Questions on Letter to the Free and Billie Jean

1. How do the lyrics of Letter to the Free reflect the cultural, social and political context at the time?




The lyrics of Letter to the Free reflect context by referring to past and present events. It references how black people "ain't seen as human beings with feelings" which links to cultivation theory as some white people have developed this idea from TV and films that black people are almost like a different species. It also references political context, talking about the "hate that they say will make America great again" which is a reference to the slogan of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential election slogan. Social context is referred to throughout, consistently bringing up the mass incarceration of Black Americans.

Possible Exam Qs

How do the lyrics of Letter to the Free reflect the cultural, social and political context of the time?

How does this work present the artist?

(Refer to Cultivation Theory and Reception Theory.)

How does this differ from Billie Jean?

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson was an international superstar, and many in the black community herald him for breaking down racial barriers in the music industry.

"Michael Jackson made culture accept a person of color way before Tiger Woods, way before Oprah Winfrey, way before Barack Obama," said the Rev. Al Sharpton. "Michael did with music what they later did in sports and in politics and in television. And no controversy will erase the historic impact."

As the Jackson 5, Michael Jackson and his brothers "became a cutting-edge example of black crossover artists," said Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of black popular culture at Duke University's Department of African and African American Studies.

"You basically had five working-class black boys with Afros and bell bottoms, and they really didn't have to trade any of that stuff in order to become mainstream stars," Neal said.

Young Michael Jackson was the first black "bubblegum teen star" in the vein of Monkees singer Davy Jones, Neal said.

Jackson continued as a pioneer in the black culture when he broke barriers by appearing on MTV, and by breaking sales records with the 1982 album, "Thriller."  Timeline: The life of a "King" »

"At the time that he releases 'Thriller,' I always argue that MTV was arguably the best example of cultural apartheid in the United States," Neal said.

The former president of CBS Records, Walter Yetnikoff, remembered with scorn that MTV would not play "Billie Jean" or "Beat It" because it billed itself as a rock station.

Looking back on that era, a 1991 Los Angeles Times article quoted MTV founder and then-CEO Robert Pittman as saying the channel's format didn't lend itself to other musical styles, including R&B and country. And Pittman accused his critics of attempting to impose their musical pluralism on the channel's die-hard rock fans.

But Yetnikoff said he threatened to pull videos of his other artists unless MTV played Jackson's videos. 

Soon Jackson's videos were heavily in rotation on MTV. Showcasing a black artist paved the way for the popular show, "Yo! MTV Raps," and other black artists, Neal said.

In turn, Jackson became one of the first African-Americans to be a global icon.

He also influenced a new generation of black musicians, including Usher, Ne-Yo and Kanye West, according to Joycelyn Wilson, a professor of African-American studies at Morehouse College, who specializes in popular culture and hip-hop studies. 

Changing appearance

Jackson's changing physical appearance in the past two decades led to criticism he was trying to be less black.

"Here's a man who started off looking very typically African-American and ended up looking like something few people would have recognized early in his career. His nose was trimmed, his lips were different ... his skin was different," said Cheryl Contee, who writes as Jill Tubman on Jack & Jill Politics, a blog centered on African-American issues.

"The only thing that seemed to almost stay the same were his eyes," said Contee, who also called Jackson "a genius and more than a trailblazer."

"I think [it] troubled a lot of people that he left his skin color behind and seemed somehow to be ashamed of who he was [when] he was born," Contee said.

But during a 1993 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Jackson shot down rumors that he was dying his skin to make it lighter. He told the talk show host that he had vitiligo, a disorder that destroyed his skin pigmentation.

Black popular culture professor Neal said Jackson's physical changes did not reflect his life on the whole.

"I think if you solely pay attention to Michael Jackson's physicality, you actually miss something that's much more complex. ... Michael Jackson artistically and aesthetically never turned his back on blackness. His work was always in conversation with black culture both in the United States and more globally," said Neal.

Neal said Jackson's changes were not to deny blackness, nor to become more white. "This was somebody who most of his career we read as being asexual. And I think that many of the changes to his face, particularly his skin tone, he was almost trying to achieve an a-raciality," said Neal.

Contee upset some commenters on her blog when she highlighted both the positive and negative aspects of Jackson's life, or what she termed his "mixed legacy."

