OVP: 8 Mile (2002)

Film: 8 Mile (2002)

Stars: Eminem, Kim Basinger, Michael Shannon, Mekhi Phifer, Brittany Murphy, Evan Jones, Anthony Mackie

Director: Curtis Hanson

Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (Best Original Song-"Lose Yourself"*)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

We finished up our 2003 OVP's two weeks ago (as y'all know, I've got a lot of backloaded ballots to get through, so we'll be revisiting this later this year), and so expect 2002 to make more appearances in the coming weeks as I begin to tackle what I have left from that year.  Weirdly, today we'll get to not only a movie that won an Oscar in 2002, but also one that's somewhat topically relevant.  Eminem has been a cultural force for two decades, and has attracted controversy throughout, once again becoming a headliner as TikTok users "cancel" him for his past behavior.  I am not going to attempt to defend him-his comments through the decades have been deeply problematic & super homophobic, but I'll admit that I have generally liked his music, and certainly as a teenager when 8 Mile came out, was really into him.  I know every word to "Lose Yourself," and distinctly remember performing it in my dorm room to the delight of my residents that year.  However, I was in high school when this came out & my parents were pretty strict about what I got to see, and this would not have passed muster so I never saw this picture until last week.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie, somewhat autobiographical from Eminem's own life, takes place in Detroit in the mid-90's and focuses on a young man named Rabbit (Eminem), who lives with his alcoholic mother (Basinger), and works dead-end jobs hoping to someday strike it big as a rapper.  Rabbit has talent, but he gets stage fright & isn't comfortable in his own shoes...he also has a violent streak that shows up in the worst ways possible.  He enters into a relationship with a girl named Alex (Murphy), but that goes nowhere when she cheats on him, and eventually Rabbit decides it's time to prove to everyone (including himself) that he has the talent to be the best.  He enters in a rap battle, winning it, but when his friends want him to celebrate, he declines, going back to his day job...showing that he is going to break the cycle in his life of not getting ahead.

8 Mile has aged horribly.  The film's racial, sexual, & gender politics are deeply problematic.   The film is largely focused on a group of black men trying to prop up the dreams of a white man who is appropriating their culture, frequently through homophobic lyrics, and every woman in the film is viewed as a sexualized figure who is there either for the pleasure of Rabbit or for his frustration.  It's not that old, so while I know that we live in different times, we...should have known better than to celebrate this film, and no amount of surprise acting ability from Eminem or Brittany Murphy can make up for that.

The film was nominated for one Academy Award, which it won, probably correctly (I'm not quite done with the nominations from that year, but it's hard to imagine this getting displaced).  I was in high school when Eminem first broke out into the mainstream, and so this is a song of my youth in a way no other Oscar-nominated film is, and so I must forgive in some respects the movie that it comes from, as it's a sharp, powerful, genius ballad about a man struggling to get by in a world that chews him up.  About the only negatives I can say is that it has little to do with the rest of the film other than summing it up-it's an end credits song which would've been far more thrilling performed live.  Or, you know, if it was in a film that was more accepting of all of its characters.