Objectified female bodies are everywhere: in advertising
images, on magazine covers, and television and movie
screens. Presenting a one-dimensional portrayal of male
heterosexuality, using the female body as an advertising
vehicle limits the ways in which men and women can interact.
As Byron Hurt says in HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes,
“Some people say that it’s just boys being
boys, but I think it has a lot to do with boys figuring
out early that girls are there for us to sexually objectify
or to be our sexual playthings.”
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This scene from the Nelly video “Tip Drill” illustrates that according to some hip-hop artists, women can be bought and sold |
While
media images might be written off as “only pictures”
or “fantasy representation,” they remain
a very real part of American culture, with real-life
implications for viewers and consumers. Writer and actor
Sarah Jones explains, “The image of scantily-clad
women is supposed to affirm some image of masculinity,
the man as a mack.... But in actuality, what they
show themselves to be is incredibly insecure. And the
idea is, these men are so important and so powerful,
and these women conversely are so dime a dozen…
that they don't matter, they're just eye candy, they're
worthless.”
For women of color, misogyny and (mis)representation
is two-fold, playing on stereotypes of both gender and
race. Scholar Jelani Cobb blames sexist music videos
for taking “a view of women of color that’s
not radically different from the views of 19th-century
white slaveholders.” Communities of color must
also begin to value fighting misogyny and violence against
women as a crucial issue and one that is inseparable
from racism and other power imbalances. As writer and
teacher Michael Dyson says, “If we have a glorified
sense of our own victimization as black and brown men,
what we must not miss and what we often do is to understand
that black and brown women themselves are so victimized,
not only by a white patriarchy, but by black male supremacy
and by the violence of masculinity that's directed toward
them.”
Perhaps the greatest insult that one man could give
to another in American culture is to degrade his manhood
and, as Michael Dyson says, “to assume that he's
less than a man and to assign him the very derogatory
terms that one usually associates with women.”
From California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger dissing
his opponents as “economic girlie men” to
rappers insulting each other as “bitch niggas,”
this double-edged insult not only disrespects women,
but also supports a stereotypical view of masculinity.
Homophobia is often based on a sense of insecurity about
one’s own masculinity—an insecurity heightened
by the limited ways in which men and boys can express
themselves through traditional notions of masculinity.
. Jelani Cobb explains, “It’s calling your
manhood into question… it’s calling your
sexuality into question … it’s saying that
if you are not this you must therefore be gay, you must
be a gay, you must be a faggot, you know, you must be
a bitch nigga.”
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Homoeroticism is prevalent but not often acknowledged in hip-hop culture |
Yet homophobia, homoeroticism and hypermasculinity often
go hand in hand. In hip-hop, for instance, images of
thugged out, hypermasculine men of color—posing
shirtless, greased up, muscular—decorate magazine
and album covers. While these images might not have
been created as explicitly homoerotic, hypermasculinity
in hip-hop, sports and fraternity cultures serve to
bond men together, often at the expense of women, gays
and men who do not meet strict gender-based roles and
expectations.
Learn why media literacy is important when listening to hip-hop »
Take a look at hip-hop lyrics and tell us what you think »
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