Perhaps the funniest part of the Congressional hearings is the arguments made by corporations. I don’t mean funny ha-ha. Executives constantly like to say that they don’t control the content that gets out their. ‘It’s the other guys fault.’ Yet they spend millions to promote this exclusive form of rap music. The spend tens of thousands to create music videos of a particular style only. They flood airwaves with this singular format since 1992, and they have reaped tens of billions of dollars if not hundreds.
The other common excuses are that this is no different than the outrage against Elvis in the 50’s and the Beatles in the 60’s. What crap. Elvis may have wiggled his hips (which they found suggestive and objectionable back then) but you never saw him smoking a crack pipe. Elvis had bodyguards, but you never heard of shoot-outs between him and say Frank Sinatra. For all the wives, women and possible affairs Elvis may have had, you never heard him speak disparagingly about any woman. The only similarity was that when Elvis started, like rap, he was shunned because he was different. 15 years later he was treated as the norm, and some considered him conservative. Rap started out being called a fad, and until the emergence of gansta rap stayed that way. 15 years after gansta rap started it is not a fad, but it is nothing like Elvis either.
Executives like to say they maintain standards and support the community. I say where? Philippe Dauman believes
“We have a responsibility to speak authentically to our viewers”
His manner of authentic speech? Read-a-Book. Music videos of the most graphic nature – shown on BET - that are so extreme the other music video cable channels his corporation owns would not play them. Programming of such a poor quality it’s insulting to think anyone would watch it.
When was the last time you saw a movie by Lawrence Fishburne, Denzel Washington or Morgan Freeman on BET? How many times have you seen a movie about rappers, drugs, violence and women barely clothed only seeking sex – like Soul Plane – on BET? I mean it’s not like BET own Paramount Pictures and has an entire movie library that they can access to provide quality movies with. It’s not like they are a multi-billion dollar international corporation that could afford to create original programming that stars or prominently features African Americans that are not drug dealers and rappers (Like the Blade series on Spike, Eureka on SciFi, or the Shield on FX).Oh thank you Philippe Dauman and Viacom for deciding that the only original programming that should target African Americans are College Hill (laden with profanity and violence), Hot Ghetto Mess (I don’t care that they changed the name it’s still exploitative), and a never ending variations on ‘Flava Flav needs a ho.’ [I should apologize for calling some of the women involved in the various Flav programs ho’s – but I won’t.]
Continued in part 3...
1 comment:
It is tough for rap and hip hop because, I dunno. Don't you think even a spoof of Frank Sinatra's Strangers in the Night, http://www.realcrash.com/strange-things-in-the-night-frank/ is a lot more fun, even if it is Something Stupid?
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