Tory conference: Hip-hop Hamlet 'racist and evil'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24351371

Teaching Shakespeare with a hip-hop soundtrack is patronising, evil and "viciously racist" to black pupils, the Tory Party conference has been told.

Youth mentor and writer Lindsay Johns, a guest speaker invited by Education Secretary Michael Gove, said teachers were "hell-bent on making everything cool or hip".

They should "stop genuflecting at the altar of youth", he said.

"Hamlet doesn't need a hip-hop sound track for young people to enjoy it."

Mr Johns added: "It's been doing just fine for the last 400 years."

"It's not only incredibly patronising, but also viciously racist to think that black and brown kids in the inner cities will only 'get Shakespeare' if it's set to a hip-hop beat and presented in three-minute, MTV-Base-style chunks.

"It is positively evil to deny inner city kids access to the manifold joys of hearing their national poet's true voice, in essence their birthright, simply because of a culture of low expectations."

Mr Johns said he was tired of "vacuous PC [politically correct] educationalists who took great offence at Mr Gove's drive for a national curriculum more focused on English literary classics and the history of Britain.

He said: "Young people need more not fewer dead white men - by dead white men I mean the Western literary canon.

"You can of course be fiercely proud of your Jamaican, Ghanaian or black British roots and ardently love Horace, Boccaccio and Milton.

"The two are in no way mutually exclusive and they certainly don't make you any less black or less brown by reading them."

The novels of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens were just as relevant to all young people no matter what colour or creed, he said, adding that it was "positively nefarious" to deny access to them.

Mr Johns also attacked "bling culture" and "ghetto grammar", which he said were holding some youngsters back and making them sound like they had had "a frontal lobotomy"

"Our aim is for the young people to confound, not conform to stereotypes," he said.

Mr Johns, who himself studied French and Italian at Oxford, also said a portrayal of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge as institutionally racist was "actually putting off ferociously bright, black, brown, and white, working-class kids from applying".

"Maybe, just maybe, if you didn't keep on discouraging them from applying in the first place with your duplicitous horror stories of how terrible life is there, then levels of representation would actually get better," he said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmOvGT-b2ac

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmOvGT-b2ac

"Young people need more not fewer dead white men "

awes.

Saw this guy before, seemed a bit dim tbh

"Hamlet doesn't need a hip-hop sound track for young people to enjoy it."

Mr Johns added: "It's been doing just fine for the last 400 years."

"It's not only incredibly patronising, but also viciously racist to think that black and brown kids in the inner cities will only 'get Shakespeare' if it's set to a hip-hop beat and presented in three-minute, MTV-Base-style chunks.

point tbh, though idk about viciously racist

attempting to force feed historical art through a modern lens in order to make it more palatable or relevant to the ppl it is felt should be interested but seemingly aren't, well, seems a completely fucking pointless exercise to me, but the adaptation of it particularly so. it stands or it doesnt, if the latter holds true then let the cultural space breathe and see what takes its place, don't try and cod anyone into it.

I think it's the implication that Hamlet in 15 min chunks set to a hip-hop beat is a core curriculum module.

well i wouldnt presume to know tbf

Tory conference: Hip-hop Hamlet 'racist and evil'

Yes, there might be elements of seeing-classics-through-a-modern-lens on courses but they aren't really central to anything. The deeper objection that yr Goves have is to the diversity of voices on the syllabus and the willingness to treat modern classics from "post-colonial" authors as valid things to study.

yeah im all for shakespeare as meritous in and of itself but if yr case is that nobody has done anything worth studying since it's a rather handy time to hearken back to for the tories.

Hasnt every youth theatre/school since forever been doing "hip for the kids" dumbed down shakey?

I didn't hear the Tories wailing about the production of Macbeth I went to see which re-imagined it taking place in a Soviet-era military hospital, which included trad. Russian music and dancing during the feast.

So depressing that the idea of incorporating elements of youth culture into education in order to engage with youngsters is seen as dumbing down once it becomes clear that said youth culture is partly influenced by people who aren't white.

