Ashley Judd criticizing rap culture: Ain’t that the pot calling the kettle black.

Ashley Judd criticizes the lifestyle of rappers like P. Diddy and Snoop Dogg in her new autobiography. She also criticizes the organization Youth AIDS for using rappers as spokes people. She says, quote, “Youth AIDS was supported by rap and hip-hop artists like Snoop Dogg and P. Diddy to spread the message . . . um, who? Those names were a red flag. As far as I’m concerned, most rap and hip-hop music . . . with its rape culture and insanely abusive lyrics and depictions of girls and women as ‘ho’s’ . . . is the contemporary soundtrack of misogyny.” She also blames the kinds of attitudes found in rap lyrics for a lot of the world’s problems by saying quote, “I believe that the social construction of gender . . . the cultural beliefs and practices that divide the sexes and institutionalize and normalize the unequal treatment of girls and women, privilege the interests of boys and men, and, most nefariously, incessantly sexualize girls and women . . . is the root cause of poverty and suffering around the world.” If that ain’t the pot calling the kettle black! Hello! Earth to Ashley. Do you know where you make your living? You work in the industry that has treated women far worse than any rapper is even capable of. Your ‘Boss’, not only makes a practice of dehumanizing and sexualizing women on screen, a platform that has a much broader audience than hip hop, but forgives, protects, and even glamorizes men who make a practice of it off screen as well. I can deliver that kind of hard-hitting honesty because we go after everybody in the media. We don’t pick and choose. That’s the kind of commentary that counts. But it is both upsetting and amazing that someone from Hollywood can criticize anyone’s entertainment as demeaning. Hollywood itself is an industry that not only has a history of treating people like shit, but whose main product is hate, prejudice, and confusion. Ashley, let me give you a little history lesson about your industry’s treatment of women: Robert DeNiro raped a woman on screen in “Once Upon a Time in America” and went on to be one of your industry’s biggest names. I’m not even going to get into statistics of the lack of positive roles for blacks in your industry and how your industry promoted the negative Black movies while shelving attempts to present positive Black role models and black balling film makers who made any attempt to present Blacks in a positive light. And the same rappers you criticize as the cause of earth’s woes, not only received movie roles from your industry, but the platform to broadcast stupidity to the masses and call it ‘cross over’. Oh, I digress. Back to Hollywood’s treatment of WOMEN. They not only harbor the fugitive, Roman Polanski, who jumped bail many years ago because he was charged with luring a thirteen-year-old girl under the pretext of photographing her, then drugging and raping her, but allow him to continue to make movies. Which of course, gives him an all-access pass to young girls and starlets looking for their big break. Even the great Hollywood hero Clint Eastwood, a real man’s man, is portrayed inflicting violence upon women: In the movie Outlaw Josey Wales, Clint Eastwood’s character rapes Sondra Locke’s character. After being raped, her character follows Eastwood’s character around for the rest of the movie. In Hollywood’s greatest love story, Doctor Zhivago, Rod Steiger’s character rapes a much younger woman played by Julie Christie, and they start a relationship after the rape. Lastly, I’ll never understand the movie made about Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with his slave Sally Hemings; how could anyone call it a love affair? It was rape and sexual harassment at the workplace. Rape was also common on soap operas: Back in 1979 on General Hospital, the character Luke Spencer raped the character Laura Baldwin. She shouted “No, Luke, no!” as he hit her, ripped her clothes off, and forced himself on her. But did the insanity stop there? No. Hell, they later got married. In The Godfather, the character Carlos beats his pregnant wife Connie in an effort to provoke vengeance from her brother Sonny Corleone. The movie ends with Michael Corleone blatantly lying and forcing his wife out of his “business,” and Part Two continues the tradition as Michael slaps his wife. In Chinatown, star Jack Nicholson slaps the fire out of his love interest Faye Dunaway, and in Leo Dennis Hopper slaps the hell out a woman while trying to rape her, until someone comes and stops him. Come to think of it, every movie that you have played in you have been beaten, cursed, abused, kidnapped, framed, or left for dead by a man. That doesn’t exactly sound like a healthy depiction of femininity. I know that rap music also has a history of degrading women. But rap’s history is only about 30 years long. Hollywood’s history stretches back into the early 1900′s. Where do you think the dumb rappers learned their behavior? So Ashley, before you open your mouth or pick up your $300 Mont Blanc pen to give your 1.5 cent opinion, learn a little history about where you work and consider the work that you do. Despite the failings of rap, you are personally not in a position to speak because you’ve got blood all over your paycheck. This doesn’t let the hip hop industry off the hook. I got a can of whoop-ass with their name on it too. But I can guarantee that there are more positive artists in the hip hop community than there are positive black roles in the Hollywood industry.

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