The rise of misogynistic rap culture dramatizes the inadequacy of that approach. The notion that a self-confident elite exercises cultural hegemony over the masses and that big media corporations and advertising geniuses create ideas and products and then manipulate society into accepting them was always badly oversimplified and often completely misleading. Outsiders, from James Dean to Allen Iverson, have an innate appeal. The cultural elites may have money and position, but the definition of cool, and therefore the influence over what will enter the culture, generally comes from the fringes. Rap and hip-hop came from the urban lower class. N.W.A., 2 Live Crew, Tupac Shakur, and Eminem may have been co-opted by record companies, but they emerged authentically from the streets. As it happens, the parts of society that, according to the class-conflict model, should have been the most reactionary -- the affluent classes -- have been the quickest to adopt progressive mores. It is the least privileged parts of society that are often the most sexist, reactionary, and even materialistic. We have a dynamic urban culture that treats women like whores and that regards owning a Mercedes as the highest possible human aspiration, and the leading articulators of progressive opinion have almost nothing to say about it. They can't seem to bring themselves to admit out loud that their most effective ideological enemies have turned out to be the same underprivileged people they wanted to rescue from exploitation.

Posted by GeeTee at May 14, 2003 08:25 AM | TrackBack 0