Video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYH7_GzP4Tg
The Hip Hop/Rap genre is one that causes much controversy especially in the African American community due to its explicit lyrics and objectification of women. Many say that Hip-Hop is dead because the lyrics no longer send a message nor have that artistic element like they used to, for example Biggie Smalls and Tupac would talk about their real life experiences in which people could connect to because some could relate to the experiences. Also there was a sense of symbolic slam poetry through the lyrics of rappers like these who are considered the founders of the hip hop/rap genre and putting this genre on the popular charts in the media. We also have the example of Run DMC who broke music barriers through their music by expanding beyond the rap genre such as in their song Rock Box where they blend both rap and rock. Unfortunately the artistic element of rap is continuously fading as sexual lyrics that degrade women are praised and made more popular in society. Hip Hop has completely changed from what it used to be and can now be considered sexist since most of the songs are geared towards objectifying and degrading women. I do not think I have ever heard a song in any genre that talks about men, the way that most rap songs do towards women. One of the most popular songs that I bet almost everyone knows the lyrics to regardless of race which was a major hit in 2003 was the “Get Low” song by Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz featuring the Ying Yang Twins. This song is probably a classic of my generation and it is astonishing to see how even in 2010 men as well as women know all the words and jam to this song that has the most gross, explicit lyrics. In the Hip Hop culture, women of color are over-sexualized, thus how does this translate to the way African American women are viewed today?
I knew the main chorus to the “Get Low” song, but I didn’t know the rest of the words and had not seen the video until I looked it up for this project and began to analyze both the video and the full lyrics of the song. The video starts off with a scene of the artists taking over a strip club, and right after jumps back in time to when they went to the barber shop in preparation for a fun night at the club. It is interesting to see within the first 17 seconds of the video how the camera zooms into the black power fist figure at the barbershop which is an important figure in the Black Pride Movement which was an extension of the Civil Rights Movement and expresses black solidarity and strength. This black fist symbol came about through this black pride movement that occurred in the 50‘s and 60‘s which emphasized the birth of black political and cultural institutions (http://law.jrank.org/pages/4776/Black-Power-Movement.html). It is interesting to see the importance of this symbol as it was zoomed into in the very beginning of the video, but the imagery in this video completely contradicts the symbolism of this fist figure and in a way retrogrades the advancements that the black community has made towards promoting a positive image and increasing their status/respect in society. This is mainly due to it’s portrayal of women.
I must admit that before I even watched the video I was expecting to see girls that were half naked because the song is completely geared with sexual language. This video was interesting to analyze because it allowed for many stereotypes of women to come into play and Enlightened Sexism comes to full view. Enlightened Sexism gives the illusion that women can be powerful while owning their own sexuality. The image of the business woman dancing on the striper pole is a perfect example of this type of enlightened sexism because the business women is seen as both sexy as an image of power through her professional status. Women were given credit to be as strong as they wanted “as long as they were poreless, stacked, and size 2” (Douglas, 99) which further imposed the patriarchal standards on women to look beautiful in order to obtain recognition in this male dominated society and make her voice known. So as we can see in the video that this business woman is well-groomed and probably one of the thinnest girls in the film which emphasizes how being physically fit is important to be taken seriously in the professional realm. Also another issue that black professional women face is that not only do they have to be fit, attractive, and intelligent, but they also must act white which is called code-switching (Douglas, 128-129). Black women’s natural hair is not considered professional, so they have to put chemicals in their hair to straighten it and change the way they speak to that of the dominant white culture.
Another powerful female figure that came out in the video were the women dressed up as cops who came in to protect the dancers by spraying the men with water guns as the East Side Boyz sang the lyrics “Damn Skeet Skeet (2x)” which I interpreted as these woman having the same power as men because they were able to perform a similar action as men known as “skeeting.” I looked up the term “skeet” in the urban dictionary and it got this definition: “ a phrase commonly used when a person (male) is about to unload jism onto his partner.” Therefore, as women cops are usually masculinized because of their uniform and also because the profession is typically seen as a male profession, these women cops were spraying down the men with water guns as a symbol of dominance just as men “skeet” on women as a sexual act of dominance. There was also a third strong female figure in the video which were the two female boxers competing in a shallow pool of water. Instead of looking feminine, these women looked highly masculine. Going back to the chapter “Warrior Women in Thongs” in the Enlightened Sexism book, we see how these masculinized figures are meant to challenge patriarchy and be seen as female role models of strength, but in the end they fall prey to the fires of patriarchy because obviously the prettier and thinner boxer was able to knock down the less attractive and huskier female boxer. This goes to accentuate how the strength factor is acknowledged, but regardless the factor of beauty comes into play because as I said before women have more value in the patriarchal realm when they are both beautiful and strong in character. The rest of the women were the sporty locker room girls, random girls at the club, and the barber shop girls who made the video a bit more sexual with their dance style by shaking their boots throughout most of the video. Yet it is important to notice that they were all pretty much clothed and did not wear anything too “slutty,” except for their provocative booty bouncing dance moves which put a huge emphasis on their butts which women of color are known for having large ones.
When watching the “Get Low” video, I found it odd that there were so many female masculinized figures portrayed such as the business woman, the cops and the boxers. I had never seen this video until I looked it up for class and at first I was expecting see half-naked women dancing in their bikinis due to the ultra-sexual lyrics, but that was not the case at all. Instead the sexual images were more subtle and portrayed enlightened sexism very well because as seen by these female figures mentioned, all the women were powerful (whether it be professionally or physically) and were able to own their sexuality as well without having to show much skin.
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