"You confuse yourselves with your actions, even with your thoughts. You barely understand that in order to be, it should not be necessary to act, and that the world changes you far more than you change it." (Malraux, The Temptation of the West, 1961)
The world consists of wonderful people who enter and exit your life. When you let them enter, your breaths seem more thoughtful, your behaviors more scrutinized, your ideas challenged, and sometimes your brain orgasms from happiness. But when these individuals leave, you experience equally significant things like confusion and hurt. It seems okay to let someone in, someone trustworthy, good, honest, and not concern yourself with the end. As things exist in your mind, there is no harm. Intellectual promiscuity, then, is not so bad. To have intimate, intelligent conversations into the morning is not troubling, either. Sometimes when good people enter, it is not necessary to act, or specifically to resist.
When people enter, their curiosity is manifest in the questions they ask. The two topics I most frequently defend are my love for mainstream hip-hop and American football. How can a classic conservative love such things? How can a self-proclaimed moderate feminist enjoy misogynistic male narratives of power and sexual prowess? How can someone so reasonable cite aesthetics as reason for watching the crushing of big beautiful male bodies clad in spandex?
While I am as passionate about TI ("I'm The King") as much as I am about TO (Eagles WR), I see no inconsistencies in my tastes. Mainstream hip-hop and football both serve a stereotypically male audience. Common themes of the music I listen to appeal to scantily-clad women and their body parts, money, violence. I understand rap lyrics are really male narratives of power. Consider the first verse of Jumaine Dupri's "Gotta Getcha":
been watching you for so damn long
but I don't know what to say or do,
I be sittin' around fantasizin' bout' what I wanna do to you,
Here's somethin' about the way you move your body I can't take,
Specially when you turn around and you make ur ass shake,
You da the number one most requested in the club like one of my jams,
But no matter what when I come in your right here where I am,
Breakin' it down like we in bed,
Gotta a nigga spedin' up all his bread,
Bendin' over to the front,
Lookin' back at me like whatcha want
This is a song about the instinctual desire to possess a woman that can dance well on the floor. Simple concept. This theme has been repeated again and will continue to repeat as long as people can dance, and men and women have different anatomies. The timelessness of grinding or physical chemistry, or lust, etc. are appealing because it is easy to feel this music. It requires no thought to move to a good beat. I enjoy these narratives because it is just so simple. But within these lyrics is also androcentrism, which is just as fascinating.
Similarly football is a easy game to appreciate. The seventeen weeks of football season are the shortest of any other sport. Games are full of intensity, passion, and surprise. Plays are much less fluid than in other games, but all you need as a QB or RB (depending on who you're talking about) is one opening, one pass, one run and the game changes. One play can change everything. Your hope can inflate, and then deflate just as quickly. The first TD sets the momentum but there is so much opportunity for recovery. The aesthetics of the game: the movement of bodies, breaking of tackles, heavy men leaping into the air intercepting balls, the positioning of the football into the snuggly armpits of another powerful man... I am still trying to learn and see patterns and strategy. There is also structure and endless rules nobody learns or knows in football. I like the propriety of how the game is played, as well.
Sometimes, when I watch these games on my couch, I can't believe I'm sweating. If I join a fantasy league for this season, I will need good company to watch my games. I don't expect to find it with my roommates because as women, they may find my behavior peculiar. I will tell them to go read my blog.
The aesthetics of both rap music and football are long-lasting. They are a testament to the possibility of great (physical) contact...
The world consists of wonderful people who enter and exit your life. When you let them enter, your breaths seem more thoughtful, your behaviors more scrutinized, your ideas challenged, and sometimes your brain orgasms from happiness. But when these individuals leave, you experience equally significant things like confusion and hurt. It seems okay to let someone in, someone trustworthy, good, honest, and not concern yourself with the end. As things exist in your mind, there is no harm. Intellectual promiscuity, then, is not so bad. To have intimate, intelligent conversations into the morning is not troubling, either. Sometimes when good people enter, it is not necessary to act, or specifically to resist.
When people enter, their curiosity is manifest in the questions they ask. The two topics I most frequently defend are my love for mainstream hip-hop and American football. How can a classic conservative love such things? How can a self-proclaimed moderate feminist enjoy misogynistic male narratives of power and sexual prowess? How can someone so reasonable cite aesthetics as reason for watching the crushing of big beautiful male bodies clad in spandex?