I would also say that it is viciously racist to assume that this 'dumbing down' is purely for the benefit of 'black and brown kids in the inner cities'

attempting to force feed historical art through a modern lens in order to make it more palatable or relevant to the ppl it is felt should be interested but seemingly aren't, well, seems a completely fucking pointless exercise to me

Seriously? How many plays, movies, musicals etc. from over the past century would fit exactly what you're describing? Are they pointless? (If you take the phrase historical art at face value the sentiment seems even more ridiculous, you could reasonably describe art as history through a modern lense).

Putting aside the incredibly naive presumption that only black and brown kids listen to hip-hop, teachers have so much more to contend with in order to keep the attention of and engage kids and anything they can do to get a foot in is worthwhile.

Or, you know, you could mention Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Delius, Britten for more pointless low-brow pandering

Dumbing down Shakespeare gave us 10 things I hate about you, so it gets a free pass in perpetuity.

How about dumbing down politics, they don't seem to have a problem with that

"Young people need more not fewer dead white men "

I demand more dead white men.

All that "Think of the economy as being like your household budget" bollix, for instance (xp)

How many of them would, tsorobodo?

Is that what tchaikovsky was doing? Not inspired by shakespeare but rather seeking to up the relevance or avg score of the gcse equivalent of his day?

TORY CONFERENCE SPEAKER IN "KILL WHITEY" SHOCK OUTBURST

attempting to force feed historical art through a modern lens in order to make it more palatable or relevant to the ppl it is felt should be interested but seemingly aren't, well, seems a completely fucking pointless exercise to me, but the adaptation of it particularly so. it stands or it doesnt, if the latter holds true then let the cultural space breathe and see what takes its place, don't try and cod anyone into it.

this is fully right imo

but i agree that Gove and his pals are not smart enough to be raising this objection, they just hate black people, poor people, kids etc

also lol @ tory attacking bling culture

difference and alienness are v. important things in culture that shd be welcomed, not elided

"Young people need more not fewer dead white men "

I demand more dead white men.

― emil.y, Wednesday, October 2, 2013 1:19 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

boom

wait what was emil.y quoting did a tory really say that ffs

its in the opening post

Mr Johns said he was tired of "vacuous PC [politically correct] educationalists who took great offence at Mr Gove's drive for a national curriculum more focused on English literary classics and the history of Britain.

He said: "Young people need more not fewer dead white men - by dead white men I mean the Western literary canon.

"You can of course be fiercely proud of your Jamaican, Ghanaian or black British roots and ardently love Horace, Boccaccio and Milton.

"The two are in no way mutually exclusive and they certainly don't make you any less black or less brown by reading them."

The novels of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens were just as relevant to all young people no matter what colour or creed, he said, adding that it was "positively nefarious" to deny access to them.

Mr Johns also attacked "bling culture" and "ghetto grammar", which he said were holding some youngsters back and making them sound like they had had "a frontal lobotomy"

that is good work, that

dead white post-society

"Young people need more not fewer dead white men "

I demand more dead white men.

― emil.y, Wednesday, October 2, 2013 1:19 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just came here to repost the same--magic.

hmmmm

Linsday Johns' talk Why We Shouldn't Listen To Young People will be broadcast on Thursday December 13th on BBC Radio 3 at 10pm.

i still feel like we'd have points of agreement

"You can of course be fiercely proud of your Jamaican, Ghanaian or black British roots and ardently love Horace, Boccaccio and Milton

Can't beat a bit of Horace Andy or Milton Henry, don't know who this Boccaccio fellow is though

Boccaccio Juniors.

You can of course be fiercely proud of the canon and ardently love culture not made by whitey

Boccaccio wrote the first biography of our current Prime Minister iirc

we can only hope he meant canon single n but i mean

a national curriculum more focused on English literary classics

like Horace, Boccaccio

Is that what tchaikovsky was doing? Not inspired by shakespeare but rather seeking to up the relevance or avg score of the gcse equivalent of his day?