"Some people were very offended that I would dare to mention some of the unfortunate aspects of his later years," she said. "But others [acknowledged] that they had mixed feelings about his legacy and what tha

Music video- theory

Notes from the lesson

Paul Gilroy: The Black Atlantic

Paul Gilroy is a key theorist in A Level Media and has written about race in both the UK and USA.

In The Black Atlantic (1993), Gilroy explores influences on black culture. One review states: “Gilroy’s ‘black Atlantic’ delineates a distinctively modern, cultural-political space that is not specifically African, American, Caribbean, or British, but is, rather, a hybrid mix of all of these at once.”

Gilroy is particularly interested in the idea of black diasporic identity – the feeling of never quite belonging or being accepted in western societies even to this day.

For example, Gilroy points to the slave trade as having a huge cultural influence on modern America – as highlighted by Common’s Letter to the Free.

Diaspora: A term that originates from the Greek word meaning “dispersion,” diaspora refers to the community of people that migrated from their homeland. [Source: facinghistory.org]

Gilroy on black music

Gilroy suggests that black music articulates diasporic experiences of resistance to white capitalist culture. 

When writing about British diasporic identities, Gilroy discusses how many black Britons do not feel like they totally belong in Britain but are regarded as ‘English’ when they return to the country of their parents’ birth e.g. the Caribbean or Africa. This can create a sense of never truly belonging anywhere.

Additional theories on race representations and music

Stuart Hall: race representations in media

Stuart Hall suggests that audiences often blur race and class which leads to people associating particular races with certain social classes.

He suggests that western cultures are still white dominated and that ethnic minorities in the media are misinterpreted due to underlying racist tendencies. BAME people are often represented as ‘the other’.

Hall outlined three black characterisations in American media:

·                     The Slave figure: “the faithful fieldhand… attached and devoted to ‘his’ master.” (Hall 1995)

·                     The Native: primitive, cheating, savage, barbarian, criminal.

·                     The Clown/Entertainer: a performer – “implying an ‘innate’ humour in the black man.” (Hall 1995)

https://youtu.be/Ouhdtrmzenw

Tricia Rose: Black Noise (1994)

 

Tricia Rose was one of the first academics to study the cultural impact of the hip hop genre in her influential book Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (1994).

Rose suggested that hip hop initially gave audiences an insight into the lives of young, black, urban Americans and also gave them a voice (including empowering female artists). However, Rose has since criticised commercial hip hop and suggests black culture has been appropriated and exploited by capitalism.

Michael Eric Dyson: Know What I Mean (2007)

Georgetown University Professor of Sociology Michael Eric Dyson has passionately defended both hip hop and black culture – Jay-Z describes him as “the hip hop intellectual”.

 https://youtu.be/q6rBbT2UktU

Dyson suggests that political hip hop in the 1990s didn’t get the credit (or commercial success) it deserved and this led to the rap music of today – which can be flashy, sexualised and glamorising criminal behaviour.

Dyson states: “Hip hop music is important precisely because it sheds light on contemporary politics, history and race. At its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing from on such critics. Sadly, the enlightened aspects of hip hop are overlooked by critics who are out to satisfy a grudge against black youth culture…” Michael Eric Dyson, Know What I Mean (2007)



Music Video theory - blog tasks

https://youtu.be/q6rBbT2UktU

Childish Gambino, the musical stage name of writer and performer Donald Glover, has just released a critique of American culture and Donald Trump with This Is America.

Racking up 10m views in 24 hours and already dubbed ‘genius’ and ‘a masterpiece’, the music video is a satirical comment on American culture, racism and gun violence.

Create a blogpost called 'Music video: theory', watch the video again then answer the questions below:


1) How does the This Is America video meet the key conventions of a music video?

2) What comment is the video making on American culture, racism and gun violence?

It makes the suggestion that guns are enshrined in American culture and helps to fuel racism. It also suggests that these things are considered normal in America. 
3) Write an analysis of the video applying the theories we have learned: Gilroy, Hall, Rose and Dyson. #

The video seems to support Gilroy's theory that black people do not feel at home anywhere. The video suggeststhis is because of gun violence and the discrimination that black people still face. 
Read this Guardian feature on This Is America - including the comments below.

4) What are the three interpretations suggested in the article?

