wattup. i blog n shit.
i mean shiiiit i do everything else!
i mean shiiiit i do everything else!
I was walking around campus today during a 15 minute break from one of my 3 hour art classes when i realized that i haven’t really gone through what you would call the “college experience.” I saw some hippie lookin art students all chillin on the grass in this big circle. They’re probably going to be friends forever. I never joined a frat or a club or an organization. I never had time. Every spare moment I have I’m doing this music/youtube/acting stuff.
Ever since i was little, I knew what i wanted to do. I knew i was gonna be famous. I was always doing impressions of people or dancing or trying to be the center of attention. It has never been an option for me. I am going to be famous… but is it worth it? After 3 years of being on Youtube, i have a nice little fan base. I get booked for shows. People send me free clothes and shoes. I get paid for making stupid videos. I go to the mall and get recognized and sign autographs. But even after all that, I’m definitely not satisfied.
Some people wanna tell me I’m already famous, but Youtube famous doesnt count. That always kind of an oxymoron to me. I get a lotta clicks on the internetz, but i won’t be satisfied until TMZ cameras are following me around. And it’s crazy how even when i see how pissed off celebrities get, i want that. I’ve always wanted it. If you read my “senior brick” from highschool it says “Tim Chantarangsu, 04 Class Clown, Destined 4 Greatness” cuz thats how i feel. It’s not a goal for me, it’s what is planned for me.
But damn… I spend all my time on this shit. My parents complain that i don’t sleep enough or help enough around the house. My girlfriend can’t stand all the texts and calls i get. It’s all business, and i mean i understand why she would be mad. Trying to find time to hang out is a struggle, and we when we do hang out I’m always on my phone. My best friends from highschool think I’m too “Hollywood” now cuz i can never hang out. My grades are suffering, and i should have finished school like 2 years ago. The only friends i really see are the ones i work and record with.
So I ask myself… is it worth it?
Hell yea… cuz even after the sleepless nights in the studio, and the small fights with my girlfriend and family… I’m happy doing this. Cuz this is what i want. I work hard, and it’s been paying off. There’s nothing else that i’d rather be doing with my life, and whether or not i make it big, i’ll be able to look back and know i didn’t regret anything.
Even though that’s not gonna happen, cuz i’m gonna make it. lol
As long as there has been music, it has been synonymous with sex and sexuality. From Marvin Gaye singing “Let’s Get It On” to R.Kelly telling the world that there is nothing wrong with a little “Bump N’ Grind,” it seems that for every baby conceived, there has been a soundtrack. We put on music to set the mood, to relax, and to express everything that just can’t be expressed with just words. As a young child my parents exposed me to Motown classics and raised me on everything from the Beatles to Sam Cooke. Growing up I became a huge Michael Jackson fan and listened to everything from Punk Rock to Hip Hop. Music runs through my veins and pumps throughout my entire body. A female friend of mine told me that you can tell how good a man is at having sex by watching him dance. At the end of the day, it always seems to relate back to sex.
As music evolves, it also seems that society’s perception of sex and what is sexy also evolves. In the 70’s one would turn on the television to see a woman with big hair in platform shoes and some skin tight hot pants dancing to your favorite disco song. Now a days, it is difficult to turn on MTV or BET without seeing an oiled up butt gyrating on your big screen. This is predominantly a trend in Hip Hop and Rap music. Some would argue that this simply a physical expression of exactly what happens in the clubs or at the parties. This is what happens and this is what girls wear, so what is the big deal about having some girls showing off their dance skills when it’s a dance song? On the other hand, others would argue that this exaggerated and overtly sensual image of women does nothing more than objectify and degrade them in the eyes of very impressionable young viewers. Which raises the question, is Hip Hop to blame for the objectification of women in today’s society or is it simply a representation of urban culture and the bodies that like to dance to it?
