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The
Hughes Brothers directed Menace II Society and Dead
Presidents. Their next film, From Hell, starring
Johnny Depp, is about Jack the Ripper.
Pimp:
The Story of My Life, by Iceberg Slim, is considered
the manual of pimpology.
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American
Pimp
Rated
R
Cinema
21
616 NW 21st
Ave., 223-4515
Opens Friday,
Sept. 15
A pimp is someone most people think of as an immoral sleazebag.
The inner-city pimp, who gets women hooked on drugs and
sells them into sexual slavery, has been popularized in
film and television as some black guy decked out in garish
clothes, sporting expensive jewelry and bragging on his
bitches. But on the real side a pimp is a businessman who
builds his fortunes by exploiting a market, its consumers
and its laborers. Bill Gates is a pimp. So is Phil Knight.
A pimp is a complex breed of person.
With their documentary feature debut American Pimp,
twin brothers Allen and Albert Hughes explore the mythology
of the black street pimp. Set to an ultra-funky soundtrack,
and intercut with film clips from the best pimp movies of
all time (The Mack, Willie Dynamite and Street
Smart), American Pimp is a frequently chilling,
sometimes funny and always profound glimpse at the most
unorthodox of all entrepreneurial enterprises.
The Hughes Brothers lay the groundwork for their film by
exploring the post-Civil War origins of the pimp. They paint
a vivid image of pimping by interviewing some of the most
notorious macks in America, from Fillmore Slim, who has
been in the game for 60 years, to Gorgeous Dre, now doing
life in prison, to the pimp-turned-preacher Bishop Don Magic
Juan, author of From Pimpstick to Pulpit. These are
all men Allen refers to as "sociopathic psychologists."
A more fitting moniker would be hard to come up with.
Each pimp takes you into the darker recesses of his world.
It is not a pleasant world; among other things, pimps explain
the need to instill the fear of death into their bitches
through beatings. Yet under the immorality and misogyny
of their actions and words--which includes saying things
like, "That motherfuckin' bitch better have my motherfuckin'
money, or I'mma put my motherfuckin' foot all up in her
mother fuckin' ass"--the pimps come across as shrewd businessmen
and street-corner philosophers. They display the same type
of cunning and acumen that have made men like Donald Trump
the successes they are today.
Portraying the pimps to be comical villains would be easy--they
do that themselves. The real trick--no pun intended--is
getting beneath the surface of pimpology. These are men
who live by their own code of ethics, which makes sense
within the realm of their reality. They openly talk about
their disdain for drugs (dope becomes a bitch's main priority,
causing her to turn tricks not to put money in her man's
pocket, but that of the dope dealer). And while each pimp
admits that what he is doing is wrong by a larger societal
standard, their rationalizing sounds oddly reminiscent of,
for example, Phil Knight justifying Nike's use of cheap
Asian labor.
American Pimp attempts to keep from glamorizing
the pimp lifestyle while simultaneously trying not to condemn
it. It is a fine line to straddle, and the Hughes Brothers
do a good job. They get their participants to open up and
tell more about themselves than you might expect, revealing
a human side to their inhuman lifestyle.
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