Marshall Mathers And Eminem

Marshall Mathers, Slim Shady, or Eminem. All three are the same man who has changed and influenced the way the rap and hip hop industry is portrayed today. His journey from living through the ghetto, poor streets of 8 Mile, Detroit, to becoming a platinum selling artist in the early 2000’s is one with many obstacles that occurred in between. To understand where he came from and where he is now, the movie “8 Mile” is a great visual example of how he struggled with many concepts of sociology prior to his career. The first concept he struggled with, was with his family. His mother was always weak both on the inside and outside. She always needed a man to lead her life because she was miles away from being an independent woman. Her relationships
were constantly unstable, which caused her to frequently be stressed out day in and day out. In the midst of all this, Marshall unfortunately had to work his way around his mother’s drama. In the movie, his mother finds out that they were going to get evicted from their trailer house because she was three months late in rent. She had a man, but she was too scared to ask him because she feared he would tell her to move in with her outside of state. Something a lot of women would choose to do nowadays. Another family issue in the movie involved growing up and living through the absence of his father. From childhood to fame, there was no sign of an existing father that could potentially reappear into his life. To this day, there is still a lack of a male-parent role model in his life. Because of this, he sometimes had a hard time figuring out how to act and deal with relationships of his own. More specifically, him and Kim. She was his lifelong, highschool lover who lived through and caused problems deeper into the relationship. Third of all, in the movie he had to raise his own daughter, Hailie Mathers. It became a big issue at times because he was always in situations where he wished she wasn’t in or didn’t see. From fights with his mother’s boyfriend, to being attacked by a gang he was once cool with, he couldn’t always cover her eyes for everything that went on. The second concept he struggled with, was with the minor poverty that eventually got to him. In the movie, his mother got a letter in the mail one morning. In it, it basically said that they were going to get evicted from their home. His mother did not pay rent for three months, and because of this, he had to find a solution to avoid poverty all together. Another example of poverty that was shown came when his mother gave him her car two weeks before Marshall’s birthday. A car that didn’t even bother to turn on. They couldn’t afford to fix it, and as a result, he had no choice but to commute with friends and public transit just to get to work. The last example of poverty came when the movie showed him constantly eating from food trucks, indicating that it was the cheapest food to eat around the block and the only type of food he could afford. At times, there would be some rap battles that’ll happen in front of the truck. These were usually the people on their breaks having a need to entertain themselves and others as well. The third concept he struggled with, was youth culture.
More specifically, the hip hop culture of the late 90’s. It was all around him and that’s all he ever saw each and everyday. He had no choice but to immerse himself and be involved in the underground rap battles and all the drama that came along. In the beginning of the movie, you see Marshall throw up in a bathroom before a match. He’s nervous and completely pale. He keeps forgetting what he wrote down for the battle, which only made it worse. As soon as it’s his turn to spit some bars on stage, he chokes. He opens his mouth, but no words come out. Eventually, he’s booed off stage with no progress towards his lyrical abilities. Also in the movie, there is a scene where you see Marshall commuting in a bus. He’s listening to some hip hop while looking outside, this causes him to take out a piece of scrap paper filled with lyrics from his pocket and add more to it. He keeps on looking outside the window to get some inspiration from his environment but gains almost nothing from it. He passes by places such as a thrift shop, bowling alley, and liquor store. Once again, lyrical progress is nonexistent. Lastly in the movie, the support he gets from his mother is down to none when it came down to improving upon his lyrical skills and rap flow. In one scene, while getting ready for work in his trailer, he mentioned to his mother that his friend had a way to rent out a booth so that he can spend more time creating some demos from his lyrics. All his other friends down the block all had some way to access a booth. This made him more inclined to practice the same way everyone else chose to
do. Finally, the last concept this movie dealt with was gender and sexuality. During a car ride in the movie, Marshall is taking his girlfriend to an editorial interview. Some of his friends are in the car as well. One of them jokes around saying that she was on her way to try out for playboy, simply because of the fact that she is good looking woman trying out for a job. She had to correct them personally, saying it was for an editorial position. In addition, Marshall’s mother constantly acted so stereotypical throughout the movie. She would wait for prince charming, or in other words, her boyfriend to save her from all the problems and worries she was going through. It would soon come back around and bite her because her man usually left because of issues between her, Marshal, and him. Last but not least, there was one rap battle out in the streets where a guy was making fun of another man being gay. He would rap and diss the gay man so hard that Marshal would have the need to step in and roast him back. He would defend the gay guy by turning things around and throwing some shade until the other guy was left speechless. From that point on, you saw Marshall Mather’s free styles and rap flow get that much better.