In order to understand the Machiavellian nature of Mathers’ alter-ego, one must understand the development of the Slim Shady character. This development can be broken down into four stages which we shall refer to as: The Introduction of Slim Shady to the Public, The Defense of Slim Shady, The Death of Shady and Conquering Shady.
The first of these stages is the introduction of Slim Shady to the world. Eminem’s brutal alter-ego first appeared in the Slim Shady EP in 1997. Shady was the final ingredient needed to catch the eye of a major music producer, NWA’s own Dr. Dre, and would prove to be necessary to the success of Mathers’ career. Slim Shady needed to be fearsome enough to win the public’s love, even if the terrible things that he claimed to have done were fabricated. Thus, Mathers’ decided to make Slim Shady the absolute most outlandishly despicable fictional character the world had ever known. In the introduction to the song Crack A Bottle, Slim Shady is said to have a criminal record of “seventeen rapes, four hundred assaults, and four murders!” The character is also described as, “The undisputed, most diabolical villain in the world!” In a later song titled “Just Don’t Give A —-!”, Eminem lists the main attributes of Slim Shady.
Slim Shady: Eminem was the old initials. Extortion, snorting, supporting abortion. Pathological liar, blowing —- out of proportion. The looniest, zaniest, spontaneous, sporadic, Impulsive thinker, compulsive drinker, addict. Half animal, half man.
Machiavelli writes in Chapter 18 of the Prince that, “It is necessary for a prince to know how to avail himself of the beast and the man.” As the passage suggests, Eminem had replaced himself with Slim Shady because the only way that either could survive in the industry was if Slim Shady took over. This strategy was a success. Compared to Eminem’s debut album, Infinite, (which only sold around one-thousand copies) his second album, The Slim Shady LP11, has sold eighteen million copies and won the Grammy award for Best Rap Album. Unfortunately, Eminem inherited the criticism that hounded his predecessors. Just as NWA before him, he responded to the hate. The defense of Shady had begun. As the protestors took to the streets, Marshall Mathers put pen to paper and publicly defended himself through sarcastic lyrics such as, “But sometimes —- just seems everybody only wants to discuss me. So this must mean I’m disgusting. But it’s just me, I’m just obscene.”12 He made light of his detractors discomfort13 with his public persona and satirized their objections to his existence in the music industry.14 He also boldly compared himself to Elvis Presley, who was criticized for dancing in an undesirable fashion and singing a brand of music that was unpopular with the older generation.15 Yet, Elvis was a favorite of the generation who protested his music. By comparing himself to Elvis, Mathers was able to relate the situation that those protesting him were in as kids who loved Elvis’ controversial hip shaking to his own fans. In the song White America, Eminem accuses his detractors of not fearing the character of Slim Shady himself, but fearing the lyrics that came from him. “See, the problem is, I speak to suburban kids, who otherwise would have never knew these words exist.” By exposing ‘suburban elites’ such as the Washington Wives of the PRMC to the violence, addiction, and frustration that comes with growing up poor and in a bad neighborhood, Eminem had gotten dangerously close to popping the bubble that these parents had blown for their children to grow up in. According to Eminem, “they connected with me too because I look like them”.16
The protests against Eminem eventually died a quiet death and the result of those tumultuous early years was that Eminem had become more popular than ever and had an even more loyal following than before.17 Mathers out-foxed his opposition through the prudent employment of his alter-ego, or as Machiavelli would say, “A wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control and not in that of others.”18 Eminem could do this because the only person who could use Slim Shady, and who knew how to use Slim Shady in the correct way and with the right words, was Marshall Mathers. In short, he gained his principality through the use of his own ‘arms’ and ability.
However, the time eventually came for Slim Shady to exit the stage and allow Marshall Mathers to have the spotlight. As Mathers and his daughter, Hailie, grew, Mathers gradually began to shed the criminally insane image that had come with being Slim Shady. In real life Mathers has never spent any time in jail whatsoever, though he was twice given probation for gun charges in two-thousand. Slim Shady had become undistinguishable from Eminem, and while that was good for business, it was bad for Mathers’ personal life. The public’s perception had spiraled so far out of control and context that his persona was affecting Mathers’ ability to win and maintain custody of his daughter.19 Mathers had to make the distinction between himself and his alter-ego because, as Machiavelli puts it, “it is necessary for him (the Prince) to have a mind ready to turn itself accordingly as the winds and variations of fortune force it.”20 The song Stan is written as if Mathers is reading and responding to mail from his number one fan, a man named Stan. In the song Marshall Mathers is answering fan mail. ‘Stan’ writes about being emotionally unstable and unhappy in his life and he wants to lash out like Slim Shady would in his letters. Mathers responds to this by ‘writing’, “I say that —- just clownin’21 dog. Come on, how —— up is you? You got some issues Stan, I think you need some counseling.” Here Mathers tries to show the public that he’s not the hardened criminal that he had once made himself out to be. In the opening to the song Criminal, a song in which he makes fun of the hysteria against him, Mathers states, “A lot of people think that…what I say on records, that I believe in it. Or if I say that I wanna kill somebody, that I’m actually gonna do it.” Mathers takes another step forward in Hailie’s Song where he publicly renounces Slim Shady as a part of himself.
Now you probably get this picture from my public persona that I’m a pistol packing, drug addict who bags on his momma. But I just want to take this time out to be perfectly honest cause there’s a lot of —- I keep bottled up that hurts deep down inside of my soul.
