Programmed to Deprogram: Byron Hurt Visits UIC
Fae Rabin
Issue date: 2/8/10 Section: Features
Media Credit: Fae RabinByron Hurt, the award-winning filmmaker of 'Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhyme' traveled to UIC to explore the effects of Hip Hop culture on the youth.
Byron Hurt is the award-winning documentary filmmaker of 'Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes', and on Wednesday, February 3rd he visited UIC to speak about his work's message as part of UIC's Black History Month.
Hurt describes his upbringing as a typical American, one in which he played organized sports, earning an athletic scholarship for college.
"I didn't have an understanding or an analysis of gender. I understood race, but not necessarily gender," said Hurt about his early twenties.
Growing up in a family where the men had been abusive towards the women in their lives, Hurt knew "that men had the capacity to be abusive toward women and girls, but I never thought that me - as a man - had the responsibility to take on these issues from a leadership perspective. Like most guys, I thought that violence against women, in all forms of sexual violence, were women's issues, and I think that's what a lot of men - across race and class - consider these issues to be".
After college, Hurt was approached to participate in a program for men against violence towards women. In addition to being a filmmaker, Hurt travels around to other universities across the country, speaking to students with the intention of educating young men, and to encourage young men to speak up about issues they don't normally talk about. In this effort, Hurt hopes to enlighten men about what they can do to prevent violence against women.
The film, 'Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes' addresses race, class, and gender from a critical standpoint, and in regards to women portrayed in hip hop music videos, Hurt says the film "Deconstructed the representation of black masculinity".
Hurt's goal with the film was to couple filmmaking with activism by "help[ing] people transform after what they've seen, for them to look through life with a different lens," commented the filmmaker before playing the clip titled 'Sisters and Bitches'.
Among the clips shown were parts from hip hop artist Nelly's music video 'Tip Drill' in which a handful of black men are surrounded by several bikini-clad, black women whose only identity in the music is that of a sexual 'thing', and nothing beyond. One question Hurt posed to the audience to think about before showing the video was the concept of 'black love', as he put it: "How do black men and black women relate to each other and how does the media play into this?"
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Hurt describes his upbringing as a typical American, one in which he played organized sports, earning an athletic scholarship for college.
"I didn't have an understanding or an analysis of gender. I understood race, but not necessarily gender," said Hurt about his early twenties.
Growing up in a family where the men had been abusive towards the women in their lives, Hurt knew "that men had the capacity to be abusive toward women and girls, but I never thought that me - as a man - had the responsibility to take on these issues from a leadership perspective. Like most guys, I thought that violence against women, in all forms of sexual violence, were women's issues, and I think that's what a lot of men - across race and class - consider these issues to be".
After college, Hurt was approached to participate in a program for men against violence towards women. In addition to being a filmmaker, Hurt travels around to other universities across the country, speaking to students with the intention of educating young men, and to encourage young men to speak up about issues they don't normally talk about. In this effort, Hurt hopes to enlighten men about what they can do to prevent violence against women.
The film, 'Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes' addresses race, class, and gender from a critical standpoint, and in regards to women portrayed in hip hop music videos, Hurt says the film "Deconstructed the representation of black masculinity".
Hurt's goal with the film was to couple filmmaking with activism by "help[ing] people transform after what they've seen, for them to look through life with a different lens," commented the filmmaker before playing the clip titled 'Sisters and Bitches'.
Among the clips shown were parts from hip hop artist Nelly's music video 'Tip Drill' in which a handful of black men are surrounded by several bikini-clad, black women whose only identity in the music is that of a sexual 'thing', and nothing beyond. One question Hurt posed to the audience to think about before showing the video was the concept of 'black love', as he put it: "How do black men and black women relate to each other and how does the media play into this?"
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