Celebrity Analysis: Eminem
Introduction
Celebrity embodies a representation genre that offers popular text and dominant discourse tat influence the culture of media communication. By extension, the discursive effects of celebrity analysis as a cultural function in popular media use digital media that accentuate the democratization of text. Marshal Mathers is a hip-hop musical performer popularly known as Eminem. He represents a controversial and proactive musician at the start of the twenty-first century (Carroll, 2011). The catchy songs captured latent and crafted public images that inspire a cultural discourse of misogyny in the popular media. While gender and sexuality dominate Eminem’s authenticity discourse. The sociological discourse of Eminem manifests via the generation of self-sufficiency analogy embodied in the traditional narrative that accentuate the ideology of individualism. The celebrity identity of the transcendent media discourse delineates the story of Eminem’s self-empowerment. The realm of the contemporary celebrity analysis in the definitive scope of popular media suggests that the privatization of Eminem’s celebrity status has dominated his hip-hop status. By extension, the perceptions in popular media denote a social process of change that shifts the dimension of the society to celebrity status. The interaction of the social, cultural, and political aspects create a distinctive dynamic into social media and celebrity discourse analysis.
Based on Fairclough’s celebrity discourse analysis, the identity analogy of Eminem as the Slim Shady manifests in the linguistic evaluation of the musical vocabulary, sentiments, as well as the sound system. The discourse inter-relation links the discourse the ideology of the media listeners in light of the socio-cultural practice. The utilization of the informal language in the hip-hop genre accentuates slang language that informs Eminem’s identity in his alter ego, the Slim Shady. In this discourse, the modern generation of the American society remains anchored in the percepts of the freedom of expression. Since the youth markets play a significant role in the advertisement, the digital media platform forms an ideal platform to present the subcultural phenomenon that illuminates the positive social change; Part 1-Getting Ready: The Media and Media Studies p.14- (O’Shaughnessy, Stadler, & Casey, 2016). As such, the target audience for Eminem’s hip-hop music constitutes the rising generation as the dominant consumers of digital media. The linguistic perspective in the contemporary world of digital media has brought Eminem closer to the fans.
As an illustration, Eminem uses the linguistic perspective and the digital media to capture the attention of the rising generation in a model that inspires the freedom of expression by asking them to follow his rap lyrics. On 25 February 2020, the celebrity launched the #GodzillaChallenge on his official Instagram account, as he wanted the fans to imitate the lyrics of the song. In the viral contest, the original post included a video of the Slim Shady performing a speed-rap from the “Godzilla” track. He also encouraged the fans to post their video rapping to the lyrics “‘Fill ’em with the venom and eliminate ’em’ @trillervids #GodzillaChallenge is on” (Crowley, 2020). Several fans have participated in the challenge by posting the lyrics from diverse locations such as the boxing gyms. Most intriguingly, some women have also posted the video that obliterate the lyrics of the Godzilla song. The lyrics in the Godzilla song emphasize the discourse practice to the dimension of text consumption as well as production. On this account, the discourse analysis of the context and ideology of the lyrics elaborate Eminem’s identity in light of celebrity discourse. The chorus of the song uses the slang language ‘spitting fire’ to mean exceptional rapping prowess. Both Eminem and Juice WRLD compare their rapping skills to the fictional monster Godzilla that has the power to inhale and exhale fire to mean the dread the monster brings to the society literally (Crowley, 2020). Fairclough’s discourse analysis spectrum unravels the semiology of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) via the linguistic analysis of hip-hop language in the socio-cultural context. Eminem uses the African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in the chorus of the track to express his ideology and identity (Hobbs & Moore, 2013). In light of Eminem’s identity, he lived among the African Americans who used AAVE because he grew up in Detroit as an original white among a dominant population of the blacks (Carroll, 2011). As such, the experience developed his anti-racist ideology manifested in the choice of words that reflect the African America culture. In Godzilla, Eminem brags about his irreplaceable status in the music industry and the lack of competition. The fan-favorite song that embodies the slang language of the rising generation does not limit the production of content and texts for the digital media consumers, thus accentuate the element of democratization. Democratization provides the technological space that lacks the limit of content and text that allows people to generate personal media items to appear on social media platforms, as is the case with Eminem’s Godzilla challenge. The fantasy space allows the contemporary world of communication and digital medial to enjoy the freedom of ideological democracy (Part 4- Stories: Approaches for Narrative Analysis p. 282) (O’s Shaughnessy, Stadler, & Casey, 2016). By extension, the globalization era has played a significant role in influencing the celebrity status of the musician because the freedom of the internet does not limit the listeners. The phenomenon has influenced the listeners to create an illusion of living the story of Eminem’s songs.
