If you are a professor, every spring you get to find out just how well your teaching is being received. If your teaching sucks, about 80% of your class will be hitting the steps the moment warm weather hits. Because after that the hard, cold New York winter, people will be saying to themselves: “Hell no I ain’t going to Intro to Innovation.” And 12 people will show up to your 80-person class. And you will be able to smell the truancy in the air.
Today, I was channel flippin’ and something on BET caught my eye. What caught my eye was the most motherfucking offensive music video I have ever seen in my life: Nelly’s “Tip Drill”. (“tip drill” – a homely female with an attractive body [source] )
Let me first say that I have no problem with using beautiful people in videos, as long as they are treated with the same awe and admiration they receive in real life. (Pharell’s one-on-one attention in Snoop Dogg’s “Beautiful” is close enough)
That said, I have been feeling increasingly uneasy about the way women are being treated in rap videos in recent years. (formula: skimpy bikinis + close-up of buttocks shaking + recording artist leering and pointing = success!). The illustrious Ying Yang Twins have created a lucid example of this in their 2003 Salt Shaker video .
But Nelly’s “Tip Drill” takes the fucking cake. (I have having difficult finding a link on the web; you can probably find a copy on your file-sharing network of choice.) Never in my life have I ever seen such a degrading potrayal of women. Others have taken notice as well. How the hell is BET willing to air this?
April 27th Update: Wow, who would have known my blog post would have such high pagerank? I’m getting over 100 pages views a day from people searching “nelly tip drill” and variations.
Anyway, looking at the video again, I’ve realized just what makes the video is offensive. It is not the explicit sexual acts and conduct. Those are fine. I have no problem with sex. What makes the women in this video so objectified is their inability to make eye contact with the camera. Nelly and his band of misogynist a-holes are able to rap, point, wave gang signs, throw money, and stare straight in to the camera. Meanwhile all the women are resigned to undulating in the background. It is this act of being unable to address the audience that makes you a background object, a prop. And that’s what makes the video so offensive.
As an April Fool’s Day joke, I contemplated telling everyone that I had finally received a job offer. Then I realized that (1) I had not the emotional energy to lie through my teeth about something like this, (2) it would a terrible waste of other’s good-will (“Aw, that’s fantastic! Finally! I’m so glad for you, [crab]!”), and (3) it’s just sad.
So I chose not to. Then I made myself a sandwich and ate it. The sandwich was filling.