First we must look at the origin of these types of songs. The newer generation will easily be able to sing along to such recent classics as “Back That Thang Up” by Juvenile or “Get Low” by the Yin Yang Twins, but the dawn of the “booty shaking” music dates back to the early 90’s when old school classics like Sir Mix-a-lot’s “Baby Got Back” or 2 Live Crew’s “Me So Horny” filled the airwaves with suggestive lyrics and controversial imagery. I chose to mention these two because both of these songs have two very different connotations and meanings. When the video for “Baby Got Back” first hit the airwaves, many people were shocked to see curvaceous young black women shaking and vibrating in skin tight dresses while Sir Mix-a-lot stood on top giant butt-shaped mountain. Many people thought it was sexist and demeaning towards women, turning them into objects rather than people. On the other hand, many people praised Sir Mix-a-lot for rejecting the image of a scrawny emaciated women and embracing the full figured woman who actually had curves and a body. Although the women in the video were indeed simply being portrayed as objects, they were also providing a much more natural and positive body image for the young women showing them that you don’t have to starve yourself to be beautiful. That song is still a classic to this very day. As soon as that song comes on in the club, girls of all shapes and sizes proudly hit the dance floor happy to gyrate and shake everything they have. With results like that, this song couldn’t possibly be doing the female image any harm, could it?
While on the other side of the spectrum, we have “Me So Horny” by the 2 Live Crew. With extremely raunchy lyrics combined with what is now the usual scenes of bikini clad ladies dancing by the pool, “Me So Horny” and every other song on the “As Nasty As They Wanna Be” record sent the older generation into somewhat of an uproar. In 1990 they were taken to court, and their record was the first record to be deemed legally obscene in America. Many people were offended by the “disgusting” lyrics and wanted to take the record off the shelves. However, if an artist simply wants to express how he feels during certain hours of the day or talk about things that he wishes he could do to a lady and puts it to a beat, who’s to say what is vulgar and what is appropriate. After all, this is music, one artist’s way of expressing what he has to say through melodies and lyrics. Just because one person is offended by something that is extremely sexual and detailed, why must the artist be punished for that? This time, it was not as easy as turning it off. There was a huge boycott of all the 2 Live Crew albums and many radio stations refused to play their music. The decision to deem their record legally obscene was later overturned in 1992, and as a result, and record with content that was deemed “inappropriate” would have to have a “Parental Advisory” sticker.
Now on one hand, you have the Sir Mix-a-lot video which was filled with voluptuous black women shaking their butts in tiny skirts, which was praised by many people as a healthy representation of women in society. Then on the other hand, you have 2 Live Crew looking portraying women in their video who are just as voluptuous and just as scantily clad, but that video is condemned as inappropriate because they are simply talking about all the dirty things they would like to do. This raises a question. Is the video to blame for the objectification of women or it simply society’s perception of what’s going on that transforms the beauty of the female body into something disgusting and dirty. After all, sex would not sell if everybody wasn’t so obsessed with it. It is always the most sexual songs, movies, and television shows that seem to rake in the most ratings and the most money. It would be illogical to blame the butt wiggling in the camera when it is in fact the eyes in front of the screen that give the wiggling its purpose. It’s like that age old question, “If a tree falls in the forest, and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?” If a booty video is on television, and there is no one around that wants to watch it, is it still objectifying women?
