Jenner has repeatedly assured us that she can take any mockery that comes her way, but ( for good or for ill) she’s become the poster girl for trans rights in our culture, and we all feel a little protective of her.
(Eminem’s lines about beating Miley Cyrus did not warrant the same attention, possibly because that’s a conversation we’ve been having for over 15 years now.) Thanks to a concerted education effort, we now know how harmful it is to call trans people by their old names, and as people like Katie Couric have learned, talking about trans people’s genitals is exactly as rude and intrusive as asking cis folks about theirs. No pun intended, but that took a lot of balls.” Compared to the other celebrities named, Jenner got off comparatively easy, but that didn’t stop the line from making headlines all over the Internet about how the rapper had “slurred” Jenner. “Keep the pistol tucked like Bruce Jenner’s dick.” Then: “No disrespect, though, no, not at all. “I invented prick and that’s a true statement / I see the bitch in you, Caitlyn,” he rapped near the end of the segment. Into this atmosphere comes Em’s freestyle, with its rhymes on Caitlyn Jenner. (In 2004, when Eminem released Encore, his last “peak” album, voters went to the polls to ban gay marriage this year, the Supreme Court ordered it the law of the land.) We’re currently living through an era of proud tolerance and acceptance when it comes to gay rights and trans issues, and a list of things you shouldn’t say now feels like respect, not censorship.
But in the decade-plus since, the tide has shifted - quickly. It was easy to caricature his critics - the religious right, humorless feminists, oversensitive suburban parents - and who cared what they thought? They were just looking for reasons to be offended. (Even former journeyman NFL quarterback Byron Leftwich earned a name check.) But one line in the rap stuck out, and it highlights the way the cultural conversation has changed since Em’s turn-of-the-century peak.įrom the start of his career, Eminem has positioned himself as pop culture’s unofficial court jester, each of his obscenities striking a blow against rigid standards of propriety. Done completely a cappella, the freestyle was six minutes of pure Eminem: verbally intricate, with rapid-fire lines spat out as if from a pop gun, and laced with vulgar references to celebrities both major and minor. “No wonder you scoff at me, it’s obvious I’m as off-putting as Bill Cosby is,” Eminem rapped near the end of a lengthy freestyle on “Sway in the Morning” on Thursday.