Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
As you regular readers know, we’ve been discussing workout music and the merits of hip-hop. The following are the thoughts I had while working out yesterday about why hip-hop doesn’t alter my thoughts or attitudes the way it does for some people. Bear in mind, these are the most rudimentary of thoughts. There’s a good chance that I’m going to say something that sounds ridiculous. You might even get riled up about a few of them. Just remember, I might not mean what you think I mean or even what I’ve actually said, since I haven’t fleshed this out. But, on with it. . . .
I’m not pro-misogyny or pro-violence or pro-arrogance, which all get featured in hip-hop sometimes, but I’m also not pro-promiscuity or pro-anti-God, which get featured plenty in rock. You could maybe argue that hip-hop is a movement, a lifestyle, that acts on these themes, but even if we got past the drama and show factors, you’d be hard pressed to convince me that rock isn’t just as infiltrated with an “undesirable” lifestyle.
Lex brought up Bukowski, alluding to the discrepancy of tolerating themes in one media form and not another. I think he and I are on the same page there.
Sure, there’s always a line, and I’m not saying that there’s never a time to be cautious or that God doesn’t ever direct us (as individuals) not to partake in particular media. But I’m just gonna go ahead and say that I watch, listen to, and read media with all the elements I listed above.
And I don’t feel bad about it.
There was a time when I did — like the HS year I gave up television because I realized, as I was watching 90210 (which was forbidden), that I wasn’t offended by the pre-marital sex. Instead, I caught myself thinking, “Well, they’re 21.”
So I determined to cleanse myself of such attitudes by not watching TV.
But that wasn’t the answer. Turning off the television never kept anyone a virgin.
Okay. I know what you’re thinking. And you’re right: I wouldn’t let Caelyn listen to, watch, or read some of what I do.
. . . Because she’s a kid and can’t process stuff the way I can as an adult. Her value and belief systems are just beginning to form and are still very susceptible. But even if I did expose her to those things, the truth is that her belief system is still most susceptible to her father and me.
Which brings us to the question, “Does art influence culture or does culture influence art?” (Let’s go ahead and assume that you agree that hip-hop requires a level of artistry and talent. I couldn’t do it. There’s a good chance you couldn’t either.) I believe in the power of rhetoric, the power of art to develop and sustain a mindset, to create generational and personal connections, to promote change. But, even so, I’m not convinced that, on the whole, art, particularly mainstream art, isn’t a product of our cultures and subcultures.
Does hip-hop perpetuate misogyny? Maybe, in some instances. Does it create misogynists? I don’t think so. Would misogyny in our culture disappear if hip-hop died or artists started writing pro-women songs? I doubt it. Would our streets be any safer if Congress had its way? Probably not. There’s validity in arguing that one person being positively changed is still one person that counts, but the root of any kind of evil isn’t in what members of any culture produce. Besides, is hip-hop really evil anyway?
I worry about violence in schools, Caelyn going on dates with creeps, et al. But I just don’t think we can blame hip-hop (or other media) for those realities nor can we avoid them through censorship.
Then there’s the issue of what’s not being put under the spotlight. I love shows like Leave It to Beaver, even though they’re full of hegemonic masculinity, which isn’t the same as misogyny, but it’s in the same category of offenses. (Before you protest, “It was a different era!” I guarantee, if you look for it, you’ll find it in something like Friends, even though Monica’s not wearing pearls and baking brownies for Chandler every night.) But although Ward wears the pants, brings home the bacon, and disciplines Wally and the Beav, June has more power than she ever gets credit for.
June might seem like a voiceless female, but 9 times out of 10, she’s right and Ward’s wrong. She’s subtle, but persuasive. She’s so good, in fact, that Ward rarely realizes he’s following her idea. And Beaver feared his father’s discipline, but he dreaded disappointing his mother.
The point is that for decades women have rebelled against being June Cleavers, without ever recognizing what power June had. I’m not suggesting Ward shouldn’t have been more appreciative or that June shouldn’t have had a more prominent voice in raising the boys or that Ward should’ve been the head of the household as he was. But, still, June Cleaver wasn’t completely powerless. The women in hip-hop songs aren’t always powerless either.
