The NYT wrote: > One of the striking things about the scenes from France is how thoroughly > the rioters have assimilated hip-hop and rap culture. It's not only that > they use the same hand gestures as American rappers, wear the same clothes > and necklaces, play the same video games, and sit with the same sorts of > car stereos at full blast. It's that they seem to have adopted the same > poses of exaggerated manhood, the same attitudes about women, money and > the police. They seem to have replicated the same sort of gang culture, > the same romantic visions of gunslinging drug dealers.
No wonder -- they've grown up (well, sort of..) with the same Hollywood movies and music. > the culture of resistance Excuse me, but what do these brainwashed pawns, dancing like puppets on a string even without having a string attached, have to do with _resistance_?? First of all they should resist the brainwashing from Hollywood... > This is a reminder that for all the talk about American cultural hegemony, > American countercultural hegemony has always been more powerful. Orwellian nonsense so typical of the NYT. This "counterculture" happens to come from the same studios as the "cultural hegemony" ! > In other words, what we are seeing in France will be familiar to anyone who > watched gangsta culture rise in this country. You take a population of young > men who are oppressed by racism and who face limited opportunities, and you > present them with a culture that encourages them to become exactly the sort > of people the bigots think they are -- and you call this proud self-assertion > and empowerment. You take men who are already suspected by the police because > of their color, and you romanticize and encourage criminality so they will be > really despised and mistreated. You tell them to defy oppression by embracing > self-destruction. "You" refers to Hollywood. > In America, at least, gangsta rap is sort of a game. The gangsta fan ends up > in college or law school. Or in the Superdome of New Orleans... Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
