97 Bonnie and Clyde - Comparison Between Eminem and Tori Amos (Essay Sample)

In Eminem’s song 97 Bonnie and Clyde Eminem describes disposing of his estranged wife Kim whose murder, by Eminem, is implied throughout the song. This disturbing song writes the story of a creepy night at a lake where Eminem disposes of his wife after having killed her, all while talking to his infant daughter. This creepy rap highlights extreme problems in the social structure between Eminem and his wife. This reflects the social relationships of many men and women and exposes problems in our patriarchal society. The crimes committed in this song can be explained through the application of feminist theory. Feminist theory looks at the differences between men and women’s experiences in social situations (Inderbitzin, 2018). In criminology, they often focus on domestic violence and sexual crimes committed against women. Feminist theory explains Eminem's crimes against his wife through the representation of an unequal social structure, early patriarchal problems, and the control of women through deviant labels.

Feminist theory is an extremely important part of criminology that only developed in recent years. Before feminist criminology was developed in the 1970’s women did not have their own places within criminological research and were assumed to just be the same as men within theories (Inderbitzin, 2018). This caused issues with the patriarchal system to not be a focus and continue to be an issue in crime and socialization. The patriarchy is a system in which men have all the power and are seen as more powerful and in charge. This is a huge issue that feminist theories look at and discuss as problems within criminology. This unequal social structure creates an environment where the gender roles assigned to females are seen as less important than men’s. This allows for situations where women can be treated differently, allowing abuse and violence towards them to be more socially accepted. This is allowed through the unequal structure of men and women showing that this behaviour is not deviant. This is shown all throughout Eminem’s song and is exposed through his tone. Eminem is known for saying things about women that are very disturbing and threaten proper equality by oversexualizing women. This is once again shown in 97 Bonnie and Clyde with Eminem belittling his wife using negative descriptors of women. For example, “Mama’s messy, ain't she?” could be seen as an innocent joke but based on the tone of this song this little phrase has a much deeper meaning. Eminem is basically saying his wife is messy as in she is dirty and dirty could imply a lens of slut-shaming. This threatens the equal social structure of men and women as it belittled her and makes him seem greater or above her. This unequal structure that is reflected in Eminem’s lyrics could also explain why he killed his wife in the first place. If he sees her as messy and below him, he can rationalize her murder and the behaviour will be deemed as less deviant. Similarly, feminism says that this unequal power creates a social environment where this kind of domestic abuse is seen as normal and is often socially accepted.

    Next, an extremely important part of any definition or classification of feminism is patriarchy. The patriarchy is extremely deeply rooted in society and is taught to both men and women through early socialization. Growing up people are raised with expectations projected by  gender roles. These gender roles are expected behaviours of men and women that are socially reinforced in all socialization. Men are taught certain behaviours that promote violence and aggressive behaviours while women are taught to be more nurturing and obedient. In Eminem’s song, he describes his wife as “one of those type of women that do crazy things, and if she don’t get her way, she'll throw a fit”, this shows the effects of the patriarchy in his thinking. This shows why he murdered her, in the song, because her behaviour threatened him and his own ideas of gender roles. When he sings about her he describes her as if she is his possession. Therefore, when Eminem describes how she moved on and has another man and is about to have another child, it shows that he truly was threatened. Her “disobedience” angered him because of patriarchal inequalities and ideas ingrained in him from socialization encouraged his deviant behaviour. This is a problem in criminology because violence and aggression are usually the outcomes of frustration. Frustration can be caused by rejection and inequalities so with an unequal social structure between men and women the definitions of deviance would vary. This means that by murdering his wife he is protecting the patriarchal system and therefore his behaviour would be deemed as less deviant by some. Similarly, even just writing this song should be deviant as it threatened his wife’s life, but because of this structure, it was accepted.

    Within feminist criminology, there are many critical perspectives that have their own differing opinions on social aspects and interactions between the two genders. These include radical feminism, liberal feminism, and socialist feminism. socialist feminism is the perspective that relates the most to both this paper and Eminem’s song. socialist feminism focus’s on conflicts that arise because of the social structure and inequalities within that. An aspect from this criticism in feminist theory that can help explain why this crime that Eminem sang about occurred is the label of deviant that Eminem put onto his wife. Although in the song no crimes or extreme deviant behaviour committed by his wife is described, he still projects her as deviant. This is shown through the lyrics “Mama was real, real bad Was bein’ mean to Dad and made him real, real mad”. This shows that Eminem thinks that she did something wrong, or deviant, and broke a social norm that he had accepted. In feminist theory, this label of deviance is used to control women, and most of the time what is defined as deviant favours wealthier people, predominantly older white men in positions of power. This once again goes back to the power struggle between the two genders and how they socialize with one another. This idea of labeling women as deviant to control them is similar to what Eminem described in his song as he used it as justification for his crime. One critique of the feminist theory is that it is different from other theories in that it has one specific focus. Another critique is that it is reductionist which says that feminist theory only focuses on gender as a variable in crime (Inderbitzin, 2018). Although one could argue that by saying feminist theory explains why the deviant behaviour in the song took place it is the most accurate as it not only looks at what socialization lead to it but also how it affects the entirety of society. This theory is important as it allows for a deeper understanding of the meaning of the socialization that leads to the deviant behaviour of killing his wife in the song as well as further exposes the need for feminist theories in crime.

In conclusion, the murder of Eminem’s wife in his song ‘97 Bonnie and Clyde can be explained using feminist theory. First, the lyrics show struggles in the social structure between Eminem and his wife which is discussed in feminist theory. Then, this song exposes a problematic patriarchal system that created an environment that allowed for this deviant behaviour. Lastly, labeling women as deviant as a way to control them was also relevant in this song, which once again applies to feminist theory and criminology. These three aspects of feminist theory that were hidden within Eminem’s song show why the murder occurred and how socialization created the environment that allowed it. Not only does this theory apply to the crime within the song but also the acceptance of such a disturbing song as okay despite its seriousness and clear disrespect for his wife and all women.