Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (Routledge Classics) (17 page)

Witness the recent piece by Brent Staples in the New York Times, entitled “The Politics of Gangster Rap: A Music Celebrating Murder and Misogyny.” Defining the turf, Staples writes, “For those who haven’t caught up, gangster rap is that wildly successful music in which all women are ‘bitches’ and ‘whores’ and young men kill each other for sport.” No mention of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy in this piece. Not a word about the cultural context that would need to exist for young males to be socialized to think differently about gender. No word about feminism. Staples unwittingly assumes that black males are writing their lyrics off in the “jungle,” faraway from the impact of mainstream socialization and desire. At no point does he interrogate why it is huge audiences, especially young white male consumers, are so turned on by this music, by the misogyny and sexism, by the brutality. Where is the anger and rage at females expressed in this music coming from, the glorification of all acts of violence? These are the difficult questions that Staples feels no need to answer.

One cannot answer them honestly without placing accountability on larger structures of domination (sexism, racism, class elitism) and the individuals—often white, usually male, but not always—who are hierarchally placed to maintain and perpetuate the values that uphold these exploitative and oppressive systems. That means taking a critical look at the politics of hedonistic consumerism, the values of the men and women who produce gangsta rap. It would mean considering the seduction of young black males who find that they can make more money producing lyrics that promote violence, sexism, misogyny than with
any other content. How many disenfranchised black males would not surrender to expressing virulent forms of sexism if they knew the rewards would be unprecedented material power and fame?

More than anything, gangsta rap celebrates the world of the material, the dog-eat-dog world where you do what you gotta do to make it even if it means fucking over folks and taking them out. In this world view killing is necessary for survival. Significantly, the logic here is a crude expression of the logic of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. In his new book Sexy Dressing Etc., privileged white male law professor Duncan Kennedy gives what he calls “a set of general characterizations of U.S. culture,” explaining that “it is individual (cowboys), material (gangsters), and philistine.” This general description of mainstream culture would not lead us to place gangsta rap on the margins of what this nation is about but at the center. Rather than seeing it as a subversion or disruption of the norm, we would need to see it as an embodiment of the norm.

That viewpoint was graphically highlighted in the film Menace II Society, a drama not only of young black males killing for sport, but which included scenes where mass audiences voyeuristically watched and in many cases enjoyed the kill. Significantly, at one point in the film we see that the young black males have learned their gangsta values from watching movies and television and shows where white male gangsters are center stage. The importance of this scene is how it undermines any notion of “essentialist” blackness that would have viewers believe that the gangsterism these young black males embraced emerged from some unique black cultural experience.

When I interviewed rap artist Ice Cube for Spin magazine recently, he talked about the importance of respecting black women, of communication across gender. In our conversation, he spoke against male violence against women, even as he lapsed into a justification for antiwoman lyrics in rap by insisting on the
madonna/whore split where some females “carry” themselves in a manner that determines how they will be treated. But when this interview came to press it was sliced to ribbons. Once again it was a mass media set-up. Folks (mostly white and male) had thought that if the hardcore feminist talked with the hardened mack, sparks would fly; there would be a knock-down, drag-out spectacle. When Brother Cube and myself talked to each other with respect about the political, spiritual and emotional self-determination of black people, it did not make good copy. I do not know if his public relations people saw the piece in its entirety and were worried that it would be too soft an image, but clearly folks at the magazine did not get the darky spectacle they were looking for.

After this conversation, and after talking with other rappers and folks who listen to rap, it became clear that while black male sexism is real and a serious problem in our communities, some of the more misogynist stuffin black music was there to stir up controversy, to appeal to audiences. Nowhere is this more evident than in the image used with Snoop Doggy Dogg’s record Doggystyle. A black male music and cultural critic called me from across the ocean to ask if I had checked this image out, sharing that for one of the first times in his music-buying life he felt he was seeing an image so offensive in its sexism and misogyny he did not want to take it home. That image—complete with doghouse, “Beware the Dog” sign, a naked black female head in the doghouse, her naked butt sticking out—was reproduced “uncritically” in the November 29, 1993 issue of Time magazine. The positive music review of this album written by Christopher John Farley titled “Gangsta Rap, Doggystyle” makes no mention of sexism and misogyny, or any reference to the cover. If a naked white female body had been inside the doghouse, presumably waiting to be fucked from behind, I wonder if Time would have reproduced an image of the cover along with their review. When I see the pornographic cartoon that graces the cover of Doggystyle
I do not think simply about the sexism and misogyny of young black men, I think about the sexist and misogynist politics of the powerful white adult men and women (and folks of color) who helped produce and market this album.