The guy might be singing with five-star arrogance, but a lot of times, he’s pleading for the sex goddess to just give him what he wants. She holds the reigns. That’s not true in every case, but it is in some. If you take a closer look at those cases, it’s often the “poor objectified woman” who’s got the power. And (this is gonna get me into trouble, but I’m already in hot water anyway) it’s not always a bad thing to be a sex goddess holding the reigns.
Don’t hear me wrong. I’m not saying women should be treated like sex objects, not by far. I’m just saying it’s not altogether unflattering to be the intense sexual desire of a man, even if he’s a pompous jerk. You don’t have to give it to him if you don’t want to.
(Violence against women is a whole other issue.)
What? You don’t see it?
Of course, I’m a housewife, and I’m not a part of a subculture that’s very violent, misogynistic, or angry. That could make all the difference. Hip-hop doesn’t often connect with things in my life or my heart. In that way, there’s a disconnectedness to it that allows me to either just work with the beat and disengage my mind or to create a setting different from my everyday life, where I am someone who actually likes working out and, if need be, could kick your butt.
Then again, I am a part of a subculture that’s petty, materialistic, and selfish and seeing those themes in media does make me angry sometimes. But not all the time, not in a way that keeps me from ever enjoying them. And, really, I mainly get worked up about that kind of stuff in relation to Christians’ behavior.
There’s the issue, too, of hip-hop’s ability to influence emotions, whether by its lyrics or its overall tone. Yes, music influences my feelings, but most often, it draws on what’s already there. Sometimes it might pull anger or sadness up to the surface when it was somewhat buried before, but the feeling was original, mine. And, you know, I actually really like that about music. I’d even go so far as to say I need that. Music has helped me work through feelings that I might not have fully realized otherwise. That’s important to me. I can’t say that’s personally true of hip-hop, but I can say it’s true of music overall.
If you know my regular playlists, you could easily point to Elliott Smith for the sadness angle. Sure, the depression’s there, but listen again. Elliott’s awful angry and hurt too. Do I ever listen to Elliott just because I feel melancholy for no reason? You betcha. I might even be guilty of listening to him just because I’m in the mood to be melancholy. But that’s not why I fell in love with him. He’s one of my all-time favorites and his albums (namely, either/or & XO) had a significant impact on my life because they helped me work through some of the emotions that I shared with Elliott at that particular time. That was good for me.
I might be crazy, but it’s possible that hip-hop could be a good outlet for anger too.
I know I’m treading on thin ice, here. Elliott committed suicide. I’m sure there are people who’d like to point to him as a force behind suicides of his listeners, just like there are people who point to hip-hop artists as a force behind acts of violence done by their listeners. In the end, though, neither are really to blame.
So there it is. You’ve finally made it to the end of these posts. But not to the end of my conclusion, because I’m still not sure what all this means.
All I really know is:
- Hip-hop doesn’t jack me up.
- I don’t promote censorship.
- I’m pro-woman, and on some levels, I’m pro-challenging society’s definition of gender and gender roles, but I don’t roar very often. And if you’d like to open the door for me, I’d love it. I won’t get upset if you want to tell me I’m hot either.
- I like listening to hip-hop, even though it’s not always a part of my main line-up and I really have a (whole) lot to learn about it.
- Most importantly, no matter what I’m listening to, I need to get some earphones that actually fit in my tiny ears.
Oh, and it’s storming in DFW, so The Office got covered up by radar. Please don’t tell me about it!
10 comments
I will say that the sexual objectification of women in hip-hop is just one aspect of misogyny. In some hip-hop songs, women aren’t even given that kind of power (if power is a way that you’re able to think of it). And, just to lay my cards on the table, I don’t think that that kind of power is an equal or healthy kind.
The fact is, there is a lot of misogyny in hip-hop. What I take issue with is that the genre is singled out so often.
I remember reading an article about how misogynistic Emo is, and it made some really valid arguments. But people don’t talk about that. Misogyny is portrayed in literature, movies, “white” music, and church sermons, but hip-hop is singled out. Hip-hop is music, but it’s also a kind of poetry and storytelling. Writers like Bukowski or Larry Brown (or even Faulkner or Hemmingway or Sallinger, to some extent) write about these horrible people in horrible environments, with all sorts of language, and they are honored for them. Nas does the same thing, and people like Bill O’Reilly have a cow about it.