By nature, we as human beings are sexual people… especially men. If a girl with a nice body walks by, a man has to fight every bone in his body not to look, glance, or drool. Some men do not even bother fighting it and let their primal urge to stare take over. It’s who we are! The question is, are we so obsessed with women’s bodies because of what we see in the media or are we just like this regardless. The media has a huge influence over what is sexy and what society may or may not find attractive. For example, my father grew up on shows like Benny Hill, and we would always watch Married With Children when I was younger. Even as a child, I was able to notice that these shows put more emphasis on a woman’s breasts as the most attractive feature on her body. I noticed that many older people tend to prefer breasts, and this makes sense when you think about the sex symbols of their time. Women like Pamela Anderson running in slow motion on the beaches of Baywatch or Farrah Fawcett running around in skimpy outfits on Charlie’s Angels were huge sex symbols of my dad’s time, and they all seem to fit the same mold of “skinny, white, with big breasts.” This is completely different from my generation and what we find to be the most attractive. Well, I can’t speak for my entire generation, but there is definitely a shift of focus in the more ethnic groups of males. Take one look at the sex symbols of my generation, and the difference is quite obvious. Curvaceous beauties like Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce embrace their voluptuous bodies and often do things to highlight their larger bottoms. It’s true; my generation is obsessed with the butt. But (no pun intended) why?
Being a Hip Hop fan since a very young age, I was exposed to these booty shaking videos early on. Every day I would watch BET and MTV in hopes of catching the new video to my new favorite song, and nine times out of ten, the video for my favorite song featured a large oiled butt shaking in the camera. As I grew older, I began to notice girls that had larger butts, and I knew that I liked it but I didn’t know why. Could it be that after years of growing up on these booty-filled music videos that it was influencing my perception of what was sexy? Yes. But what is the big deal? Of course certain things that you are interested in or certain people you grow up around are going to influence a person and what they find to be sexy as they get older. It’s a natural occurrence, but at what point does the influence become unhealthy.
I think I’m obsessed. I have to admit, when a girl with a large butt walks by me, I have to turn around and look. At this point I’m not really concerned with who sees me look or how it might come off. It’s just something that I do. Is the music to blame? True, there are many men who love butts as much as I do, and there are many men who love to watch a good booty shaking video when it comes on. But not every man is obsessed as the next man. There is a certain level of control that every man must have on himself, and to say that the music is completely to blame may not be completely true. Although many would argue that these music videos have influenced young girls negatively, it has its positive influences as well. True, many girls that are way too young to be shaking it like the girls in the videos see these videos and want to be like them, which results in young girls doing certain moves that they simply should not be doing. However, these videos and their obsession with larger butts has given the youth of America a much healthier overall sense of body image. Now, girls would rather gain weight because the girls in the video and our sex symbols are curvaceous and have figures. In the early 90’s the models were emaciated and far too skinny, causing many girls to starve themselves to that they might achieve this unhealthy image of beauty. But with these rap music videos, we have healthy beautiful real women showing off their bodies.
However, there is a difference between being able to appreciate the female form and being sexist. There is a disgusting trend in rap music of dehumanizing and degrading women by referring to them all as “bitches and hoes.” While I can’t deny that some of my favorite songs refer to women as “bitches and hoes,” one must learn how to differentiate from the image that the rappers are painting and reality. I went to high school with a young man who said, “That’s all women are, bitches and hoes.” I asked, “So you’re saying your mom is a bitch and a hoe? She’s a woman, right?” The youth is easily influenced and when bombarded with such degrading language coupled with the objectifying imagery, it is easy to see why the older generation might not particularly appreciate rap music.
However, it is unfair to blame it all on rap music. Misogynistic and objectifying lyrics can be found in all types of music from techno hits like Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up” to Queen’s classic rock hit “Big Bottomed Girls.” Also, Hip Hop has a wide variety of styles with a very diverse and eclectic mix of personalities and styles. To pigeon hole the entire genre because of a few booty-filled videos would be wrong and inaccurate. There are many socially conscious rappers who actually respect women complain of the disrespectful lyrics in Hip Hop. Even the late great Tupac Shakur who referred to women as bitches in a few songs, made sure to rap about the disgusting way that we treat our women in society. Here is an excerpt from his song “Keep Ya Head Up”-
“And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it’s time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women.”
