Eminem’s 8 Mile helped me survive abuse – and opened my eyes to a world outside of orthodox Judaism
My upbringing denied me access to the arts and led to me bottling up my feelings about what was happening to me.Then I saw Eminem taking control of his destiny, and decided I needed to do the sameAt 15, I had never been to the cinema, or even watched a movie.I grew up in a strictly Orthodox Charedi Jewish household, the daughter of a rabbi, in Glasgow, where we had next to no exposure to cultural influences beyond our religious world.The bookshelves were stacked with biblical texts and teachings, we sang in Yiddish and I only saw TV at my less religious grandparents’ house, where we could watch the end of the tennis if it was finishing as we arrived.By my mid-teens, my parents had moved to Jerusalem and sent me to live in Manchester, with a scholar who would later abuse me.
The abuse went on for six months while his family slept or when they were out,I had no one to turn to or tell; even if I had, no one had taught me the words for what was happening to me,It was a complicated, lonely time without adults to rely on,I was in a new school and two classmates asked if I wanted to see 8 Mile in town,The entire concept of a cinema was alien to me – and I’d never heard of its star Eminem, the rapper whose life was mirrored on screen – but, without supervision, I was intrigued.
We bought tickets and took our seats in the small, dark space,For the next 110 minutes, I left my own world and stepped into another,I didn’t know that was possible,I was thrilled,I was also so overwhelmed by the experience of being in a cinema that I barely watched the film.
So, a couple of weeks later, I took myself on the bus to see it again, alone,This time, I was transfixed by Eminem’s character, B-Rabbit,I saw similarities between us,He wrote lyrics on scraps of paper and his hand; I wrote rhythmic poetry on scraps of paper, in the pages of notebooks and on the back of my hand too, to make sense of my life and survive it,When he sat on the bus, leaning against the window, I knew what it was to be unsure where to go or who to rely on.
Afterwards, I sought out his music, borrowing CDs and an MP3 player, listening to Lose Yourself and Cleanin’ Out My Closet.I even rapped the words in Yiddish inside my head.And I went back to the cinema a third time to soak up even more.On the way out, I looked up at a billboard and thought: “There’s my friend”.It was such an unlikely connection.
Where I came from there was a hierarchy of epistemology: art only held validity when it was old and brought by someone with authority.8 Mile showed me that art could come from anyone.B-Rabbit was someone from the outskirts, able to create music from original, unpolished thoughts simply by putting it down and out there, and crowds responded.That made it possible for me, too.I loved my faith but I started an anonymous blog about the challenges I faced and the hypocrisy I saw in the human-made parts of it.
It was the start of making my internal world external, and crossing bridges that would allow me to push at walls, educate myself and advocate for change within my community and my own life,Crucially, because I’d seen a model of writing everything down on scraps of paper, I wrote down each time the man I lived with abused me; years later it would help send him to jail,Being asked to give evidence at his trial would allow me to expand my world, too – it gave me confidence and power that I could make decisions for and about myself,I carried on writing poems too, and a book,And I retained a love of film, especially biopics, a window into someone else’s life: Respect, about Aretha Franklin, and Bohemian Rhapsody, about Freddie Mercury.
I suppose I’ve gravitated to people who have navigated experiencing life on the margins even if they gain a spotlight as well.When I’m overwhelmed, I still take myself to the cinema, alone.Being allowed into a world that has been created keeps my own in perspective.I can step out of it, then back in.Recently, I rewatched 8 Mile with my teenage son.
As a parent, I saw more: the drug use, neglect, the relationship with his mother.It highlighted how I’d been thrown into the deep end as a teenager, in contrast with my own three children.It was pure fluke that 8 Mile was my first cinema experience.It was the big film at the time.If it had been Legally Blonde, I’d have enjoyed it but the impact wouldn’t have been the same.
I wouldn’t have ended up a pink-clad, blond lawyer.Instead, discovering Eminem was the right thing for me at just the right time.To this day, when I’m cleaning my house, I still rap his music inside my head, sometimes in Yiddish.Chutzpah by Yehudis Fletcher (Transworld Publishers Ltd, £11.99).
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