Love the Way You Lie: Eminem and Rihanna

The rhythm and blues (R&B) /rap/hip hop collaboration has a history at least a few decades old. One of Rihanna's idols is Mariah Carey-- folks who edited Mariah Carey's Wikipedia article claim her Fantasy remix with ODB was the first commercially viable mix of R&B/rap, but I doubt it's so clear cut. Like sweet and sour mixes, the sultry juxtaposition of smooth R&B vocals with a harder driving rap has captured the mainstream so much that it's almost atypical to hear one without the other. This song has been characterized as being from the male perspective-- that Eminem's perspective dominates the song, so much so that they released a sequel, from the "woman's perspective." This song struck a chord with the popular imagination-- it was number 1 on the Billboard's Hot 100 for seven consecutive weeks. Its position at the top was punctuated by heavy criticism lobbed by various corners that both the song and the music video "glamorized" domestic violence; that it excused Eminem's violent fantasies; that it encouraged gendered violence.

Why did this song strike such a chord? Is the appeal of this song as simple as the critics would have it; are the audiences for this song simply agency-less consumers that eat up "irresponsible" depictions of a relationship rife with destructive tendencies? The song provoked a firestorm on the portion of the blogosphere I frequent, with bloggers who had nuanced views of how this song and video frames and constructs violence within intimate relationships were swarmed and criticized for promoting/ "glamorizing" domestic violence. How can any piece of pop culture in and of itself "glamorize" violence? Even if the original intent of the song was to promote violence, there is room to create alternate meanings and contest hegemonic institutions and meanings. I agree that products of pop culture can collude to differing degrees with hegemonic oppressions, but I think there are more complicated things going on with this particular song.

I first heard this song on a road trip with a person that I was in an emotionally abusive relationship with; bordering on physical abuse. I had never seen the video. I didn't recognize Rihanna's voice at first, and so I made no connection to her relationship with Chris Brown. Eminem's voice is much more distinctive, and I am much more ambivalent about consuming his art, but there was something about this track that compelled me. There was something that resonated with me from the beginning, a kind of wrenching emotion that left residuals at the end of the radio play.

The track (and music video) leads with Rihanna's smoky vocals. The mellow piano timbre that starts shortly after she begins singing sets a melancholy tone, as the camera pans from a close-up of Rihanna's face against a backdrop of fire, to a sleeping couple (Megan Fox and Dominic Monaghan) spooning in bed, then to Megan Fox holding a ball of fire in her hand. Fox's position of her body as she sits with her hands outstretched reminds me of when Muslims make du'a (perform a specific kind of prayer), or of a meditation pose. Rihanna's vocals, the sleeping couple, and Fox on fire all combine to present an appearance of peace that is churning with conflict underneath the surface. Rihanna's gaze is initially downcast as she accusingly sings "Just gonna stand there and watch me burn"; she raises her gaze as she confronts-- her partner? the audience? communities that allow structural and intimate violence to continue through collusion with oppression?-- the camera with a defiant "Well that's alright because I like the way it hurts."

The accompaniment falls, Fox's eyes open, and Eminem starts rapping against a background of syncopated beats and a layering of guitars. Fox sees a number written in marker on Monaghan's hand, and she confronts her partner in a rage. The rest of the video shows their violent confrontations punctuated with sex scenes and Fox's withdrawal and statements that she is going to leave, Monaghan's increasingly violent attempts to bring her back into their relationship, shoplifting at the local liquor store and making out in lawn chairs drinking the stolen cheap vodka. The lyrics begin with Eminem making the disclaimer that he "can't tell you what it really is, [he can] only tell you what it feels like"-- a position that implicitly problematizes concepts like academic objectivity.

In a country where class is rarely addressed head-on, it is clear that this couple is not affluent. Their environment and clothes code them as working class/ lower middle-class. As blogger Brownfemipower pointed out (in a series of internet posts that are not currently available to be linked to), the structural violence that Eminem and his former partner Kimberley Scott/Mathers faced as poor/working class people is important to address when talking about intimate violence. Eminem was also famously abused by his mother. The wrenching love between two people who are working class/poor, who face structural violence from the state and the sheer desperation of surviving, not only often mirrors that violence within the relationship but it also becomes one of the few sources of support and love, however flawed that love and relationship may be. While Eminem is white and his status as a white rapper has been hotly contested as purely a source of privilege, the intersections of his whiteness/maleness and class background produce a more complicated understanding of his internalization and externalization of violence. Rihanna's own background with a troubled relationship with her parents (particularly her father) and her abusive relationship with Chris Brown makes the video that much more complicated. While Eminem's voice might dominate the track, the lingering camera shots on Rihanna and Megan Fox center the women in a way that isn't really explored in simplistic condemnations of the video as glamorizing male violence against women. It is also clearly more complicated than oppressive readings that might state that Rihanna/ Megan Fox provoked violence-- there is an imbalance of power that the audience implicitly understands in a society build off the intersections of gendered oppression with capitalism, heteropatriarchy, racism, etc. The tender moments of the video (Fox and Monaghan sharing a sweet moment sketching in the air) are brought into stark relief against the slow motion violence and literal burning of the characters.

The song and the video are a musically and visually compelling collaboration between two people involved in abusive relationships, both of whom come from variously marginalized backgrounds (Eminem as Usian white working class man with a mother with a mental illness; and Rihanna the middle-class woman from Barbados with divorced parents and a father with a substance abuse problem).