Lensing The Culture: (Hip Hop) Women Behind the Camera
by Rachel Raimist (Crunk Feminist Collective)
Okay, I admit it. For the first time in a very long time, I was excited to watch BET! Did I just write that? Yes, BET aired a documentary about women in hip hop, and I am the happiest that I’ve ever been watching that channel. Women, and women of color, talking about their lives and experiences as rappers in the rap music industry. Talking, sharing, laughing. No booty shots. I cannot remember the last time that BET aired anything that appealed to me (though I’ve hit the top of their target demographic); there haven’t been any programs that I had to set the DVR for until now. As a woman of color, filmmaker, and a crunk feminist I have so rarely seen anything complicated, familiar, reflective, honest, or simply something that shows women talking, just talking and sharing stories. Let’s be real, how often do we get to look Black and Brown women in the eye on BET?
I’ve been a firm believer that BET functions primarily as a cable space that says it wants to promote “blackness” and Black culture but usually airs limited programming – lots of commercial rap videos that articulate a very narrow view of hip hop culture, strict heteronormative codes of gender roles, and are often particularly troubling in their repetitiously programmed stereotypes of representations of race, class and gender. I believe that BET has done tremendous amounts of damage to hip hop culture and hip hop community, by promoting only limited and very specific representations of rap music, the larger cultural space, the elements beyond a b-boy as background dancer, and media messages that provide such a narrow box filled with stereotypes of all of the above. This is not by accident. This is a multi-billion dollar industry built on research of target markets, demographics, and funded heavily by advertisers who see viewers as only potential product buying consumers.
Read the Full Essay @ The Crunk Feminist Collective
by Rachel Raimist (Crunk Feminist Collective)
Okay, I admit it. For the first time in a very long time, I was excited to watch BET! Did I just write that? Yes, BET aired a documentary about women in hip hop, and I am the happiest that I’ve ever been watching that channel. Women, and women of color, talking about their lives and experiences as rappers in the rap music industry. Talking, sharing, laughing. No booty shots. I cannot remember the last time that BET aired anything that appealed to me (though I’ve hit the top of their target demographic); there haven’t been any programs that I had to set the DVR for until now. As a woman of color, filmmaker, and a crunk feminist I have so rarely seen anything complicated, familiar, reflective, honest, or simply something that shows women talking, just talking and sharing stories. Let’s be real, how often do we get to look Black and Brown women in the eye on BET?
I’ve been a firm believer that BET functions primarily as a cable space that says it wants to promote “blackness” and Black culture but usually airs limited programming – lots of commercial rap videos that articulate a very narrow view of hip hop culture, strict heteronormative codes of gender roles, and are often particularly troubling in their repetitiously programmed stereotypes of representations of race, class and gender. I believe that BET has done tremendous amounts of damage to hip hop culture and hip hop community, by promoting only limited and very specific representations of rap music, the larger cultural space, the elements beyond a b-boy as background dancer, and media messages that provide such a narrow box filled with stereotypes of all of the above. This is not by accident. This is a multi-billion dollar industry built on research of target markets, demographics, and funded heavily by advertisers who see viewers as only potential product buying consumers.
Read the Full Essay @ The Crunk Feminist Collective
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