The Feminist Review

Byron Hurt’s documentary

I read novels, and fall asleep to non-fiction. I’d pick a Christopher Guest mockumentary over a documentary any day. But Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes was engaging and entertaining, exploring masculinity, misogyny, homophobia and objectification in hip hop music and videos.

Filmmaker Byron Hurt’s appreciation and respect for hip hop is evident in this thoughtful critique. It really is an act of love to raise tough questions, and ask people to change. He speaks with a great range of artists, listeners, academics, and even tries to have meaningful conversations with executives.

Women in the film

There aren’t many women in the film, but they do portray a variety of opinions about hip hop. It is important to see that not all women of color agree about hip hop. Moreover, this film is focused on men speaking to each other about hip hop and their values, so it is appropriate that there is so little screen time focused on women. Hurt even opens up a dangerous door of homoeroticism in hip hop, which adds depth to his critique of homophobic hip hop culture.Of course, there are LOTS of clips of music videos showing LOTS of women. Sexual objectification of women works for documentaries as well as music videos….

Nelly and Spelman College

The film discusses a fantastic story about hip hop artist Nelly and Spelman College. Nelly was scheduled to speak at Spelman as his song “Tip Drill” was climbing the charts. The song’s video included the typical dozens of scantily-clad women dancing in a background, or grinding around Nelly, demonstrating his power and wealth. This video’s objectification of women is particularly explicit when Nelly slides a credit card between a woman’s butt cheeks as if she were a checkout machine at the grocery.

Students at Spelman College debated canceling Nelly’s appearance altogether, but decided that after his presentation he should join in a discussion about the video and its messages about women. Nelly refused, and didn’t come to Spelman.

Commodification

The film contextualizes sexual objectification of women in larger societal and historical context and ties it in with homophobia and racism. Hurt directly (and correctly) implicates corporate greed in the discussion. In a consumer culture, objectification of women and racism often bleed into commodification, adding new layers of horror and struggle. In his further work, I hope Hurt further develops a conversation around consumerism and commodification.

Filed under: movies on March 9th, 2008 by Anna Lisa