Also, there’s anti-misogynistic hip-hop, too. In addition to a lot of indie rappers, there are people like Common, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, and Lupe Fiasco. And there are others who are more ambivalent: people like Jay-Z, Kanye, Nas, Eminem, et al., who say some pretty sexist things on some songs, and make some pretty powerful statements that would jive with feminism on other songs. I would suggest that that ambivalence is where most of us live, both men and women.
Lastly, I call June Cleaver’s power into question. Manipulation is powerful, but it’s not power.
Lex — Of course, I agree that sexual objectification of women in hip-hop is just one aspect of misogyny. And I hope you know that I don’t think that kind of “power” is equal or healthy. And, yes, all aspects of misogyny appear in hip-hop. I was just talking about that one aspect because, well, this is just one post on a personal blog, and it’s the main aspect in the hip-hop that I happened to be listening to the last two days. It’s also the aspect that, while blatantly wrong, is easier for me to reconcile.
The point I was making wasn’t that sexual objectification is a good thing (I don’t think that it is) or an “empowering” thing (though I do think sex, in our culture, is powerful, even if exploiting it or using it for manipulation doesn’t qualify as having true power), just that there’s sometimes an element that’s ignored for the sake of making the artist out to be a bigger jerk.
I guess “control” is a better word than “power.” I haven’t spent time thinking about power, like you have, but I think there’s a distinction between true power and that which is powerful, though those two, logically, sometimes align. I’m not sure exactly how to convey what I’m talking about. It’s not that being objectified gives women power. But the fact that they have a choice in how they respond to that objectification is somewhat powerful. I think there’s something powerful in realizing that you are responsible for you and that you choose how you interact with others, even if you don’t get to choose how they see or treat you. Maybe that’s crazy.
Now, when you factor in violence — verbal or physical — that changes everything. I realize there are probably hip-hop songs that do that, and the only excuse I can give for those is that it’s an accurate reflection of humanity and art is about humanity. But that element wasn’t present in anything I was listening to.
Also, I was trying to point out that while arrogance is off-putting, there’s also something a little pathetic about it, especially when you realize that the artist is being arrogant about his ability to have a woman, when in fact, he hasn’t gotten her yet and might not. He’s arrogant, but he’s pleading. In videos (and maybe real life), he’s the sex king who gets whomever he wants for whatever he wants for as long as he wants. But that’s not always the case in the lyrics.
I should’ve expounded more on the discrepancy between tolerance of themes in one form of media and not in others. I think I agree with you there. I definitely think all those authors wrote/write “about these horrible people in horrible environments, with all sorts of language” and get recognition/praise for them. Faulkner wrote about girls getting “raped” with corn cobs, for cryin’ out loud, in novels that he admittedly wrote, not for the sake of art, but for the sake of writing something shocking and formulaic enough to make instant cash! (If I’m remembering correctly, the victim in that novel chooses her assailant rather than vindication at the end.) You know I’m a big fan of each of those authors, but it makes most sense to me that if you decry misogyny in hip-hop, you’d have to decry it in literature, movies, and other music.
I know some hip-hop is probably created solely for entertainment value, but, like you said, a lot of it is poetry and storytelling that represents humanity and makes serious social, political, etc. statements that are just as purposeful as they are aggressive. I guess you could maybe argue that hip-hop receives more attention from the mass public, particularly from youth, and hip-hop artists seek to make a public image for themselves that lines up with what they write about. So it’s easier to single them out. They’re more visible. But that shouldn’t matter.
Back to Faulkner — he wrote both for entertainment and lasting values and he was obsessed with the image he created for himself. Not only that, but lots of schools require students to read him. The fact that most of them don’t understand or pay attention to him they way they do to hip-hop shouldn’t really factor into the argument of either’s intrinsic value.