While I am as passionate about TI ("I'm The King") as much as I am about TO (Eagles WR), I see no inconsistencies in my tastes. Mainstream hip-hop and football both serve a stereotypically male audience. Common themes of the music I listen to appeal to scantily-clad women and their body parts, money, violence. I understand rap lyrics are really male narratives of power. Consider the first verse of Jumaine Dupri's "Gotta Getcha":
been watching you for so damn long
but I don't know what to say or do,
I be sittin' around fantasizin' bout' what I wanna do to you,
Here's somethin' about the way you move your body I can't take,
Specially when you turn around and you make ur ass shake,
You da the number one most requested in the club like one of my jams,
But no matter what when I come in your right here where I am,
Breakin' it down like we in bed,
Gotta a nigga spedin' up all his bread,
Bendin' over to the front,
Lookin' back at me like whatcha want
This is a song about the instinctual desire to possess a woman that can dance well on the floor. Simple concept. This theme has been repeated again and will continue to repeat as long as people can dance, and men and women have different anatomies. The timelessness of grinding or physical chemistry, or lust, etc. are appealing because it is easy to feel this music. It requires no thought to move to a good beat. I enjoy these narratives because it is just so simple. But within these lyrics is also androcentrism, which is just as fascinating.
Similarly football is a easy game to appreciate. The seventeen weeks of football season are the shortest of any other sport. Games are full of intensity, passion, and surprise. Plays are much less fluid than in other games, but all you need as a QB or RB (depending on who you're talking about) is one opening, one pass, one run and the game changes. One play can change everything. Your hope can inflate, and then deflate just as quickly. The first TD sets the momentum but there is so much opportunity for recovery. The aesthetics of the game: the movement of bodies, breaking of tackles, heavy men leaping into the air intercepting balls, the positioning of the football into the snuggly armpits of another powerful man... I am still trying to learn and see patterns and strategy. There is also structure and endless rules nobody learns or knows in football. I like the propriety of how the game is played, as well.
Sometimes, when I watch these games on my couch, I can't believe I'm sweating. If I join a fantasy league for this season, I will need good company to watch my games. I don't expect to find it with my roommates because as women, they may find my behavior peculiar. I will tell them to go read my blog.
The aesthetics of both rap music and football are long-lasting. They are a testament to the possibility of great (physical) contact...
Well, I believe that hip-hop is very easy to enjoy (the beats are typically very good and how can anyone not get pumped up hearing lil john screaming yeah! or what!). The problem I have with hip-hop is what it does to those who are impressionable. It bends our youth (jeez i feel old) towards a culture where women are dehumanized and seen as sexual objects...not to mention a culture that values intoxicants. While not everyone is affected by it, I would say the majority of teenagers are.
ReplyDeleteI think it's sad to tell girls that you just need to be hot, dress scantily, and be loose in order to reach your life goal of being the desire of someone as handsome as usher or as ugly as 50 cent. (or even worse, the promotion of songs that espouse beating women).
Really, I think I would have failed as a father if my daughter ended up in one of those hip hop videos =)
Football is an amazing game of anticipation, strategy, mental acuteness, and physical endurance. I love watching as much as I do playing (there are very few feelings as good as throwing or receiving a deep touchdown pass). Ultimately, it is a waste of time, and it hurts people (although NFL players are well compensated for their shorter lifespans). meh...
As handsome as Usher? Oh no no no. As handsome as TI perhaps.
ReplyDeleteMore seriously, the dehumanization of women is really not so simple. Women are paid for this labor. They make rational decisions to do what they do so they can feed their kids, and take care of themselves. What you deem as exploitative may very well be necessary in the perspective of these women. They appear in these video because they want or need to do so. In addition, they do not find it morally reprehensible to show more skin that you and I would be comfortable with. Doesn't mean that they don't go to CHurch on Sunday or think about bettering their lives.
I know plenty of smart women who use their sex to get more than they would normally get. This is not fair, certainly, but it is perhaps a way of leveling the cultural, social, economic disparities that already exist between men and women.
