8 mile

Eminem as an actor? What? Who would have thought? But actually was a perfect fit for the movie which involved his rough journey he took to reach superstardom.  This movie was listed in our book as a movie that touched on censorship, but I think it also touches on a lot of similar problems that crash did.  It involves a young white kid from the streets of Detroit trying to make it in a game that was primarily run by those in the black community.  The last “rapper” that tried to do that was Vanilla Ice and he didn’t really do us to proud.  For this blog post I am going to briefly touch on censorship, and once again explain how this film affected me and how it more than likely affects society as a whole.  I will also explain why I think this movie affects and also reflects on social and cultural values.

I have seen this movie in the movie theater and also on television.  I will be the first to tell you that watching movies on television that try and have a dramatic impact through sex, violence, and language and be totally ruined due to censorship.  I feel the same way when it comes to music as well.   Changing the words to a song is just like changing words to a book, you just don’t do it.  Imagine if the word feeling was a swear word.  Boston would have never been able to release a song over the radio as great as More than a Feeling.  Going back to 8 mile the swear words in his lyrics and in the film are there to put emphasis on specific parts of the movie.  Editing them out for television audiences not only takes away from the film, but ruins it in my eyes.

This movie actually had a stronger impact on me than crash did due to seeing some of the struggles that Eminem faced growing up in a rough area.  Seeing how his rough upbringing made him treat his sister so much differently.  How when things went wrong he taught her to just close her eyes and ears and try and get away from that place.  Also showing how hard it was to make money and that riding in an old crappy car didn’t make a difference as long as you had friends with you.  I think that this movie impacted society by shining a light on how hard life can be on the streets of any city and motivation is the true key to success.

8 mile does indeed reflect and affect social and cultural values.  It reflects them by once again showing the strong presents of racism in today’s society.  It also does show by hitting on another strong issue that crash does not, Poverty.  I think with the growing unemployment rate and debt crisis that the US faces that poverty is a very serious issue.  In watching this film people who are in tough times can reflect and relate to people in this movie, while people that are not in tough times can be affected by how hard the struggle to make money can be for someone in a larger city.