In her book Misogynies, Joan Smith shares her sense that while most folks are willing to acknowledge unfair treatment of women, discrimination on the basis of gender, they are usually reluctant to admit that hatred of women is encouraged because it helps maintain the structure of male dominance. Smith suggests, “Misogyny wears many guises, reveals itself in different forms—which are dictated by class, wealth, education, race, religion, and other factors, but its chief characteristic is its pervasiveness.” This point reverberated in my mind when I saw Jane Campion’s widely acclaimed film The Piano, which I saw in the midst of the mass media’s focus on sexism and misogyny in gangsta rap. I had been told by many friends in the art world that this was “an incredible film, a truly compelling love story.” Their responses were echoed by numerous positive reviews. No one speaking about this film mentions misogyny and sexism or white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

The nineteenth-century world of the white invasion of New Zealand is utterly romanticized in this film (complete with docile happy darkies—Maori natives—who appear to have not a care in the world). And when the film suggests they care about white colonizers digging up the graves of their dead ancestors it is the sympathetic poor white male who comes to the rescue. Just as the conquest of natives and lands is glamorized in this film, so is the conquest of femininity, personified by white womanhood, by the pale, speechless, corpse-like Scotswoman Ada who journeys into this dark wilderness because her father has arranged for her to marry the white colonizer Stewart. Although mute, Ada expresses her artistic ability, the intensity of her vision and feelings, through piano playing. This passion attracts Baines, the illiterate white settler who wears the facial
tattoos of the Maori—an act of appropriation that makes him (like the traditional figure of Tarzan) appear both dangerous and romantic. He is Norman Mailer’s “white negro.” Baines seduces Ada by promising to return the piano that Stewart has exchanged with him for land, and the film leads us to believe that Ada’s passionate piano playing has been merely a substitution for repressed eroticism. When she learns to let herself go sexually she ceases to need the piano. We watch the passionate climax of Baines’s seduction as she willingly seeks him sexually. We watch her husband Stewart in the role of voyeur, standing with his dog outside the cabin where they fuck, voyeuristically consuming their pleasure. Rather than being turned off by her love for Baines, it appears to excite Stewart’s passion; he longs to possess her all the more. Unable to win her back from Baines, he expresses his rage, rooted in misogyny and sexism, by physically attacking her and chopping off her finger with an ax. This act of male violence takes place with her young daughter, Flora, as a witness. Though traumatized by the violence she witnesses, she is still about to follow the white male patriarch’s orders and take the bloody finger to Baines, along with the message that each time he sees Ada she will suffer physical mutilation.

Violence against land, natives, and women in this film, unlike that of gangsta rap, is portrayed uncritically, as though it is “natural”—the inevitable climax of conflicting passions. The outcome of this violence is all positive. Ultimately, the film suggests Stewart’s rage was only an expression of irrational sexual jealousy, that he comes to his senses and is able to see “reason.” In keeping with the male exchange of women, he gives Ada and Flora to Baines. They leave the wilderness. On the voyage over, Ada demands that her piano be thrown overboard because it is “soiled,” tainted with horrible memories. Surrendering it she lets go her longing to display passion through artistic expression. A nuclear family now, Baines, Ada, and Flora resettle and live happily ever after. Suddenly, patriarchal order is restored. Ada
becomes a modest wife, wearing a veil over her mouth so that no one will see her lips struggling to speak words. Flora has no memory of trauma and is a happy child turning somersaults. Baines is in charge.

