Urban Thought Collective

Women get a raw deal in hip hop videos. For the most part they are reduced to body parts – scantily clad hoochies whose sole purpose in life is to jiggle their boobs and butts for blinged-out thugs who wear their sexist arrogance like a badge of honor. Now, thanks to Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West, we are seeing pattern of sexually-related violence involving women.

I’m really glad that Kanye West decided to make an alternate version of his “Flashing Lights” video. The original clip — which featured a near-naked woman inexplicably hacking Kanye to death with a shovel as he lay bound and gagged in the trunk of her car – was a grotesque misogynistic fantasy that reinforced multiple stereotypes simultaneously.

The image of a woman in a bra, thong, hose and heels committing a vicious murder is troubling because it encourages male viewers (many of whom we know are pre-teens) to become sexually aroused while watching an act of brutality. Linking violence and eroticism is dangerous because it defines sex in terms of savagery.

By casting the killer as a half-naked woman, Kanye’s video also underscores the age-old sexist lie that women are inherently crazy and prone to violence and must, therefore, be controlled – psychologically, socially and physically — by men. (Similar criticism could be leveled at the video for Ashanti’s “The Way That I Love You,” which deals with a woman murdering her man with a butcher knife – although the actual crime is not shown — because he cheated on her.)

The second “Flashing Lights” clip has much more substance and value, but a scene of shocking violence toward the end raises the specter of pointless woman-bashing. It features a heartbroken woman (based on the lyric we assume her romance ended painfully) wandering the city and being attacked on a dark street by two men. The assault is depicted through a series of quick, blurry close-ups so the violence is implied but one can easily conclude that she is being raped. The next scene finds the woman on a train crying hysterically. She is depicted as a tragic character, but was the apparent sexual assault really necessary? Having her attacked on the street serves no purpose except to show another woman being brutalized.

It seems that whether they are attacking or being attacked, women in hip hop videos continue to be victims.

Thanks for listening. I’m Cameron Turner and that’s my two cents.

THINK! IT AIN’T ILLEGAL…YET!

Cameron Turner is a Los Angeles-area native whose editorials, entertainment news features and audio documentaries have appeared on national radio networks, online and in print for over 20 years.