STUDENTS' RESPONSES TO BELL HOOKS, BARBARA CHRISTIAN, AND PATRICIA WILLIAMS
I see in bell hooks right away the importance of a kind of depth model. She wants to expose the underlying causes of cultural "aberrations" like gangsta rap, and to indicate the hypocrisy of white (patriarchal, capitalist) culture: for "we" are blaming "them" for activity based on our very own value system. (Seth Warren)
Having lived facing College Avenue and gone to a semi-redneck high school, I would say that hooks is correct to assert that white American society loves gangsta rap: I can look out my window at College Avenue on a Friday night and see that it is white teenagers in pickup trucks listening to gangsta rap in this community. (Chris Schatz)
There seems to be a strong sense of schadenfreude at play in white society's glamorization of black-on-black violence and black male sexual violence. By glamorizing social problems in the black community--in white media portrayals, there really is a separation of black and white communities--white society feels better about its own communities, despite their problems with violent crime. This also seems to correspond to Foucault's repressive hypothesis: white society avoids talking about its own sexual problems by a constant discourse of criticism of black society. (Chris Schatz)
If I were to update bell hooks's essay and apply it to a current film, I'd probably choose The Truth about Cats and Dogs, which I found horribly depressing. It purports to be feminist, yet it has women competing for a (STUPID) man's attention, as well as promoting the very beauty standards it pretends to be against. If Janeane Garafolo is unattractive, then we all might as well put paper bags over our heads. Faux feminism all over the place. All it needs is a soundtrack by the Spice Girls. (Julie Wroblewski)
It was also refreshing to read hooks after Baker's piece, which I felt really ignored the female half of the black population by focusing and heroizing Trueblood and passing over the women he terrorizes. Sorry, I just couldn't sympathize with him--and I felt rather revolted that I was expected to. There is a fine line between understanding subconscious motivations and sympathizing with them. (Julie Wroblewski)
I think that the real reason there's this terror of rap music is that white men thought they'd cornered the exploitation market. The thought of losing it (or sharing it with others, particularly black men) is unbearable. (Julie Wroblewski)
What next?