Hustle & Flow: A Commentary from below

If you’ve never lived in the south, visited Memphis, (and by that I don’t mean Germantown) you might dismiss Hustle & Flow as a silly film that glorifies pimping and the objectification of women at the expense of achieving stardom. You might even think that the rags to riches story is far fetched and overly exaggerated. But if you lived in the south and felt the infectious pulse of southern rap music penetrate your body as you sit in the club trying not to bounce your head to lyrics that say “bitch, bend over let me see it,” then you know and understand just how important this movie is, and just how much truth lies in the story of D’Jay and his hoes.

Ask most successful people born in smaller southern cities about home, and they will mostly likely say something to the effect of “I made it out.” That’s the answer across the board in small towns or even southern metropolis’ where people are either rich or poor and there is very little in between. In a region where men still open the door for women, and offer to carry your bags, it shouldn’t be far fetched to imagine that other “old school” mentalities are pervasive as well. Many of those may be sexist, and in fact misogynistic and degrading to women, a truth that comes through in the music of southern artists such as the Ying Yang Twins, Project Pat and UGK just to name a few. This coupled with failing economies and a pervasive racist culture is why you may find a D’Jay, Shug, Lexus and Nolan living together in a whore house in Memphis trying to make it the best way that they can.

Hustle & Flow follows D’Jay, (Terrence Howard) as he strives to make it as a rapper before his age catches up with him. An unsuccessful pimp, D’Jay sells weed on the side for extra cash and plays pimp to Lexus (Paula Jai Parker), a stripper-prostitute with a son, Nolan, (Taryn Manning) a prostitute who’s the major source of income for the house, and Shug (Taraji P. Henson) D’Jay’s bottom bitch, a sweet faced prostitute who is currently pregnant. Facing a mid-life crises, D’Jay enlists the help of an old high school buddy to help him cut a demo for hometown rapper Skinny Black who is coming back to Memphis for the holiday. If they can just get Skinny a demo, D’Jay knows he’s gonna make it to stardom.

Huslte & Flow’s greatest success is showing peoples lives without forcing them to be apologetic, condemning or unbelievably politically correct. Because, as you may find out if you ask a stripper or two, they’re not all feeling sorry for themselves everyday and lamenting the misogynistic treatment from their pimps. Which, makes sense, because if they were, they probably wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing in the first place.

Yes prostitution, and pimping is repulsive and for many completely unjustifiable, but when you walk into a strip club in the south and look around, the women inside are making it, “by any means necessary,” Hustle & Flows defining principle. And that is what makes Hustle & Flow such a phenomenal film. Everyday each of us choose how we are going to make it. Some of us clean houses, work jobs we’re not passionate about, even go on reality TV and make an ass of ourselves--anything to make it. To us, no one ever has much to say. But the strippers, drug dealers, prostitutes and pimps -- they are condemned for their lewd behavior regardless of how many mouths they have to feed at home, without consideration of what may have driven them to this path.

This is a story for people who understand that some people don’t see a better way out. They don’t see the other side of tracks, and if they do, it’s only as they ride back to their desolate and hopeless side of town that we like to pretend doesn’t exist because it makes us feel better.

D’Jay writes songs called “it’s hard out there for a pimp,” and “whoop that trick” because that is what he lives everyday. The same way Tupac talked about thug life, and Jay-Z raps about balling, D’Jay writes a bout pimpin. This is real in the south, the pimpin, the hustling, the standing outside in the parking lots flossin, and the angry desire to cause trouble with anybody that tests your manhood. Because of course, when a man can barely provide for himself, his manhood becomes an entirely created persona. Perhaps this is why choosing to become a pimp seems all the more enticing—somebody will look at you as a provider and that somebody will validate you as a man.

One of the most honest moments in the film occurs when Shug looks into D’Jay’s eyes and says, “this meant the world to me,” referring to her being allowed to sing the hook for the demo. As sad as it may be, this moment captures the true essence of the film. People see and experience the world in completely different ways, and what may seem to trivial to some may be others defining moments.

When D’Jay meets Skinny and manages to sweet talk his demo tape into Skinny’s hands, the feel good movie begins to reek of disruption brewing. Moments later when D’Jay finds his demo in the toilet with a drunken Skinny Black sitting beside, D’Jay can’t control his rage and begins to beat skinny to unconsciousness, resulting in an outbreak of violence in the club that leaves D’Jay facing 12 months. Some might say this was an unnecessary but convenient plot change, but for those of us who have grown up in the hip-hop generation, we know that things like that happen over silliness like that all the time. And the next day we call the radio stations to gossip about it.

A lot of people probably aren’t going to like Hustle and Flow, it will seem too distant, too imperfect and therefore unbelievable. But many people will walk away thinking, I’m not that guy, but I know that guy and I definitely know that music. That’s where the movie will become a classic.