50 Cent’s billboards yanked after protests
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The distributor of rap star 50 Cent’s upcoming film said on Thursday it was taking down some movie billboards near Los Angeles-area schools after community leaders complained they glorify gangs and violence.
Gee, what was your first freakin’ clue? Was it the poster of rapper 50 Cent pointing his pistol at the viewer, so they’re staring straight down the barrel? What in the hell have we come to when movie studios are reduced to promoting their products by glorifying the all-or-nothing, win-or-die-trying pursuit of material success? Call me clueless, old, or both, but I simply cannot find the redeeming social value in an entertainment genre that exalts the aggregation of material wealth as the path to happiness and fulfillment. Get da bling, bag da babes, get respect. It’s really that simple, eh?
In one sense, 50 Cent is merely riding the wave. He’s found his secret for gettin’ da bling and baggin’ da babes, so I suppose you could pass off my unfocused rant as just so much jealousy. Of course, to do so would miss the point I’m trying to make here. I could care less if 50 Cent’s accumulated with is the equivalent to the GDP of Nigeria. I could care less if he’s banging the Swedish Bikini Team on a nightly basis (hell, if he is, he’s a better man than I am….). What I do care about is the message that the glorification of this lifestyle is sending to our children. Damn, and I thought I was a prime offender for being a part of the “Me Generation”….
OK, I’ll admit that I do not “get” rap, and I cannot stomach the message sent by “Gansta” rap. Of course, I am not a poor, uneducated African-American male with little hope for a better life, so you could not unreasonably pass me off as a clueless drone from the Oppressing Class. I don’t dispute the industry’s right to produce their “artistry” (see many many rants on the freedom of speech and expression), but at what point do we as parents have a right to expect something resembling social responsibility? I don’t expect sappy love stories or uplifting tales of everlasting love and devotion, or even the triumph of Good over Evil, but must the message REALLY be the exaltation of material wealth above all else? Must our children be exposed to the school of thought that respect is garnered by bling and through the barrel of a gun, and that women are merely willing tools who buzz around the bee with the biggest hive?
50 Cent is hardly the only rapper guilty of such an egregious perverson of social values, merely the current poster boy for it. Instead of recognizing his responsibility (or merely his ability) to act as a positive role model, 50 Cent is doing whatever is necessary to get as much as he can while he can. After all, before long 50 Cent might not be worth two bits, and he knows it.
Posters for “Get Rich or Die Tryin”’ show the chart-topping gangsta rapper stripped to the waist in a crucifixion-like pose with his tattooed, bullet-scarred back to the camera and arms outstretched, holding a microphone in one hand and a gun in the other.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich sent a letter to distributor Paramount Pictures urging the billboards be yanked, starting with one outside a public school in Altadena, a suburb north of Los Angeles.
“This billboard conveys to the students a disturbing message actively promoting gun violence, criminal behavior and gang affiliation, he wrote in the letter to Paramount Motion Pictures Group Chairman Brad Gray.
Antonovich said the billboard outside the school for sixth through 12th graders was particularly egregious because the community had recently mounted an anti-gang campaign.
Activists in the south-central L.A. neighborhood of Hyde Park, another community plagued by gang violence, staged a rally on Tuesday calling on Paramount to remove a billboard next to a preschool. The sign was taken down the next day.
A spokesman for Paramount, a unit of Viacom Inc., told Reuters that additional billboards were being pulled on Thursday.
A studio source added that proximity to schools was a factor in deciding which ones to remove.
You’d think the maroons who run Paramount wouldn’ve been able to figure this out ahead of time. Of course, if they had, they wouldn’t have garnered all this priceless free publicity, would they? And in the movie business, ANY publicity is good publicity. Now they can take the billboards down and claim they’re taking the high road. After all, it’s all about the children, ain’t it?? Yeah, right; don’t tell me that they didn’t have this planned exactly as things are playing out….
As egregious as the behavior of the mogul maroons at Paramount is, even worse is 50 Cent agreeing to allow his image and talent (such as it may be) to be used in this manner. Of course, when all that matters is gettin’ da bling and baggin’ da babes, you can’t really blame him for surfing the wave, can you? Ain’t capitalism grand??