The Piano seduces and excites audiences with its uncritical portrayal of sexism and misogyny. Reviewers and audiences alike seem to assume that Campion’s gender, as well as her breaking of traditional boundaries that inhibit the advancement of women in film, indicate that her work expresses a feminist standpoint. And indeed she does employ feminist tropes even as her work betrays feminist visions of female actualization, celebrating and eroticizing male domination. Smith’s discussion of misogyny emphasizes that woman-hating is not solely the province of men: “We are all exposed to the prevailing ideology of our culture, and some women learn early on that they can prosper by aping the misogyny of men; these are the women who win provisional favor by denigrating other women, by playing on male prejudices, and by acting the ‘man’s woman’.” Since this is not a documentary film that needs to remain faithful to the ethos of its historical setting, why is it that Campion does not resolve Ada’s conflicts by providing us with an imaginary landscape where a woman can express passionate artistic commitment and find fulfillment in a passionate relationship? This would be no more farfetched than her cinematic portrayal of Ada’s miraculous transformation from muteness into speech. Ultimately, Campion’s The Piano advances the sexist assumption that heterosexual women will give up artistic practice to find “true love.” That “positive” surrender is encouraged by the “romantic” portrayal of sexism and misogyny.

While I do not think that young black male rappers have been rushing in droves to see The Piano, there is a bond between those folks involved with high culture who celebrate and condone the ideas and values upheld in this film and those who celebrate and condone gangsta rap. Certainly, Kennedy’s description of the
United States as a “cowboy, gangster, philistine” culture would also accurately describe the culture evoked in The Piano. Popular movies that are seen by young black females—for example Indecent Proposal, Mad Dog and Glory, True Romance, One False Move—all eroticize male domination that expresses itself via the exchange of women as well as the subjugation of other men through brutal violence.

A racist white imagination assumes that most young black males, especially those who are poor, live in a self-created cultural vacuum, uninfluenced by mainstream cultural values. Yet it is the application of those values, largely learned through passive, uncritical consumption of the mass media, that is most revealed in gangsta rap. Brent Staples is willing to challenge the notion that “urban primitivism is romantic” when it suggests that black males become “real men” by displaying the will to do violence, yet he remains resolutely silent about that world of privileged white culture that has historically romanticized primitivism and erotized male violence. Contemporary films like Reservoir Dogs and The Bad Lieutenant celebrate urban primitivism. Many of the artistically less successful films create or exploit the cultural demand for graphic depictions of hardcore macks who are willing to kill for sport.

To take gangsta rap to task for its sexism and misogyny while accepting and perpetuating expressions of that ideology which reflect bourgeois standards (no rawness, no vulgarity) is not to call for a transformation of the culture of patriarchy. Ironically, many black male ministers who are themselves sexist and misogynist are leading the attacks against gangsta rap. Like the mainstream world that supports white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, they are most concerned with advancing the cause of censorship by calling attention to the obscene portrayals of women. For them, rethinking and challenging sexism both in the dominant culture and in black life is not the issue.

Mainstream white culture is not at all concerned about black
male sexism and misogyny, particularly when it is mainly unleashed against black women and children. It is concerned when young white consumers utilize black vernacular popular culture to disrupt bourgeois values. A young white boy expresses his rage at his mother by aping black male vernacular speech (a true story); young white males (and middle-class men of color) reject the constraints of bourgeois bondage and the call to be “civilized” by acts of aggression in their domestic households. These are the audiences who feel such a desperate need for gangsta rap. It is much easier to attack gangsta rap than to confront the culture that produces that need.

Gangsta rap is part of the antifeminist backlash that is the rage right now. When young black males labor in the plantations of misogyny and sexism to produce gangsta rap, white supremacist capitalist patriarchy approves the violence and materially rewards them. Far from being an expression of their “manhood,” it is an expression of their own subjugation and humiliation by more powerful, less visible forces of patriarchal gangsterism. They give voice to the brutal, raw anger and rage against women that it is taboo for “civilized” adult men to speak. No wonder, then, that they have the task of tutoring the young, teaching them to eroticize and enjoy the brutal expressions of that rage (both language and acts) before they learn to cloak it in middle-class decorum or Robert Bly-style reclaimings of lost manhood. The tragedy for young black males is that they are so easily duped by a vision of manhood that can only lead to their destruction.