Christian Wagan
Margarida
February 17th, 2014
Critical Analysis
Pointing Out Problems in Parenting Mary Eberstadt is an American author and a fellow researcher at Stanford University. She is also a consulter of the Policy Review, which is Stanford’s bimonthly journal. Her writing focuses on the American issues of society, culture and philosophy. One of her essays named “Eminem is Right,” focuses on the popularity of rock/rap music and the social implications it has on the American society. In the essay, “Eminem Is Right” (Blair reader, pp 223-229), author Mary Eberstadt explores why today’s music, violent and disgusting, resonates with so many American children today. In the beginning of her essay, Eberstadt explores the question as to “why such violent music relates to so many children today?” The music of today’s generation has to deal with broken homes with broken families and sexual/emotional abuse. From the many sides of pop music, the focal point of each musical genre is pain- more specifically the pain the pains of being a child. One of the pains that Eberstadt identifies children dealing with is divorce. With over half all marriages lead to divorce, our generation has found divorce to be a normal thing that won’t affect children. But in reality, it really does. With that being said, when musicians sing or rap about how they coped with their parents’ divorce children with divorced parents listen to these songs. These songs then are how children can now cope with their parents being divorced. In order to explain the popularity of the singers and rappers whose music appeals to so many damaged children, Eberstadt decides to go deeper into one of the most controversial rapper known to man, Eminem. Eminem, also known as Marshall Mathers, grew up in the trailer parks of Detroit with a dysfunctional family. His success comes from his vulgar interpretations of his rough childhood. Although his raps may be vulgar and inappropriate, Eminem tries to show the importance of children having parents in their lives. In the end, Eminem is the voice of all children in dysfunctional home situations. And it is with his raspy voice where most children find their oasis away from their struggles at home. Not only is Eminem the voice and oasis for those children to help them cope, but the voice to their parents, that the parents should take a step up and help their children become better people instead of being the ones that bring pain. While these songs talk about pain and dysfunction within a home, some of the songs in today’s society speak of sex, drugs, and abuse. On page 225 of the Blair Reader, a man named Allan Bloom says that “the music gives children on a silver platter, with all the public authority of the entertaining industry, everything their parents always used to tell them they had to wait for until they grew up and would understand later.” This quote shows how some topics that are in these songs are heard by young children, while some of the songs contain information that a parent might not want to know until later in their lives. But, nowadays children are learning these things earlier in life. With that being said, children now use the things they learn in these songs, that parents haven’t even told them about, and causes them to rebel against their parents. With no discipline when achieving such acts, children continue to rebel. In response to Eberstadts essay on how violent music is so appealing to children one has no reason but to agree. Eberstadt first of all uses pathos and logos to persuade the reader her way. She uses emotion when describing the dangers of how children can