Communication media and technology represents a utopia for the globalizing force that instigates the phenomenon of the world as a global village. In this case, the globalization of digital media influences the socio-cultural aspects of a community (O’s Shaughnessy, Stadler, & Casey, 2016). From the perspective of contemporary communication, the media represents an indispensable platform that shapes the perceptions of the consumers vis a vis lasting effects. Digital media epitomizes one of the essential extensions of the communication media. The perceptions in popular media denote a social process of change that shifts the dimension of the society about celebrity status. The interaction of the social, cultural, and political dimensions create a distinctive dynamic into social media. By extension, the phenomenon influences the approach the celebrity uses to challenge the dominant values that promote civil engagement, stimulate public mobilization, and establish connections of social movement. The social discourse that surrounds Eminem’s celebrity status elucidates the impact of online media platforms in the socio-cultural context. The discourse operates in the complexity of technological determinism advances the percepts of human communication in contemporary digital media. While unrestricted media plays a significant role in fostering democracy, the links between digital media and ideology constitute a dominant force that has the potential to manipulate the consumers. Otherwise, the media accentuates a purpose for digital consumers to assert the power that influences perception, values, as well as perceptions in light of social relations. The rational ascribes that the celebrities use the media to manifests the construction of new ideologies that direct their contact with the audience.
In light of how Eminem uses the new media, the celebrity has influenced the genre of hip-hop in incredible ways. The breakout of his alter ego; the Slim Shady, has evoked controversy that turned hip-hop into a commercial enterprise dominated by a sophisticated social discourse. The social context influences the discourse that surrounds Eminem as a celebrity emanates from the socio-cultural context of identity. In the second verse of the song, Godzilla exuberates the controversial status of the celebrity in contemporary popular media (Crowley, 2020). From the perspective of Eminem’s discourse analysis, the media has played a significant role in his contemporary social context because of the modernity that emerges from the cultural background of the society. The choice of language in Eminem’s music reflects the social identity and the socio-cultural discourse that shapes the society. In this case, the ideology that underpins the hip-hop culture emanates from the sociological issues such as racism to make Eminem’s socio-cultural discourse a positive social change. The sociolinguistics space of the rising generation has continued to accommodate Eminem’s celebrity status based on the language ideology. Most notably, Eminem’s use of media conforms to the dominant discourse of ideology and identity. The advanced digital media dominated by the rising generation has played a significant role in influencing the positive social change to the problems such as racism. Eminem’s anti-racism ideology emerges from his identity that he articulates in his choice of words to challenge the dominant values of socio-cultural hierarchies. The main lacuna in the socio-cultural discourse emerges from the ideological feature relevant to the self-identity values.
The ideological and the discourse analysis of Eminem as a celebrity dramatizes the use of the new media, digital media, to exemplify the hegemony of positive social change manifested in his anti-racist identity. By extension, the music performer uses modern and contemporary communication technology relate to his fans by utilizing the powerful tool of digital media. In this case, the globalizing and democratizing aspects of the social and communication media augment the rationale between the society and the celebrity discourse analysis. The discourse analysis uses the systematic structure of the Godzilla song to create an analogy about the critical elements of ideology and identity that reflect the socio-cultural transformation. Indeed, Fairclough’s discourse analysis spectrum unravels the semiology of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) via the linguistic analysis of hip-hop language in the socio-cultural context. The sociological discourse of Eminem manifests via the generation of self-sufficiency analogy embodied in the traditional narrative that accentuate the ideology of individualism. The celebrity identity of the transcendent media discourse delineates the narrative of Eminem’s self-empowerment. The realm of the contemporary celebrity analysis in the definitive scope of popular media suggests that the privatization of Eminem’s celebrity status has dominated his hip-hop status. Otherwise, the communication media indicate a social process of change that shifts the dimension of the social identity and celebrity discourse analysis. The interaction of the social, cultural, and political dimensions create a distinctive dynamic into social media.
References
O’ Shaughnessy, M., Stadler, J., & Casey, S. (2016). Media and Society. Oxford University Press.
Eminem. (2019) Music to be Murdered By-Godzilla ft. Juice WRLD.
Hobbs, R., & Moore, D. C. (2013). Discovering media literacy: Teaching digital media and popular culture in elementary school. Corwin Press.
Carroll, H. (2011). Affirmative reaction: New formations of white masculinity. Duke University Press.
Crowley, J. (2020). Eminem issues #GodzillaChallenge to see if fans can beat his flow. Retrieved from https://www.newsweek.com/eminem-godzilla-challenge-music-get-murdered-twitter-1489241