Before we engage on this journey, I must first sate that prostitution is a serious social issue that has tarnished many people’s lives. Therefore in no way shape or form is this article glorifying that lifestyle. In fact the article aims to do the opposite and begin to identify how the pimp pathology has found itself in our living rooms, continuously promoting the manipulation of young women.
I always find it funny that people claim that prostitution has been around since the beginning of time, as if this prehistoric reference all of a sudden offers the justification for the exploitation of females. But what seems to always get to me is the how Pimps are seen as the charismatic Casanovas, who so many men are envious of their natural skill to keep their woman in check, while the woman on the other hand gets the privilege of sharing a name with a gardening appliance.
The Popularisation of P.I.M.P in the 1970’s
The 1970s saw an influx of African-American movies, in response to the declining revenues in Hollywood. The new genre dubbed ‘Blaxploitatio’ is considered by many to be the turning point for Hollywood, as it was able to attract a previously uninterested black audience to the cinemas. But with this new found lane came some terrible and at time humorous representation of urban stereotypes, such as the Pimp culture. The average PIMP and Pusherman in Harlem were never as glamorous as they may have been presented in films like ‘Superfly in 1972′. This later translated into the music of that day, with artists like Curtis Mayfield glorifying such as a lifestyle in their music and it is pretty much becomes self explanatory why today’s hip hop artist who grew up listening to this music are now fascinated about being the ‘drug dealers’, ‘fly’ and ‘P.I.M.P
Many of you would be able to recognise the snippet on the video below between 0:58 to 1:17 from the Jay-Z intro entitled ‘Prelude’ on his Kingdom Come album.
Hip Hop artists carrying the torch
If ever there was a medium or genre that seems to happily embrace the pimpologic ideals of the 1970s movies, its Hip Hop music. Many blame hiphop for the mainstream crossover-or regular usage- of the term pimpin’ in TV shows such as MTV’s Pimp my ride. But I would have to say that it will not be fair to place the burden solely on hiphop’s back especially when the subtle aspects of pimping techniques were evident on our TV screen’s way before Don Majic Juan got his hands on his first Stacey Adams shoes.
STAR TREKS’ MR MACK DADDY
Look how Khan Noonien Singh of Star Trek demonstrates what many now consider to be the ‘Pimp’s hand’, the manipulative techniques which makes the female beg to their partner’s mercy, even though he is in the wrong. The scary thing is that this type of thing happens everyday, and for Star Trek -which is is bigger than any hiphop artist or album ever released- to be showing this in our living rooms, there seems to be something wrong with how we portray women in mainstream media.
It can happen to anybody..believe me
Remember Maia Campbell? No, well she played Tiffany Brown on ‘In the House’ with LL Cool J in the 90’s as well as appearances in ‘Moesha’ and ‘Sister Sister’.
Well here is a video of her in LA, with her Pimp, who I am sure you have noticed is not as Fly as Snoop Dogg or as well spoken as Mr Kahn and is actually nothing more than a low life spineless twat taking advantage of a woman in need of some serious help.
Conclusion.
Pimping ain’t easy, has to be the greatest urban myth if ever there was one. Any man -or woman- who makes money from the business of selling someone else’s body for sex, cannot even begin to comprehend or have the right to us to use the terms ‘aint easy..’ If anything pimping must be easier now than ever with female self esteem at an all time low. So maybe its time we started to make Pimping harder for these low lives, by portraying them for the clowns that they are and building the self esteem of the women in our society, with more videos of hardworking ordinary women then booty shaking video cameos and glossy magazines reports of Z-list celebrities new tummy tucks.
I am going to start by showing you a snippet of how these clowns SHOULD be portrayed…Peace!
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