Writing from the West Coast, 3 hours earlier, g’night.

A few propositions of my own.

1. Mainstream culture loves Bad Boys. “Rolling Stone” mag will do as an examplar. Some time ago, I read things like “Rap is the new rock and roll.” Techno, which, like rap, is built on the Funk, and which is rhythmically more innovative than rap, could never have been the New Rock and Roll. Techno is not Bad Boy.

2. Women-slappin’-and-killin’ Bad Boys of rap are barely different in degree, and not at all in kind, from the Bad Boys of rock I quoted earlier. I can remember Jann Wenner once applauding the Rolling Stones’ (the band’s) “maturity” for eschewing “Sympathy for the Devil” and sticking to chipper stuff, like “Under My Thumb,” on a tour they were undertaking. Most of the Top Canonical ’60s rockers — Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Hendrix, Byrds, Neil Young, Elvis — indulged in severe bouts of lyrical misogyny. Was there a relationship between their brilliance and their misogyny? Ellen Willis has written about this.

3. If there’s women-hating going on in the culture, the white mainstream is going to try to find a way to blame it on black people. Worrying about hip hop’s misogyny was on the cover of Newsweek in the ’80s, or early ’90s at the latest.

4. If killin’ women with gratuitous aesthetic beauty is the crime, the Cohn Brothers got to do the time. Did any mainstream filmmaker make more ravishing use of color than the Cohn Bros in the ’90s? What is the relationship between their misogyny and their filmic brilliance?

5. Respecting the aggressor is the way of capitalism. Donald Trump, Michael Douglas in that Wall Street movie. The aggressor is going to go and fight for his meat.

6. The widespread tendency to Respect the Aggressor won George Bush his reelection. In the run-up to the vote, I actually read the National Review’s hate-filled blog. A common refrain was, “The American people understand that George Bush ‘gets’ the War on Terror, and the Democrats don’t.” Given the givens of the Iraq War, the only way to grasp how these Americans “get” the War on Terror is that they think it means: Blow Up Arabs. Doesn’t Matter Which Arabs. Just Fuckin’ Blow Up the Bastards.

It’s sickening, but this is how I see my fellow United Statesers. Benighted, benighted people, wedded to violence, in love with violence. No surprise that hip hop is too. That comic strip Boondocks had a thing on this a year or 2 ago — Huey’s gangsta-wannabe brother Riley decided to model his gangsta behavior on George Bush, because nobody’s more gangsta than the god-awful Republicans.

Hope this helps. Merry Christmas.

John

In music, efforts can be made to extract philo-Semitism from the *sounds* Wagner made (people have done it, or at least ambivalo-Semitic sound sentiments).

Taking up the question of *pattern*, my gut blow says, hey, As If. As If misogyny doesn’t flow night and day through the mainstream channels of our culture. Cohn Brothers come to mind. Look at the silly woman running around screaming and blindfolded as she knows she’s about to be murdered. Ha ha ha. That movie starring Turturro as the writing-blocked Hollywood hack — the only significant female in the show, dead meat. Them some sick people.

My question is, why does hip hop always take the rap?

As to Mr/Ms Pseudonym’s wondering whether there might be a connection between the beautiful music & the misogynist words of lotta mainstream hip hop, I say yeah, there’s a connection: there’s a lot of talented jerks out there. Always have been.

Down by the river, I shot my baby.

Hey Joe, where you gonna go?

I’d rather see you dead, little girl. (Elvis & Mr. Give Peace a Chance.)

Check out murder ballads. 9 times out of 10, if someone’s getting away with murder, that somebody is a man. If a woman kills her man, she’s toast. Miss Otis Regrets. Frankie & Johnny. Message? Ladies, put up with it.

Reactionary violence against women signifies power. Power attracts. A sickness in the human soul been with us a long long time.