Even artists like Tupac who had many hits about promiscuous girls and videos with girls running around in bikinis knew that it was important to differentiate between the music and the point where it becomes an unhealthy treatment of women in society. There are many other rappers like Common and Talib Kweli who never have demeaning lyrics toward women or have half naked women in their videos. The problem is, you never get to hear this music or watch these videos. The record companies know that a simple song with a good beat that makes girls want to dance is a guaranteed hit. Who would want to hear a socially conscious thought provoking song when you’re just driving to work or going through the drive-thru at McDonalds? Moreover, television stations know that the best way to get high ratings is to show the video with the sexiest women, and without ratings, they don’t make their money. As a result, people who watch TV or listen to the radio basically get brainwashed by whatever the mainstream media feels they think we should like. If we are getting brainwashed by the higher powers, then how can we blame the artists or the genre for the negative images of women we see.
There is also the argument of, “If you don’t like it, then turn it off.” Many parents have no idea what their kids do or what their kids watch. On the other hand, with today’s technology advancing every day and every kid wanting an iPhone and an iPod and everybody going to watch videos on YouTube, it must be very difficult to monitor everything that your child is exposed to. But to be completely honest, I would much rather have my child be addicted to girls in tiny shorts then be on drugs or in a gang. America as a whole has always been very sensitive about sex. Nobody wants to talk about it. Sex is the most natural and beautiful things that we have, and yet society wants to treat it like it’s something dirty that should be kept under wraps, literally. In Japan everybody is extremely open about sex and sexual matters. Even cartoons in Japan have characters walking around seminude, not in a way that is disgusting or overly sexual but natural. This way the young people are exposed to the female body in a way that is not objectified. The viewer is able to see this cartoon girl walking around nude and it is not a big deal. Here in America people gasp at the simple mention of the word vagina.
It is no wonder that we get so excited when some partial nudity presents itself or why we become so obsessed. Everything is such a taboo subject and frowned upon that we as human beings latch onto it every chance that we get. Really when you think about it, is it really that bad to be objectified? It was different back in the 1950’s when woman were only supposed to stay at home and be housewives. This is a whole new era where women can do whatever they want and act however they want. We have female police, firemen, lawyers, doctors. We almost even had a lady president! So if we have already established as a society that women are intelligent, independent, and capable creatures, then is it really a big deal that we love to stare at their beautiful bodies as well? If you think about it, we as men take the female body and put it on a pedestal. We worship it, obsess over it, fiend for it! Sure it might be a little dehumanizing to be admired simply for your assets, but what if you put it in perspective. What if women saw objectification less like a piece of meat, and more like the rarest diamond or the greatest treasure? Then it would not be negative at all. Then it is not demeaning anymore; it’s amazing, even magical if you think about it, the things that a woman can do with the simple switch of her hips and some cocoa butter.
Many of these videos are a lot less magical then what I described. Some of them are downright degrading, but there is now a double standard that has emerged over the years with the increase of ‘girl power’ and independent woman ballads. If a man is objectified, it is celebrated without hesitation. It is as if there has been a war and embarrassing a man is the woman’s triumphant victory as she parades around with his pride on her spear. I understand that it has been a long time coming for women to be able to stand up against the sexism in this country, but if men can get objectified and take it in stride, then can’t we all just get along and stare at each other?
Some might argue that the videos could be more tasteful. Many rap videos, specifically the booty shaking ones, or very low on creativity and high on exposed skin. Often times, the girl’s face isn’t even shown, only close ups of her breasts and butt. One reason why the Hip Hop community may want to objectify woman so much, is that a big part of rapping this persona of being “real.” Everybody wants to be “real.” By real I mean, having some sort of street cred. As a result, you have so many rappers pretending to be gangsters and talking about guns that they have never held or murders that they have only seen in movies. In commercialized rap there are two stereotypical roles one cal fall into. There is the gangster, and there is the pimp. Proving yourself as a gangster is a little more difficult then proving your authenticity as a pimp, which is why many rappers make sure they disrespect women to give themselves that rough image.