Childish Gambino is playing Jim Crow, he's duping us with dance and that he is taking on the police. 
5) What alternative interpretations of the video are offered in the comments 'below the line'

Gambino is tired of the pressure to accumulate wealth, he is accusing black performers of "coonery" and that he is hinting that phones can be tools for documentation. 

Feminism?

Waves of feminism

First wave: early 20th century, suffragette movement (right to vote).

Second wave: 1960s – 1990s, reproductive rights (pill), abortion, equal pay.

Third wave: 1990s – present, empowerment, reclaiming of femininity (high heels, sexuality etc. See Angela McRobbie's work on women's magazines).

Fourth wave? 2010 – ongoing, use of new technology and digital media (e.g. Twitter) for activism.

Fourth wave?

Many commentators argue that the internet itself has enabled a shift from ‘third-wave’ to ‘fourth-wave’ feminism. What is certain is that the internet has created a ‘call-out’ culture, in which sexism or misogyny can be ‘called out’ and challenged.

This culture is indicative of the continuing influence of the third wave, with its focus on challenging sexism and misogyny in advertising, film, television and the media.

Key quote: “power users of social media”

The internet has facilitated the creation of a global community of feminists who use the internet both for discussion and activism.

According to #FemFuture: Online Feminism, a report recently published by Columbia University’s Barnard Center for Research on Women, females aged between 18 and 29 are the ‘power users of social networking’.

(Source: Political Studies Association. Read more about this: http://www.psa.ac.uk/insight-plus/feminism-fourth-wave)

Critics of online feminism

Critics of online feminist movements suggest that petitions and pressure from Twitter campaigns is simply a witchhunt orchestrated by privileged middle-class white women.

They ask: are ‘trolls’ the danger they are portrayed to be?

Introduction to feminism: blog tasks

Case study: Everyday Sexism

Watch the TEDx talk by Everyday Sexism founder Laura Bates:

1) Why did Laura Bates start the Everyday Sexism project?

2) How does the Everyday Sexism project link to the concept of post-feminism? Is feminism still required in western societies?

3) Why was new technology essential to the success of the Everyday Sexism project?

4) Will there be a point in the future when the Everyday Sexism project is not required? What is YOUR view on the future of feminism?

Media Magazine: The fourth wave?

Read the article: The Fourth Wave? Feminism in the Digital Age in MM55 (p64). You'll find the article in our Media Magazine archive here.

Letter to the Free

Lyrics:

Southern leaves, southern trees we hung from
Barren souls, heroic songs unsung
Forgive them father they know this knot is undone
Tied with the rope that my grandmother died
Pride of the pilgrims affect lives of millions
Since slave days separating, fathers from children
Institution ain't just a building
But a method, of having black and brown bodies fill them
We ain't seen as human beings with feelings
Will the U.S. Ever be us? Lord willing!
For now we know, the new Jim Crow
They stop, search and arrest our souls
Police and policies patrol philosophies of control
A cruel hand taking hold
We let go to free them so we can free us
America's moment to come to Jesus

Freedom (freedom)
Freedom come (freedom come)
Hold on (hold on)
Won't be long (won't be long)
Freedom (freedom)
Freedom come (freedom come)
Hold on (hold on)
Won't be long (won't be long)

The caged birds sings for freedom to bring
Black bodies being lost in the american dream
Blood of black being, a pastoral scene
Slavery's still alive, check amendment 13
Not whips and chains, all subliminal
Instead of 'nigga' they use the word 'criminal'
Sweet land of liberty, incarcerated country
Shot me with your ray-gun
And now you want to trump me
Prison is a business, America's the company
Investing in injustice, fear and long suffering
We staring in the face of hate again
The same hate they say will make america great again
No consolation prize for the dehumanized
For america to rise it's a matter of black lives
And we gonna free them, so we can free us
America's moment to come to Jesus

Narrative:

The music video does not really follow a direct narrative but rather follows a collective narrative, which is the collective narrative of African-Americans, who are being oppressed as a result of the criminalisation of them. 

Editing: 

Music video/Steve Neale's theory

History of music videos: https://danielmmediastudies.blogspot.com/2019/01/music-video-timeline.html

"Genre is instances of repetition and difference"

Thriller (1983) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOnqjkJTMaA&safe=true

The video fits the theory as it has a narrative strand and that it has dance numbers, which are typical of a video in the disco genre. However, it was on MTV which a difference to other music videos like Video Killed The Radio Star.