Reading Eminem and Rihanna's 'Love The Way You Lie'

Ever since Eminem and Rihanna's video for their hit song "Love The Way You Lie" was released, I've been thinking about the song's violent lyrics and its video's violent imagery. The folks over at Sociological Images helped me wrap my initial thoughts around the video:

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a beautiful song. Rihanna’s vocals are gorgeous; it’s was hard to not feel heartfelt while listening to them. And that’s the problem. It’s a powerful form of socialization. That we might internalize the message that passionate love and incontrollable rage go hand-in-hand is really very scary. It suggests not only that you should tolerate interpersonal violence but that, if there is no violence in your relationship, perhaps you don’t really love one another.

How many individuals feel happy when their partner expresses jealousy, even goes into a jealous rage? Why is that dynamic normalized in varying degrees? There's no denying the song's popularity. According to Yahoo! Finance, "Love the Way You Lie," "...has reigned at No. 1 on the Digital Songs chart for five consecutive weeks and has sold more than 1.4 million downloads." A portion of the lyrics:

Told you this is my fault
Look me in the eyeball
Next time I'm pissed
I'll aim my fist
At the dry wall
Next time
There will be no next time
I apologize
Even though I know it's lies
I'm tired of the games
I just want her back
I know I'm a liar
If she ever tries to fucking leave again
I'mma tie her to the bed
And set the house on fire

Graphic and shocking to say the least, as are the images in the video, which features movie and television stars Megan Fox and Dominic Monaghan:

Graphic and shocking was largely the point. The song was authored by Eminem, who then asked to collaborate with Rihanna, in part because of her history as an intimate partner violence (IPV) victim (listen here for an excellent discussion on Rihanna, Chris Brown, and the gendered politics of IPV). Against my general principles, I dug into the "bee-bop" popular culture internet sites to see what I could find about how this song and video were intended to address IPV. In fact, there are direct connections being made between the video and IPV.

For instance, Megan Fox has donated her video appearance fee to a shelter for battered women. And in a VH1 interview with Rihanna, the music star explains her and Eminem's personal connection to the song's theme:

"It's something that, you know, [Eminem and I have] both experienced, you know, on different sides, different ends of the table," she said.

"It just was authentic. It was real," Rihanna continued. "It was believable for us to do a record like that, but it was also something that needed to be done and the way he did it was so clever. He pretty much just broke down the cycle of domestic violence and it's something that a lot people don't have a lot of insight on, so this song is a really, really powerful song and it touches a lot of people."

[...]

Ultimately, the song was something Rihanna felt was in line with her past relationship. "The lyrics were so deep, so beautiful and intense. It's something that I understood, something I connected with," she revealed.

Dominic Monaghan ads:

"The concept of 'Love the Way You Lie' was essentially a look at the relationship that Eminem was in with his wife, Kim, so I kind of felt like I was playing Eminem a little bit, and Megan Fox was kind of playing Kim.

"It's the story of them getting to know each other, and it's the story of their tumultuous relationship, and it was the story of the breakdown of their relationship," he continued. "Ultimately, what I think he's trying to say in the song ... is that he should have walked away a little bit quicker than he did and not let it get as messy as it did."

At least explicity, there was critical thought put into this popular culture artifact. My question is, how will young people from different demographics and different life experiences interpret the song's and video's violent content? The one empirical study I could find on Eminem's music and its effects on listeners found that young adults who listened to his songs with misogynistic lyrics were largely unaffected by them, though the study was only conducted with research participants who were college students (Cobb & Boettcher, 2007).

In my dissertation, adolescent research participants spoke quite openly about the ways they saw IPV as completely normal. These were teens who had experienced multiple forms of violence throughout their lives (peer, family, romantic, drug, physical, verbal) -- certainly not the average college student. I wonder what their interpretations would be.

Then yesterday, I heard a male radio DJ essentially state the following after "Love The Way You Lie" was played: "You know, Megan Fox is supposed to play an abused victim in that song's video, (chuckling) but in the video, she's the abuser. I didn't see her get hit once. She was doing all the hitting!" Uh, yeah, real funny. Was that the video's intent? And did he miss all the punching of the walls (physical intimidation)? Contrast that point of view with a female student in my Sociology of Popular Culture class:

As for the video, I think maybe it has good intentions, especially using two artists who have a history with IPV, but I don't think it will be beneficial. Using [Dominic Monaghan] and Megan Fox (a sex symbol for everyone today) [it] seems to glorify the topic by using two high end celebrities. This video seemed like it wanted to make domestic violence look sexy and possessiveness look masculine.

Perhaps for some listeners, the song and video do raise consciousness regarding IPV prevention -- what Monaghan said the video is intended to accomplish. But certainly not for everyone. For the student quoted above, the video was offensive and reified traditional gender norms. To get a little academic, from John Storey (1993):

...an image containing references to pop music culture might be seen by a young audience as an index of freedom and heterogeneity, whilst to an older audience it might signal manipulation and homgeneity. Which codes are mobilized will largely depend on the triple context of the location of the text, the historical moment and the cultural formation of the reader (p. 80).

Since people with different social histories interpret popular culture differently, I'd be interested to see how young people from different demographics digest this song and video. Do the cultural artifacts problematize IPV (the stated intent) or further normalize and perpetuate this form of violence?

Or, as indicated by the radio DJ, does this video mobilize codes that perpetuate misunderstandings about co-occurring violence in intimate relationships? For instance, too many people assume that when males and females hit each other, the physical ramifications are equally harmful. Does the video gloss over the fact that verbal abuse, social isolation, and other forms of control (e.g., forcing what a partner wears) can be more damaging than physical violence?

The song's and video's influence will likely diminish over time. Nonetheless, "Love The Way You Lie" demonstrates how people's readings of the same cultural product can vary greatly, and how received meanings can be shaped more by audiences' past experiences than by the cultural producers.

Non Internet Sources:

Cobb, M. D., & Boettcher, W. A. (2007). Ambivalent Sexism and Misogynistic Rap Music: Does Exposure to Eminem Increase Sexism? Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 37 (12), 3025-3042.

Storey, J. (1993). An Introductory Guide to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. Athens: University of Georgia Press.


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