The misogynistic music only reflects what is already out there in the culture. It echoes other media outlets, and the fact that boys and girls are socialized differently in this society. The construction of gender in an androcentric society needs for women to be subjugated sexually, socially, economically (through media, culture, etc.) for male power to continue to dominate.
I think we;re still experiencing the backlash of the sexual revolution today. And the lossening of propriety and etiquette and social mores hurts as much as it proclaims to advance. But for this claim, I don't have evidence.
In summary, for me to be conscious of what I'm watching and critical of it does not take away from the basic pleasure I have of listening or moving to such music.
hey, i don't pass judgment. I'm not saying that those specific women in those videos are morally deficient (as you pointed out who knows what the circumstances are)...that's between each of them and God.
ReplyDeletehowever, i believe that by buying into the hip hop culture (in other words enjoying it), we propogate these mental positions and the affect it has on those who see it thrown at them everyday (our children and siblings).
by the way, women have always been able to use their bodies to advance, but isn't that something that we should try to go away from? Isn't it reprehensible to tell our sisters and daughters that it's okay to give it up and to show skin for money? or maybe we want to tell them that this is a horrible way to act, but it's okay when i listen to the music, because i am knowledgeable and won't be affected?
I think the worst part of this hip hop culture is the loss of one's dignity. Money, beauty (although i believe it's more skin than beauty), and power rule; intelligence and spirituality is cast away.
here's an anecdote... two Muslims guy friends were at a club grinding with girls and drinking, having a merry old time. The one brother decided to order out; the pizzas arrived. As he took a slice and was about to bite into it, the other brother yelled, "Wtf are you doing!" Bewildered, he replied, "huh." "you can't eat that pizza it has pepporoni on it."
Having sexuality and flash culture thrown at us has led us as Muslims to have an odd perspective of what is sacred. (not that i am saying one or the other is worse, i'm not quite sure which is)
but it still raises questions on hypocrisy: how can i say that I believe that extra-marital relations are wrong, when I love to watch the OC? how can i believe that women should be respected as the mothers and sisters of our society when i cannot help looking at their tight fitting clothes?
May Allah guide us, protect us, and allow us to figure out how to get us out of this whole we dug.
You seem to be saying that I should be responsible for what I listen to because of the overarching consequences of what I do, or listen to affect my sense of self (or what you call dignity). Again, dignity is not something I thought about. But dignity seems like something not accessible to argument. Like I dont really know what it means or what to do with it.
ReplyDeletewatching films with questionable subject matter, exposing yourself to potential harm or risk-taking in general would these constitute dangers to dignity? dancing, partying, having a good time? if dressing under the relative norms of a society can be deemed an offense to self dignity, is dignity then some absolute, static, super or higher order concept that is unattainable and undefined? if you're talking to a former prostitute for example, would loss of dignity be a reason for leaving such a profession?
Dignity sounds like something inherent like our moral compass or some such thing. To cite dignity then is unintelligible.
Intelligence and spirituality, you're right, are not part of discussions re: culture. This may be because spirituality, dignity, and maybe intelligence all belong to the invisible realm of the private, the individual. outside factors try to measure religiosity, which is what we should strive for and not religion, in the way we dress, or speak, or behave, but that inner stuff does not--Cannot-- enter the picture.
media by definition tries to market products to a public. women and their bodies have always been an effective way to market products because the subject is assumed to be male. hip hop videos sell because sex sells. the market has no morals, and no dignity.
as consumers of pop culture, we can be conscious of what we're bringing into our homes and giving our families. but to ban a genre of music because of some esoteric reference to dignity does not work for me.
I am enormously impressed by this incipient manifesto. (It seems like you must have a lot of free time to be able to maintain such prodigious dialogues.) Keep writing, and I'll keep reading. And by the way, your writing has improved markedly since high school. Of course I would tend to assume that you're a little more meticulous when you're writing something more meaningful to you. Till next time, adios.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean my writing has "improved markedly since high school"? I do believe my writing has always been Quality, with a capital Q. You enjoy it now as much as then. I'll post my (Philly) Eagles-Ebola paper for you to read. Or I'll send it to you. It was my most favorite piece this year because I wrote about a football game...
ReplyDeletetake care