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.H I P H O P M AT T E R Sschedule.MTV’s interpretation of the trendsetter profile also ex-plained the network’s emphatic embrace of Eminem within a year ofthe study.The rapper’s in-your-face demeanor and shockingly per-sonal lyrics certainly achieved what MTV believed its viewers werelooking for in the modern pop star.Here was someone, in the study’swords, who was “not fake, phony, and superficial.” Through his songsand videos Eminem established the kind of emotional connection toyoung music lovers that, according to MTV’s trendsetter study, hadbecome an essential but mostly missing part of their music mediaexperience.MTV, in general, and the music video, in particular, were the per-fect stage for Eminem’s antics and his politics.Eminem’s precariousracial presence in hip hop required an adroit handling of his image;music video was crucial in his bid for hip-hop authenticity.Ironi-cally, music video was the place where Eminem, as much by necessityas by choice, took on his status as a racial outsider in hip hop.Eminem’s 1999 breakthrough video for his breakout single, “MyName Is,” begins with him in self-deprecatory disguise.Throughoutthe video Eminem plays what is arguably his most distinguishingrole—the great cultural prankster and provocateur.In the role he si-multaneously laughs at himself, winks at his audience, and thumbshis nose at institutions of tradition and power.In the “My Name Is”video, Eminem plays with some of the most enduring images ofwhiteness in American culture: the overly moralistic and idealizedfamily situation-comedies like Leave It to Beaver and The Brady Bunch, as well as figures of white masculine performance and power in the forms of Johnny Carson and Bill Clinton.Eminem’s whitenessand, more specifically, the need to address it gives him a degree ofartistic freedom that eludes his black counterparts.Music video, a medium increasingly predicated on craft, story,image, and performance, provides an ideal venue to act out the out-106 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]