― everyone knows that deems hates everything (darraghmac), Wednesday, October 2, 2013 2:33 PM

Romeo and Juliet by Tchikovsky feature 0 (nought) dialogue from the play. How is that better than or different to a hip hop adaptation of Shakespeare, which at least feature some, just reworded?

I came into this thread to be outraged, I stayed because I was lolling too hard at "Young people need more not fewer dead white men "

uk politics dan, they give and they give and they give tbh

Romeo and Juliet by Tchikovsky feature 0 (nought) dialogue from the play. How is that better than or different to a hip hop adaptation of Shakespeare, which at least feature some, just reworded?

idk should i run my post through some sort of adaptation/rewording myself tbh

but

is it yr contention that tchaikovsky, rather than being personally inspired by the works of shakespeare to create his art, was actually working to bring shakespeare to the masses via a rather patronising back-door method using the musical vernacular of the day

three points for each example you can reference etc

The novels of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens were just as relevant to all young people no matter what colour or creed, he said, adding that it was "positively nefarious" to deny access to them.

lol library closures

if there was great hip hop (there may be tbf, idk) being created inspired by shakespeare that ppl (kids, i spose, in this particular scrap) were wowed by that would be good

it wouldn't necessarily mean anything for the teaching of shakespeare

it wouldn't necessarily mean that sheakespeare, if not to the interest of those kids, should be adapted to trance or w/e to try to get the other cohorts of uninterested kids that don't particulalry want to learn shakespeare.

what im more saying, is , idk, if the kids are engaged and interested in their verbal art in the form of hiphop- this is a very good thing, synapses firing and creative juices flowing, all that, why bring shakespeare into it? why not come to meet them in their own cultural space altogether instead of fixating on the stuff yr dad made you learn because his dad made him learn it?

yes, the greats are great. but they'll remain great when ppl find their own way to them (as i believe they will anyway) as opposed to this craic of 'you'll like this it has baseball caps' guidance counsellor smh we-don't-trust-you-to-know-better approach.

kinda thing.

wtf are you saying, the world needs trancespeare NOW

i've said it before but i don't see the plots in Shakespeare as that big a deal, most things influenced by the stories cd as easily be influenced by the stories Shakespeare used as his sources

if you're not using Shakey's words then you're not really doing Shakey afaic

Can't beat a bit of Horace Andy or Milton Henry, don't know who this Boccaccio fellow is though

― Tommy McTommy (Tom D.), Wednesday, 2 October 2013 14:01 (28 minutes ago) Permalink

Dah, beat me to it Tom.

do you remember when the 'how many sb's do i have' thread turned into a manga shakespeare fest one night, great days

must d/l some more of that stuff

that shit i can def get behind

attempting to force feed historical art through a modern lens in order to make it more palatable or relevant to the ppl it is felt should be interested but seemingly aren't, well, seems a completely fucking pointless exercise to me, but the adaptation of it particularly so. it stands or it doesnt

um?
http://share.nanjing-school.com/englisha/files/2013/02/romeo-the-perfect-romeo-and-juliet-3-30505957-1012-1438-1mjxbb2.jpg

Can we please not have any sort of serious discussion on a thread devoted to a speech given by this cretinous nobody who was invited to speak to a conference of racists by a spiteful little troll.

i'm a fan of that, but crucially, as NV said, the language and idioms are taken directly and merely demonstrated (very effectively) in a new context.

essentially, that is just p much performing shakespeare's work.

xp i resent that!

Can we please not have any sort of serious discussion on a thread devoted to a speech given by this cretinous nobody who was invited to speak to a conference of racists by a spiteful little troll.

done and done

http://www.tickld.com/images/content/64775.jpg

http://www.theanimereality.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/shakes-manga-563.jpg

http://www.theguardian.com/profile/lindsayjohns

Lindsay Johns is a writer, broadcaster and "hip-hop intellectual". He has just had an article on the new breed of Black Conservatives in the Evening Standard (May 2008), an essay on re-thinking notions of black masculinity ("In Search of Notorious PhDs") published in the book The Contemporary Reader (2007).

