1 - Introduction
- How identity and sociocultural diversity are dealt with, produced, represented, and consumed in
and through popular media culture
- Discussing identity: quite personal
- Rules of conduct:
- do not attack someone’s personal belief or opinions
- be respectful at all times
- we do not tolerate hate speech or discrimination of any kind
- do not feel ‘pressured’ to speak from a particular subject position
1. Exploring the Topics at Hand
1.1. Miss Belgium
- National beauty pageant
- 2018 winner: Angeline Flor Pua
- Made the news because of her Chinese-Filipino descent
- Backlash on Twitter à “does not look Belgian”
- Practices of othering and degrading
- Digital media: ability to accelerate debate and turn it into an international
debate
- Blunt racism, sexism and homophobia: increasingly challenged and
rejected in public mediated debates
- 2021 winner: Kedist Deltour
- Less discussed in media, but here too racist comments on social media
- But what about structural sexism?
- Objectification of women’s bodies, limited set of beauty norms
- Commodification of models
- Alternative approach: women with agency,
considering beauty pageants means to advance their
position
- Both are feminist positions:
- + radical feminist and Marxist/social feminist
- + liberal feminist / postfeminist
1.2. AB Concerts Promotional Campaign
- Name of campaign: See You in the Next Live
- Ancienne Belgique – concert hall (Brussels)
, - Heavily impacted by Covid-19
- Benoît Do Quang (videographer and artist), Ayco Duyster
(radio host), Grâce Kamashi (bar manager), DVTCH NORRIS
(rap), Blu Samu (hip hop/rap)
- Main theme: looking forward to live music
- “Next “Live” will be diverse and inclusive
- Window-dressing or not?
1.3. A closer look…
- … at BOEF
- Sofiane Boussaadia
- Dutch rapper (°1993), Algerian parents
- Musical bio:
- Debut performance in 2015;
- 2016: EP ‘Gewoon Boef’ (Zonamo Underground); 2017:
Slaaptekort (BoefMusic); 2019 EP ’93’(Trifecta); 2020:
Allemaal een Droom (Boef)
- Personal life: rocky road
- Popular artist (+/- 1.283.000 listeners/month on Spotify)
1.3.1. A Reconstruction of a Controversy
- Car trouble on NYE 2017
- Snapchat: “Picked up by three kechs. My life is a movie. Happy New Year. I’m buying a boat this
year, just you wait”
- First ‘wave’ of criticism: use of word ‘kech’
- ‘kech’ is Dutch street slang, coming from the Moroccan word ‘kehba’, which means
‘whore’
- Insult, slur, derogatory term to refer to women, related to practices of slut shaming
- BOEF shares another video:
- “I succeeded in upsetting a few people because I said ‘kech’, but what are you doing in a
club with alcohol, with short skirts at eight o’clock in the morning, with boys? What are
you doing? You’re just a kech”
- Performing/highlighting a specific form of traditional masculinity
- Commercial considerations?
- Constructing artist persona in songs, music videos
- But what about the social role of artists?
- Second wave of criticism: heated, mediated, and polarized
- BOEF issues an apology later that day
, - “We rappers do use words like bitches and kechs quite often. We don't necessarily mean
that in an insulting way, but it's taken that way. I understand that. I hereby apologize to
those ladies and all the ladies I have offended.”
- "It wasn't very nice. I felt attacked. Now that I look back at this I think: this is very stupid.
And then you also have to be a man to make an apology video."
1.3.2. Analysis of the Responses/Practices
- Denouncing:
- + expressed by women, feminist scholars, fellow rappers
- + exposing ‘structural sexism’
- Rapper Zwangere Guy: “Boussaadia does not have much to do
with hip-hop. One of the deepest foundations of hip hop is
respect, which is very hard to find with this artist.”
- Support:
- + expressed by people online and offline, manager
- + asking for nuance, situating it within youth culture, ‘just’ street slang
- Parody:
- + expressed by ordinary citizens, satire blogs
- + using humor to voice criticism
- Boycott:
- + expressed by spokespersons with symbolic capital
- + radio DJs refusing to play songs, removal of festival line-ups, ending
professional collaborations…
- + would today be linked to ‘cancel culture’
- Public debates:
- + mainstream media, festivals,…
- + putting things into perspective
- #MeToo movement as context
- → spontaneous digital movement that denounces sexism in all its forms
(since 2017)
- → singling out individuals, not always addressing structural issues
- Ethnic minority identity and double standards
- → Sunny Bergman and Selma
Omari: fighting sexism with racism
- → everyday and structural racism,
homophobia, ignoring sexism by
white persons
- → racial slur, framing it as
Islam-related, using BOEF to
boycott R&B and hip hop…
, - BOEF’s ‘final’ response:
- New song and video (‘Antwoord’ [‘Response’], 2018)
- Live performance and apology
- Repeats his former apology: “We rappers are saying ‘bitches’ and so on, but we really don’t think
less of women”
- What do you think of his apology video?
- The controversy has waned, his success continues (14 number-one-songs)
2. Course Setup
- The approach of this course is threefold
(1)Exploring historical perspectives on media and diversity
- Recounting how popular media culture has engaged with sociocultural diversity in the past
- Focusing on a few historical milestones (films, media practices, heated debates,…)
(2) Exploring various theoretical insights on media and diversity
- Scholars and theories within media, communication, and cultural studies and social theory
- Should help us make sense of the various ways used to engage sociocultural diversity in popular
media culture