I don’t even begin to know about the scene like you do and can’t speak on it with any authority, but yeah, I know there’s anti-misogynistic hip-hop too. I didn’t mean to suggest that there wasn’t or that it’s not good that there is. It is! And I think it does make a difference. I’m just not convinced that changing the content of hip-hop that is misogynistic would change the presence of misogyny in society. I’m just not sure it works that way. And even if eliminating an element from art could change a fundamental problem in society, that element would have to be eliminated from books, movies, and other music as well. I guess, on one level, we’ve tried to do that with books in schools. I had to get permission to read Waiting for Godot, for instance, and for watching Apocalypse Now in conjunction with Heart of Darkness. But, still, I don’t think elimination is the answer. Boycotting is worse, as it blocks out a part of humanity and culture that I think is worthwhile to consider, even if I don’t “endorse” it. Darkness, of all sorts, is real, after all, and a part of each of our experiences as humans.
Anyway, I like the way you described the different types of hip-hop, and I think ambivalence is pretty accurate. Actually, I think we probably agree a lot more than you think we do. I’m just not explaining myself very well. I haven’t studied or thought about power and gender in society in a few years. I have strong feelings about both, but I haven’t mastered how to communicate them.
As for June, I didn’t really mean that she has power because she manipulates, though having some level of control gives her some sort of voice and, therefore, renders her somewhat powerful. She’s just often pointed to as someone with no voice whatsoever. But I do mean that she has some sort of power within her family, as evidenced by Beaver’s respect for her. I think there’s a sort of power in that that’s more true than, at least part of, Ward’s perceived power. It’s like when Andy says that he doesn’t carry a gun because almost everyone respects a gun. He’d rather have people respect him.
Leave It to Beaver wasn’t ever intended to be a show that made social commentary, but rather social observation for the sake of entertainment. In light of feminism, it’s become a show of social commentary, a lot of which is accurate. I just think that June earned respect from her kids without yelling, while — from what’s usually shown, anyway — Ward earned it by yelling (in Beav’s eyes, at least). I’m not saying there’s no place for discipline in parenting, but I’d like my kids to respect me and want to behave for the sake of wanting to have good character and respecting themselves and others, rather than because they know they’re “gonna get it.”
* I think I should also note in regard to the 3rd paragraph of my comment, that, yes, I do think women have a choice in how they present/represent themselves to other people, and, yes, I do think, in some, but not all cases, women have the option of saying, “I won’t stand to be treated this way. I’m leaving.” I even believe it’s important to exercise that choice. I didn’t mean to exclude those facts when I said that you don’t choose how other people see or treat you. Ultimately, though, you’re not responsible for their actions or perceptions.
[...] This baby’s gettin’ long, though, so I’ll cut you some slack and stick ‘em in the next post. [...]
Did you think that I was disagreeing w/you (I mean, other than the June Cleaver thing)? Because I wasn’t, I was just chunking in my two cents.
Lex — Ha! I don’t know what I was thinking, man. I guess I kinda took the aside in the first paragraph as a suggestion that I thought that kind of “power” was equal and healthy and then tied that in to the final call out about June. So I mostly was trying to clarify what I really meant to say about that kind of “power” and about June. I didn’t think you were disagreeing with the stuff you said in the middle. I just started talking further about each of those (really good) points you made and got carried away. By the time I was finished, I felt like I’d been arguing, even though nobody (in the actual conversation, anyway) was. Plus, your points made me think about what I’d left out and how that could’ve been misinterpreted, not necessarily by you, just by someone. I guess I just used you to work all the way through my thoughts on the issue. So sorry. And thanks!
I’m really glad you put your two cents in, because a) it’s always nice when you do and b) you got me thinking more.
Wow. I was just going to write good post. But you two are clearly past that point.
Steve — This is what happens when you cross the border and leave us to our own cyber devices.
Thanks for your “good post” thoughts, though!
[...] interesting discussion took place over at Katy’s blog with regard to whether or not hip-hop, specifically, is misogynistic. A comparison was made to [...]
[...] how she could decry misogyny in hip-hop yet read (and enjoy) Bukowski. I followed that by saying that I agree that tolerance of certain themes ought to span various forms of media. Allie’s basic premise is that while Bukowski and rappers discuss the same things, they do so in [...]
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