, The Marshall Mathers LP 2, Recovery, Relapse: Refill, Relapse, Eminem Presents: The Re-Up, Encore, The Eminem Show, The Marshall Mathers LP, The Slim Shady LP
Official Website(s): Official Site
Fan Website(s): Emslash on LJ
On Fanlore: Related pages

Marshall Mathers, commonly known by his alter ego Eminem, is a American Grammy award-winning rapper, actor and record producer. Since his first major studio album The Slim Shady LP debuted in 1999, he has released eleven solo albums, two albums with rap group D12, two greatest hits compilations, and numerous collaborations with other artists. To fan culture, he is most notable for coining the term "stan" as a term referring to a fan, a neologism originating from his iconic 2000 single "Stan" which made its way into internet vernacular around the beginning of the social media era.

The protagonist of most of Eminem's music is Slim Shady, a drug-abusing alter-ego representing Eminem's rage and fame, sometimes depicted as a serial killer. Due to his white skin, impoverished background and "trailer park gothic" themes, Eminem is considered an icon of "white trash" culture, but as a hip-hop artist his fanbase is also noted for its racial diversity, something that often leads him to be compared to Elvis Presley.

Eminem's Y2K-era mainstream career was dominated by controversy regarding his shocking, sometimes misogynistic and homophobic lyrics, and his attacks on various pop stars such as 'NSync, the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears, along with threats against rival rappers and political figures. He was also well known for his autobiographical storytelling about his rough childhood with mother Debbie Mathers, his fraught relationship with his ex-wife Kim, his half-brother Nate, and children Hailie Jade, Alaina and Stevie. During this period, Eminem was at the peak of his critical acclaim and commercial dominance, making 1999-2005 the era when his fandom was most prominent in Bandom overall.

Becoming reclusive as a means to escape his overpowering fame, Eminem returned to the mainstream in the late 2000s after getting clean of his drug addiction. With his once troubled outlook healed by recovery and his personal life at peace, his music began to focus on technical virtuosity, sentimental and inspiring themes, and collaborations with pop artists like Rihanna. However, his remaining penchant for insulting celebrities led to a reignited rivalry with Mariah Carey, and his bad-taste subject matter and foregrounded whiteness continued to attract criticism on feminist and social justice grounds.

In 2017, Eminem came under a flood of criticism from former fans, critics and younger rappers, who objected to his outdated musical and comedic style, and his polemics against the US President Donald Trump - a typically controversial stance which led to Eminem being cross-examined by the FBI[1] and alienating much of the large rural white demographic of his fanbase[2][3]. By now middle-aged, Eminem responded in 2018 by switching to a harder, trap-influenced style to diss numerous younger rappers of the day, most significantly Machine Gun Kelly. This introduced Eminem to a new, younger audience, resulting in several TikTok hits, collaborations with youth brands like Fortnite and Lyrical Lemonade, and his once again becoming a popular subject for fic, art, fancams and memes.

Eminem starred as Jimmy "B-Rabbit" Smith in the 2002 semi-autobiographical film 8 Mile, inspired by his experiences growing up in Detroit and trying to break into the rap scene. He is also known for his charity work, and in recent years has encouraged his fanbase to organise in favour of gun control, abortion rights and justice for Black victims of police violence.

Slash

Around the turn of the Millennium, public fascination with Eminem's homophobic lyrics, lifelong history of being bullied, dyed hair and piercings inspired satirical, erotic fiction and art from gay men paralleling his personality to that of a stereotypical closeted gay man. Examples include the comedic website fuckeminem.com by comedian Gay Boy Ric, "Eminem Is Gay" by Chris T-T and "Dear Marshall" by Scott Thompson[4]. The English band Pet Shop Boys wrote a song called "The Night I Fell In Love" about Eminem having sex with a male fan after a concert. The speculation was at times conspiratorial, similar to later, more famous theories about musicians like Gaylor theory. Articles speculating about Eminem's sexuality were printed in The New York Times[5], homophobic Flash animations were published on Newgrounds[6], and queer activists such as Peter Tatchell[7] and Mark Simpson[8] considered whether Eminem's apparent homophobia disguised a deeper longing. Eminem has alluded to this theory in some of his work, joking about it in numerous lyrics and playing himself as an openly gay man in the 2014 movie The Interview[9]. Like a few other celebrities whose sexuality has been heavily subject to fan scrutiny (such as Misha Collins), Eminem had to come out as straight following a 2017 interview in which he claimed to be a regular user of the gay dating app Grindr.[10]

Due to Eminem's career bringing him into negative contact with pop stars of the day, his Real Person Slash fandom started out largely as a spin-off/crossover with Popslash, with writers pairing him with characters from 'N Sync or the Backstreet Boys. Nsyncgrrl's JC Chasez/Eminem series The Way I Am and Lucy Hale's Eminem Series, which paired him with Chris Kirkpatrick, are two popular examples. Eminem/AJ McLean (Backstreet Boys) had its own mailing list, SlimBoneSlash.[11] (See Popslash for more information on the history of the fandom, which widely overlaps with Emslash).

Other real people he is paired with are his mentor Dr Dre, Proof, his D12 bandmate and friend since childhood, now sadly deceased, and 50 Cent, whose rap career he helped launch when Eminem signed him to his record label Shady Records. Occasionally he is paired with other musicians such as Taylor Hanson[12][13], Elton John, and UK popstar Robbie Williams.[14] When Lotrips fandom was in full bloom, writers began pairing him with Orlando Bloom and Elijah Wood.

