Love The Way You Lie (Eminem and Rihanna)

So there's this song by Eminem and Rihanna. It's clearly about domestic violence. Yeah.

It's obvious that all the discussion about this song is going to be about whether it's offensive. I mean, I've seen it. I've read a ton of it just in the past week. And leaving aside all the lyrics and meta around it, there just isn't that much to say. It's Eminem in serious mode, and the track sounds pretty much like you'd expect it to. So what do we have? The words. The meta. The shit-ton of stuff to unpack. And now that it's #1 in downloads, showing up on the radio (and I should be writing about it in much more condensed form), let's just do this. I'll just warn you: the following is a bit of a brain-dump, likely tl;dr. Don't expect sparkling prose. It'll be condensed later, of course, but you can't condense what isn't there in the first place.

First up: it's neither my place, nor yours, nor anyone but Rihanna's to question why she chose to do this particular song. She hasn't been all that forthcoming about it, but again, that's her right, and pressing her on that point is kind of like being the asshole journalist asking the parents to please relate exactly how their child died for the camera. Maybe she relates it to Chris Brown; maybe not. Maybe it's therapeutic for her; maybe she doesn't care. We don't know.

The key question here is going to be whether this is a critique or an endorsement of domestic violence. At first the question seems so simple. Of course it's a critique. You wouldn't put an endorsement on the radio! (Except that it's happened before.) An established artist would never write an endorsement! (Except that Eminem has, going to far to build a persona around it.) I could never be a fan of something endorsing violence! (Except that fandom doesn't work that way and tends to get ahead of one's critical faculties more often than not.)

In order to be a critique, I think, you'd need a couple key elements:
-- clear "characters," fictional in some way, to explain themselves
-- hinting, subtly or not, that said characters' viewpoints are morally wrong.

The song satisfies both of these criteria. But is it effective? There you have another criterion:
-- Will the audience recognize it as such?

That one I'm not sure about, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's look at the first few criteria.

- Characters. When Eminem's overtly talking about himself, or a thinly-veiled version of himself, it's pretty clear. Take a recent example, his verse on "Airplanes." You'd have a hard time arguing that he's playing a character, especially not when he mentions his daughter's name. But here? There isn't much of that. You have what's essentially a dramatic monologue; it'd be a soliloquy if it weren't for the chorus.

So we know Eminem's writing a character. But does he relate to him anyway? As stated before, this IS a persona he's adopted. And his relationships haven't exactly had a track record of being healthy. The key line here, I think is, "I'm Superman, she's Lois Lane." See, Eminem's referenced Superman before, in the song of the same name, playing a similarly caustic character. It isn't that Superman's such an off-the-wall point of reference, of course. But the connection is hard to ignore. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this; I knew a man with a similar fixation on Superman, as far as his own relationships go. He related to the first song, quite a bit. It isn't that he was abusive, but something in that mythology spoke to him as a mythology. Is it that much of a stretch to see Em as doing the same?

As far as Rihanna's character, she really isn't fleshed out much at all besides being a victim. Don't get me wrong; this doesn't make this character one-dimensional. Between the lyrics and Rihanna's performance -- again, I'm not speculating as to how much is which, how much is experience -- this role is treated with some nuance. There is another purpose, though, to her being there -- a story purpose, that is. I'm not quite cynical enough to think the ONLY reason Rihanna's on this is to drum up controversy or to get a big name as a featured guest. No, her presence helps with the critique.

- Said critique. Eminem's made a narrator; now, for this to be a critique, he must be shown to be unreliable. And he is; his words here fall almost exactly into the abuser's script: There's plenty of evidence in the song:

-- "I can't tell you what it is / I can only tell you what it feels like." Avoiding the word "abuse" is a common rationalization, as is taking it into subjective territory like emotions. You can't dispute those. See also "laid hands on her," which is putting it... mildly.

-- "You ever love somebody so much / you can barely breathe when you're with 'em?" Sure. Who'd say no to that? The point the narrator leaves out, of course, is the violence part, but it's a lot easier to win someone over to your opinion when they're agreeing with your first points.

-- "I feel so ashamed. / I snapped," and many other statements of remorse. Some people have criticized this person, asking "why should we sympathize with people like this?" Abusers are real people, though, and they have feelings; they're not cartoon villains. Treating them as such does the issue a disservice. Of course this character probably feels remorse, it's natural. Stating that isn't a defense of the character.

-- "Your temper's just as bad as mine is / you're the same as me!" Projection. The other thing too many people miss in what I've read about this song (although to be fair, it's a different set of people who tend to miss this one) is that we don't know whether this is true. We don't know whether it's mutual violence. All we know is what the narrator tells us, which means that if you WERE to believe it true, you are taking the narrator at his word.

-- "Told you this is my fault / look me in the eyeball..." This entire section might as well be a re-enactment. His voice is raised, he's practically yelling; what on the page look like reassurances are actually orders. "Eyeball" is also a bit of a fakeout, in that the phrase is "look me in the eye," so you'd expect a different word to go there. Then there's the bit about "next time," hastily retracted.

All this, though, is still sort of reading motivations into the song. They're all valid interpretations (at least I think they are), but nothing really stands out on its own. Nothing, that is, until the last line, the line everyone's going to quote: "If she ever tries to ****ing leave again, I'mma tie her to the bed and set this house on fire." Notice how this line breaks the structure, meter, how the backing drops out. Notice how it's the last thing he says. This is important. This is the point of no return, the point where the narrator is no longer morally defensible. It casts a shadow on everything else the protagonist said before.

It isn't, however, the last word in the song. That would be the title, sung by the female character: "love the way you lie." That last word is critical. All his rationalizations are lies, all his defenses don't work. He is clearly in the wrong.

---

But are people going to read it as a critique? That's the problem, again. It's difficult enough convincing people that no, Rihanna did not in fact deserve it. Let's be fair; I haven't yet encountered any comments saying this is normal. But I've encountered a lot of "but they really love each other!" a lot of "it isn't really domestic violence, she's attacking him too!" and such. People taking the narrator at his word. It's a bit worrisome. But then, it's nothing new.

So should it be played on the radio? They have a right to, of course. It's nothing that violates obscenity doctrines. But slotted in among love songs, club songs, party songs, it seems a bit out of place. And just this morning, I was walking to work, fresh out of the coffeeshop, and someone was playing it in their car, loudly, and it got to that line. It wasn't pleasant, and I haven't even lived something like the song says. How might others have heard it?

I don't know. Overall, I think it works. I really don't want to hear it very much, though.