Using Rhetorical Analysis and Trauma-Informed Pedagogy to Disrupt the Lie of “Love the Way You Lie”

Abstract

This chapter argues that Eminem and Rihanna's 2009 “Love the Way You Lie” is a cultural artifact representing contemporary attitudes about domestic violence; thus, this chapter models a trauma-informed methodology for guiding students through analysis and discussion of these narratively violent texts. In so doing, instructors can help students recognize the discursive strategies through which stories about gender violence are constructed and examine what is at stake in telling and circulating these stories. The chapter begins by defining trauma-informed pedagogy and critical pedagogy, arguing that when used together in the classroom, they can promote empathy, self-advocacy, resistance, and resilience. The chapter then contextualizes the song and music video within the context of the #MeToo movement, encouraging instructors to validate the perception of students who experience allyship with Rihanna as a survivor. The chapter moves on to provide instructors with a model for guiding students both through semiotic analysis and close reading of the song's and video's narrative and visual discourses. This model pays attention to the lyric's reliance on the point of view of the unreliable narrator and pronoun shifts to interpellate listeners into the abuser's world view while also truncating the victim's testimony; this model also examines the content of the lyrics to identify gender violence mythologies constructed within both the abuser's and victim's narratives. Equipped with these insights, instructors can help students deconstruct the visual discourses of the video, which repeat the gender violence mythologies of the song lyrics.

Citation

Johnston Ambrose, E. (2022), "Using Rhetorical Analysis and Trauma-Informed Pedagogy to Disrupt the Lie of “Love the Way You Lie”", Marshall, J.E. and Skibba, C. (Ed.) Trauma-Informed Pedagogy, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 41-61. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80071-497-720221003