Eminem in 1999, Attribution: Mika-photography https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mika-photography, CC BY-SA 3.0
Raised by dad-hating Eminem whose real name is Marshall Bruce Mathers III, a whole generation of young people – now quickly approaching middle age – has a good reason to hate their dad, even if they don’t really have a good reason to hate their dad.
Let’s be frank. It’s profitable to hate dad. It is a true fact most dads spend their entire adult lives earning money and giving it to their kids, and what’s really wonderful about hating dad is then when dad gets old, its perfectly OK to cut him off financially and not give back one penny. That’s profit! That’s good business and one must really thank loud-mouthed dad-hating Eminem for helping make that easy.
This is not to say Eminem’s dad was a good guy. From the sound of it he wasn’t. If there’s any truth in Eminem’s songs, his dad was a louse and just took off, never sending a dime to help his son. So, Eminem capitalized on that with his hipster catchy lyrics and street-hardened beat.
Also in the brutally frank department is the fact this global generation of young people was probably the first to grow up raised on super-saturation-level, mass-media reinforced total war and aggression. Virtually everything in the US has been weaponized in order for that nation to “protect” itself from the wild hoards of foreign savages that all want to eat its apple pie and “have their ways” with all it’s moo-cows.
So even Disney movies have taken on militaristic edges like with Simba the light hearted lion cub that had to grow up to avenge the murder of his father by a cowardly evil and oh so pathetic sneaky lion and his hyena pals, and Zootopia where oh-so-politically correct Judy Hopps becomes the first rabbit to join the police force, not really helped by bad-male Nick Wilde, a wily fox who makes her job even harder. Yes, men are really quite terrible, well not all, for example Simba’s dad was so magnificently perfect all other dads are really failures in comparison.
This is another problem with the Hollywood paradigm: one is super-spectacular or truly pathetic and evil. There isn’t much room for many “normal” characters in block-buster movies and pop culture in general.
So, yes, dads are bad and men are bad these days, and never before have older people been so useless. In the old days people might ask their dads questions now and then. Dads used to know some things younger people found helpful. Not any more. Nope! The internet is now the source of all wisdom and dads – well – how many dads can really install new versions of Windows, write HTML, or even run their own virus scans? Not that large a percentage. Dads, and even parents in general are pretty useless these days.
True, Eminem hated his mom too, but these days women are warriors, super-killers with astonishing martial arts skills, absolute ruthlessness with swords and guns, and chic saucy street-smart humor, while men are more and more “sensitive” and willing to show how “vulnerable” they (we) are. Let’s be honest, western especially white men are quickly becoming kind of pathetic these days – at least as portrayed in the movies and on TV shows - and only mass-media images really matter these days.
Is this well-deserved payback for centuries of slavery and a few thousand years of patriarchal abuse of all women everywhere? Is it a culturally imposed psychological Affirmative Action program finally putting white men down where they (we) belong? Mmm? Payback time! Punish all those horrid white men! Teach them all a lesson!
In my particular case I’m very unlucky because growing up in a university environment with many highly educated successful women around, I never even had the chance to become sexist as a kid. Poor me! Lacking that early learning of sexism, I just didn’t have that good foundation for the later learning of racism and other oh-so-cool things that for example get good white male presidents elected. Also, being of primarily Irish extraction, I don’t feel any oh-so-useful white male guilt for 500 years of colonialism either. If I did have that white male guilt, then I could hang my head in shame like all other white men really should, at least according to the modern mass-media-generated American collective “righteousness” machine.
I don’t think I’m required to do this, but thanks to https://imgflip.com/memegenerator for the cool Meme Generator!
Probably the most terrifying thing about the American mass-media machine is most of it doesn’t teach critical thinking. Most of us fall into a deep hypnosis while listening to music, watching movies and TV shows and don’t really critically analyze what’s going on. Even the word “critical” has been demonized. We should all be tolerant! So, our defenses have been lowered and as computer techies say: “Garbage in – garbage out!”
In my particular case I’m also very unlucky because those pathetic stereotypes are exacerbated by name stereotyping. I was formally dubbed “Gregory” at birth by my parents and for some odd reason in American movies and TV show characters named “Greg” are almost always total losers, cuckholds, and back-stabbing weak pathetic morons. Gee thanks TV and movie screenplay writers!
As if all those quite negative stereotypes aren’t bad enough, I am Muslim and let’s put on our thinking caps and reflect just for a moment about the stereotypes of Muslims… mmm. Not too good, though I don’t think I really deserve to be personally blamed and punished for all of that.
But my greatest unforgiveable sin is whining and complaining about corporate rule of media and everything else, and worse still cooking up a bizarre plan called “The Great Linking” to short-circuit the chains of the media machine. For that I am one of the most censored writers in history. So, this story will only be read by “The Watchers,” those privileged few known to be safe guardians of the status quo. What joy! My admittedly crazy predilection towards peace made me a bad daddy for sure, even if I did send every penny I didn’t need to survive to my kids.
It’s such a great sympathy grabber to whine about the infinite failings of one’s dad. It really proves what a vulnerable, sensitive and STRONG person you are to have overcome all the horror unleashed by that monster of a father you were so terribly unlucky to have – just like Eminem! “Yes, yes!” the lovely young lady says, “come into my arms and cry,” showing that men can cry, being socially approved of sensitive and vulnerable little creatures.
There are a few conclusions to be made from all this.
When we’re born parents are like Gods, especially mom. First, they fly in because babies don’t really know what legs are, and so parents fly. And then mom, she can supply warm milk from soft warm breasts, except in my case because I was born with teeth. Bad me! She tried it once and only once and that was enough. Bad male baby! We are not “boys” or “men” anymore. Those are awful things. Neutering them (us) is best, by called them “male child,” or “male person.” That’s much more antiseptic.
Anyways, during our teen years we learn every wart and flaw in our parents and they really are “NO!” spitting machines convinced we’re still babies and single-mindedly devoted to ruining our lives.
Strangely for some odd reason I figured out by age 12 or so growing up is learning to forgive our parents for not being Gods, and instead being normal people who sometimes have strange ways of showing love, but do love just the same.
That was 1968 or so, and a lot has changed since then. Now we can and should be just like movie stars and women should be men and men should be women, and children should teach their parents and parents should be “sensitive.” And please, don’t remind me what “Gregs” should be.
As media addiction rates soar, these TV and movie images are imprinted so deeply in our conscious and unconscious minds they are practically impossible to avoid or overcome.
If you subtract out the very few “good dad” images, and multiply the remainder times the awfulness of men in general, plus the uselessness of fathers and old people, the sum is, who needs a dad anyways?
Of course, killing dad probably seems extreme to most people, but its perfectly OK to just totally marginalize and ignore him. In most ways that’s best, because how many dads really spend enough time with their kids, like Simba’s dad? Where’s your father? “Oh, he’s working.” Working? Bad daddy! Always working! Ignoring his kids! That’s OK, just wait till he’s old then you can get revenge!
Dads? Who needs ‘em?!
Welcome to modern western media programming, where there’s more than one way to kill your dad.
Reality? That’s for losers.
Writer’s personal note
My own dad passed away at age 92 a few weeks ago. I miss him. (2021.12.10)