hip-hop norms

  

Eurocentrism is the practice of viewing the world from a European perspective. It is the belief, consciously or subconsciously, in the pre-eminence of European culture. This way of thinking forms what Stuart Hall calls the ‘white eye’ (2000) It is an unmarked position from which all observations are made and from which, alone, they make sense. What I wish to identify by saying this is that a Eurocentric influence on film is the unseen and unnamed framework for representing that which is normal and universal while at the same time  racially marking those who are non-white or ‘other’ (Dyer, 2). The Exnomination of eurocentrism or whiteness gives this perspective power. To not be named is to imply that there is no other alternative, and it is only that which is not named that can be given the status of natural (Fiske, 43). When looking at hip-hop however, its music and whole genre of Hip-hop is a medium which is self-aware and thus complicates any process of assimilation through appropriation or imitation. What is understood to be normal within Hip-hop is not the Eurocentric views that span many other genres.  Instead, hip-hop flips the script of normality. It places Whiteness at the margins and Blackness as the assumed norms. It explicitly identifies and names whiteness and provides a discourse to interrogate and question its normalcy (Fraley, 44), Drawing on the movie 8mile, it is undoubtedly a hip hop film. It acts as a semi-autobiography of real life white rapper Marshal Mathers III, aka Eminem. From the opening, it immediately sets the films dark and anxious tone. Mobb Deeps’s (2006) “Shook Ones” plays over the introduction with a not-so subtle hint at the film's theme of authenticity in Hip hop by proclaiming “no such things as half way crooks”.  Rabbit (Eminem’s character) is situated in a dirty bathroom littered with graffiti all over. His face appears in a fragmented mirror acting as the first signifier of the multiple personas he must embody due to being a white man in a predominantly black space. After psyching himself up for battle he removes his headphones and “Shook Ones” fades to reveal some other music in the distance. This music has an echoing effect to it as if it were played in a cave. It works to create the effect of being underground in a subaltern space. This opening scene and the rest of the film associates his unstable state of mind with being surrounded by blackness. The burden of being white proves to be overbearing as he suddenly runs to a toilet to vomit. After leaving the bathroom we find him situated in the basement of a club that is mostly filled with black people who are openly hostile to him. This creates the image of the white man as the exotic other as opposed to the exotic other from a Eurocentric perspective. This works not to identify the crowd’s blackness but rather an awareness of Rabbits own whiteness. This allows the perspective of Bell hooks (Hooks, 254) who notes that whiteness is invisible to those submerged in eurocentrism but blacks have always been able to see whiteness. The Genre of hip-hop normalises these points of view where the Black man is seen as the norm and the white man is the ‘other’. This tribute to the black perspective helps the film maintain its authenticity as a Hip-Hop film.