These sentiments were a good place to start when trying to separate himself from Slim Shady, but they still had not yet done the job. In 2005, Mathers did something that could have forever separated himself from the “monster”22 that he had created. In the song When I’m Gone, Marshall Mathers symbolically kills Slim Shady. The aftermath of this action would show in Eminem’s next full album. By the time the 2009 album Relapse hit shelves, Mathers’ was focusing on the real-life struggles of staying sober after leaving a rehabilitation clinic to overcome his dependence on pills and alcohol. In the album, Eminem realizes that you can’t kill a spirit. The song My Darling, is written in the fashion of a dialogue between a demon and a tempted individual as Slim Shady tries to convince Eminem into letting him come back to the fore-front and Mathers resists him:
Eminem: I had you beat.
Shady: No. I was playin’ possum, remember? I let you watch your little girls blossom. I gave you enough time, your souls mine. I’m taking it back.
With that, Slim Shady returned.
A year later, Eminem created Recovery. In this album Marshall Mathers conquers Slim Shady, not through murdering his alter-ego, but by restraining him. By this point, Slim Shady had become more than a character meant to raise sales. Slim Shady had become the manifestation of everything that was wrong inside of Marshall Mathers.23 By conquering Slim Shady externally, Mathers was also able to conquer his anger and his addictive habits internally. The album’s signature song, Not Afraid, includes a pledge to the fans that addiction will not beat Marshall Mathers and he will continue making music.24 Recovery is about “exorcising his demons”25 and transitioning into a new life where he will “focus solely on handling my responsibilities as a father”26. For years, Slim Shady had been the emotional outlet for Marshall Mathers’ frustrations. The art born from his anger facilitated the rapper’s success. He acknowledges this in the 2013 song Rap God when he says that the blueprint to success is, “rage and youthful exuberance. Everybody loves to root for a nuisance.” Eminem soon returned to his old form of music, without the real-life hang-ups, using Slim Shady as a tool for his success. As stated in one song, he’s become “friends with the monster that’s under my bed.”27 Eminem’s most recent release was the 2014 compilation album Shady XV in honor of his Shady record label’s fifteenth anniversary and a homage to a truly domesticated monster.
Eminem created Slim Shady in order to rise in a profession that he did not precisely fit into because of race. He gained control over the profession by morphing into what the public expected a rapper to be like and then twisted that perception to fit his style. It is possible to gain the love of the public by stimulating their primal fears enough to for them to gravitate towards you. Love, or maybe just idolatry, towards a public figure lasts far longer than fear because if fear isn’t used in the correct manner it will degenerate into anger and the fickleness of man will make them desert you. As exhibited by the career of Eminem and corroborated by Machiavelli in Chapter 16 of The Prince, a principality is correctly founded only through fear and conquest but is preserved by holding onto the love of the people. If used correctly, love for a prince (or an entertainer) can be gained through fear.
- The Slim Shady LP was a retooled and expanded version of the Slim Shady EP referenced on page 1. The Slim Shady LP was released in 1999.
- Mathers, Marshall. “Without Me.” In The Eminem Show. Detroit MI, and New York, NY: Shady Records, 2002 http://www.eminem.com/lyrics/eminem-show/without-me
- Mathers, Marshall. “Without Me.” In The Eminem Show. Detroit MI, and New York, NY: Shady Records, 2002 http://www.eminem.com/lyrics/eminem-show/without-me
This is in reference to the line: “Feel the tension soon as someone mentions me. Here’s my ten cents. My two cents is free. A nuisance, who sent, you sent for me?”
- Mathers, Marshall. “Kill You.” In The Marshall Mathers LP. Detroit MI, and New York, NY: Shady Records, 2000 http://www.eminem.com/lyrics/marshall-mathers-lp/kill-you
This in reference to the line: “Oh, now he’s raping his own mother, abusing a —-, snorting coke, and we gave HIM the Rolling Stone cover?”
- Mathers, Marshall. “Without Me.” In The Eminem Show. Detroit MI, and New York, NY: Shady Records, 2002 http://www.eminem.com/lyrics/eminem-show/without-me
This is in reference to the line: “Though I’m not the first king of controversy, I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley to do black music so selfishly and use it to make myself wealthy!”
- Eminem is white skinned, bottle-blonde, and blue-eyed. Fans of Eminem would copy his look by dying their hair, wearing plain white shirts, and jean shorts.
- Mathers, Marshall. “The Real Slim Shady.” In The Marshall Mathers LP. Detroit MI, and New York, NY: Shady Records, 2000 http://www.eminem.com/lyrics/marshall-mathers-lp/real-slim-shady
This is in reference to the line: “And there’s a million of us just like me. Who cuss like me, who just don’t give a —- like me. Who dress like me, walk, talk, and act like me. It just might be the next best thing, but not quite me!”
- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince. (London, UK: Arcturus Publishing Limited, 2014) 82
- “Eminem Ends Custody Fight Over Daughter,” ABC News, August 30, 2000, accessed
April 30, 2015 http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=116074
- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince. (London, UK: Arcturus Publishing Limited, 2014) 85
- ‘Clownin’ is a slang term used by both urban and suburban youths. It means, “to make fun of, make light of, or the act of being silly.”
- See note number 10. (In Part One)
The Elephant's Conscience: Thoughts From a Young Conservative 