Rappers like Too Short and Snoop Dogg have been making music about being pimp for over a decade now. Too Short made his way of saying “bitch” famous by adding a little accent in there and changing it to “bi-yotch.” Now everybody says it like him. These rappers know that it might be a little dangerous to carry on this fake persona of being a gangster, so they hire some girls for their music videos to dance around and write some disrespectful lyrics. Now to the public, you are officially a “pimp.” In Hip Hop slang, the term pimp does not necessarily mean a man who solicits prostitution. A pimp is more like a man who is surrounded by girls, or balances his time between many girls. Although, to get the full affect, some rappers like Snoop Dogg emulate the pimp stereotype down to a tee, wearing colorful suits and pressing his hair out. It is all about the image, and as rappers, they know that they must present themselves in a way that both has street cred and marketability, which brings us right back to the real pimps, the record companies.
Another reason why the objectification of women is so abundant in the Hip Hop community is because the Hip Hop community is also extremely homophobic. I have never seen a gay rapper on television or on the radio that was accepted. To uphold this image of this alpha male, the rappers stray away from anything that might make them seem gay. Kanye West is accused of being gay, simply because he wears tighter clothing and does not claim to be a gangster like a majority of the other rappers. Although Kanye has actually spoken out against the homophobia in Hip Hop, he still has many music videos with underdressed women. However, his videos are a little different. There is a lot more going on than a woman simple shaking her body parts. In his video for a strong called “Flashing Lights,” a very curvaceous model by the name of Rita G steps out of an expensive car and takes off her coat. Wearing nothing but a tiny black bikini she turns around and sets her fur coat on fire. She walks off in slow motion and her body parts are of course also moving beautifully in slow motion as well. She opens the trunk of the car to reveal Kanye West bound and gagged in the back, whom she then kills with a shovel. The symbolism and undertones of the video as a whole are debatable, but one thing that is not debatable is how powerful she looks in the video. The camera definitely gets very good angles of rear and breasts, yet there is nothing demeaning about it. Her body is almost a symbol of power and beauty and control over what she has done to this man and the way she burns the coat which was probably a gift that he bought her.
My point is that she was just as exposed, if not more, then many other girls one would see in a rap video. There’s no question that she was still an object in the video, but an object that was powerful and took control instead of an object that was being controlled. Even while taking control, she was still able to show off her amazing body in a way that makes every man in the room drop his jaw. So if a rapper can have a bikini-clad vixen in his video, show her off without degrading her, and still maintain his credibility as an artist, then is the music in itself still to blame for the objectification of women? People engage in sexual activities every day, but for some reason if you put it on tape, then it is dirty and disgusting in a lot of people’s eyes. That is simply because there is this stigma in society that “porn” is gross and sick, but most of the time it is what we all do in the privacy of our own homes. There are certain preconceived notions and ideas that we all have in our minds that evolve and get tweaked depending on how it is portrayed. Of course, many people will see a girl dancing in a bikini and automatically think, “This is a disgusting objectification of women, and Hip Hop has no respect for women.” People see this beautiful woman being put on display, and they look over the fact this at face value this is simply a beautiful woman being put on display. Is that so wrong?
I can watch a booty shaking video, drool over it, obsess over it, but I still feel that I respect women and look at them as much more than objects. Just because I enjoy the objects that women possess, does not mean that I am incapable of appreciating her as a person. We should not chastise the Hip Hop community and the rap music genre as a whole. Just like anything else in the world. There is are good parts and bad parts, but it is up to us as the viewer to filter everything and understand for ourselves just exactly what we are watching and what exactly it means. Sometimes, I like to listen to though provoking, socially conscious, intelligent Hip Hop; and sometimes, I just want to dance to a good beat while a girl shakes her booty with me. Sometimes, I love to engage in deep, intellectual conversation with a girl; and sometimes all I want to do is look at her butt when she walks by. A sexist man will always be a sexist man regardless of what he sees on television or on BET, and we cannot blame rap music for that. Objectification is in the mind of the beholder.