Does the OP actually refer to a specific production of Hamlet that is currently being used to teach British schoolchildren? The article doesn't mention what his tirade is in reponse to.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DAxp8476UgM/TlGQZfA3zjI/AAAAAAAAA1s/FdzMVD3hzhg/s400/LJ.jpg

Less 'Yo', more 'Iago'

We should just list some dead white men who should be allowed into schools.

xxxp no, it's almost like he's constructing some kind of straw man to pander to the racists of the Tory Party Conference

Notorious PhDs
Notorious PhDs
Notorious PhDs
Notorious PhDs
Notorious PhDs

http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article8852108.ece/ALTERNATES/w460/pg-12-shakespeare-2-reuters.jpg

heinous beard

christ

lol

the chinstrap that should not be

What? WHAT?

even his tshirt has a shitty schmig

Respectability politics can die in a fire.

man, that dude looks so much like one of my friends it's terrifying

said friend does not have the full chinstrap btw (thus we are still friends)

he relishes his ability to oscillate effortlessly between the classical canon and the contemporary cutting edge

as long as its not black

he's a language prescriptivist which is 1 step away from not understand how language works afaic so

of all the posts to drop a typo

Notorious PhDs
Oscillate effortlessly
Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light
That's that shit I don't like

thread about to get awesome

Right, so in summary he's against the dressing-up of literature in hip-hop language to make it more appealing, and he said this in his article "in search of Notorious Phd's" ?

in summary he's a fraud with no shred of credibiity or dignity who will say what it takes to taste some of the sweet sweet lucre you can get from rich racists

Chinstrap beard, pinstripe jacket
References Bocaccio
One is forced to conclude
His flow is wack

C-, must try harder

trap goin' hamlet

wtf are you saying, the world needs trancespeare NOW

Infected Mushroom's Merchant of NeverNever Land.

PROFUMO FULMINATES AGAINST EVIL WEST SIDE STORY

wld watch Hamlet, Prince of Goa (Ft Osric's Tentacles)

Hs anyone run to ground an actual instance of hip hop hamlet yet?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2058878/

Finnish sadly :-(

Tuomas?

reliably informed that bolivian hip hop features prominently in this http://www.barbican.org.uk/theatre/event-detail.asp?ID=15050 I will report back on racist aspect

Waht is it with the Finns and Hamlet? Aki Kaurismäki did an awesome version too, though that was more of a rock'n'roll thing iirc.

Hamlet's northern European melancholy a good fit with the Finnish "national character", if you believe in such things, I suppose.

can we get a quote from the hip-hop hamlet in finland as to whether or not he considers the tory conference 'racist and evil'

can't remember any rock'n'roll in Hamlet Goes Business? but i will rewatch and report back

perhaps there's not - i haven't seen it for 20 years. only music bit i can remember actually is hamlet in his office smoking cigarettes and drinking and blasting out elmore james' dust my broom

obviously it's hugely finnish-person racist

Sons of Anarchy is a pretty Aryan gang, though tbf they have no truck with the neo-Nazi drug dealers...

You know, it's a funny one, this one. On the one hand, the idea that schools across the UK are only teaching Hamlet in a hop-hop version (because they think black kids only understand hip-hop) is an alarmist lie. That isn't happening. Rather, the curriculum looks at how Shakespeare plays are adapted in different ways, and might - quite reasonably - have students read a hip-hop version. And, considering the plays were turned into operas just after Shakespeare's time, such an adaptation is not even the grave departure this guy thinks it is.

On the other hand: did anyone else here study English at university? Because the kind of person who Lindsay Johns believes to have taken over the secondary school English Literature curriculum actually does exist - they're just contained within academia.

And they're full of shit.

I studied English Lit at university (2003-07), we never did hip-hop Shakespeare though.

I did miss quite a lot of lectures tbf