Eminem has also been paired with fictional characters, including Brian from Queer As Folk US,[15] Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer[16] and Alex Krycek from The X-Files. Slim Slash and Without Me's Restraint[17] series drew a number of X-Files and Fictional Person Fiction fans into RPF and Emslash. Sometimes Eminem is even paired with characters of his own creation, as in Embitca's story It Eats At You[18] featuring Stan the obsessed fan from the song of the same name.

Around the mid-2000s, Eminem slash fandom was centred around the Emslash LiveJournal community and in earlier days, several Yahoo! mailing lists. There are several slash story indexes.

Interest in Eminem slash waned as Eminem reached middle age, adopted a reclusive public profile, reduced references to homosexuality in his lyrics, and fell out of step with a fan culture that increasingly looked on shock content as problematic. However, Eminem's beef with Machine Gun Kelly in 2018, in which both artists' diss tracks incorporated homoerotic taunts, caused a significant uptick of interest in shipping the two of them, mostly written by members of Machine Gun Kelly's fandom.[19] The pairing is referred to as "EMGK" on sites like Tumblr.[20]

It has been noted that, despite Eminem overwhelmingly associating with Black collaborators in real life, slash fandom typically prefers to ship him with white celebrities.

Het

Fics with Marshall's ex-wife Kim were common, as well as Mary Sue inserts and stories pairing him with female groupies and other original characters.

Shadyfiction.com is a het archive and discussion forum. One popular story archived there is Julie's Story, an Em/OFC fic posted 2003 - 2007 by Jenn, the site's owner.

Following "Love The Way You Lie", a high-profile 2010 collaboration between Eminem and Rihanna, fiction shipping the two of them together began to appear on Wattpad.

Meta

Due to being a white man who profits from a Black art form, as well as the shocking lyrical content of his work, Eminem has long been a popular subject for social justice analysis in fannish spaces, mainstream media, academia, and hip-hop cultural debate. Eminem's own music comments on this aspect of his public profile regularly, often expressing guilt, though rarely regret.

In the early 2010s, Eminem was one of the celebrities who inspired a callout post in Your Fave Is Problematic, which detailed several of his many overt lyrical transgressions, as well as a few glaring misinterpretations and misattributions.[21] A revealing fault is the allegation that "White America", an anti-racist song in which Eminem argues the backlash against him is due to his association with Black culture[22], is "Racist nationalist".

8 Mile

There was a small movie fandom for 8 Mile[23] and fics were produced pairing Eminem's character B-Rabbit with Alex (played by Brittany Murphy) and Future [24](Mekhi Phifer). See the 8 Mile page for details.

Communities and Archives

Fan Community Nickname

Stans, after his song written from the perspective of an obsessed fan.

Mailing Lists

These are all dead or very quiet now.

  • eminemslashfic founded 2004
  • nsynceminemslash founded 2001
  • SlimBoneSlash - Eminem/AJ McLean, founded 2002
  • Boybands_Eminem founded 2001
  • Shameless-f was founded by Embitca in November 2002 as "an adult list for Eminem fan fiction. The list is slash-inclined, but het and gen-friendly and cross-over stories with fictional persons are very much encouraged. Stories from G to NC17 are accepted. All stories need to feature Eminem as a main character and all pairings are encouraged, except original characters. On-topic discussion relating to Eminem is welcome so feel free to bring on the meta-commentary [...] MPREG-ers will be taken out back and executed, unless your story is very frelling funny!"[25] It was deleted sometime between December 2003 and December 2004 (anyone know why?).

References

  1. ^ https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/oct/25/eminem-was-interviewed-by-secret-service-about-threatening-trump-lyrics
  2. ^ What Music Do Americans Love the Most? 50 Detailed Fan Maps
  3. ^ "The Ringer" (lyrics)
  4. ^ https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Queerly-Irresistible-Some-gay-men-just-can-t-2949333.php
  5. ^ THE POP LIFE; Seeking Truth About Eminem by Neil Strauss, December 21 2000
  6. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20021001085009/http://www.newgrounds.com/collections/eminem.html
  7. ^ https://www.petertatchell.net/pop_music/iseminemqueer/
  8. ^ https://marksimpson.com/2008/01/11/melts-in-your-mouth-eminems-shady-sexuality/
  9. ^ The Interview (2014) - clip
  10. ^ https://www.gaytimes.com/culture/eminem-clarifies-claim-uses-gay-app-grindr-find-dates/
  11. ^ SlimBoneSlash Yahoo Group, founded Aug 16 2002, now mostly dead
  12. ^ Embers Masterpost, Taylor/Eminem skater AU by ahestele
  13. ^ Nearer to Thee, Taylor/Eminem cop AU by ahestele
  14. ^ Snippet by amourality, Eminem/Robbie Williams
  15. ^ Nobody Listens To Techno by Embitca, Eminem/Brian Kinney, accessed September 7, 2010
  16. ^ Snippet by Cherry Mocha, Eminem/Spike, accessed September 7, 2010
  17. ^ Just the Two of Us, Restraint is the first story.
  18. ^ It Eats At You, wayback link accessed 7 September 2010
  19. ^ https://archiveofourown.org/works?work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=84616392&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&commit=Sort+and+Filter&tag_id=Machine+Gun+Kelly+%28Musician%29
  20. ^ https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/emgk
  21. ^ https://yourfaveisproblematic.tumblr.com/post/48780795197/eminem
  22. ^ https://www.popmatters.com/111366-verse-chorus-verse-eminem-2496083571.html
  23. ^ IMDB page for 8 Mile
  24. ^ Eminem/Future fics - four stories archived in Emslash Archive LJ
  25. ^ Shameless-f description on Yahoo! Groups
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