ERIC Number: EJ1098102
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 17
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1071-4413
EISSN: N/A
Where Is the Love? An Interrogation of Love in VH1's "Love and Hip Hop New York" and a Call to Educators to Respond to Anti-Love Messages
Edwards, Erica; Esposito, Jennifer
Review of Education, Pedagogy & Cultural Studies, v38 n2 p124-140 2016
In this article, Erica Edwards and Jennifer Esposito review the fourth season of "Love and Hip Hop New York," which is just a small part of the larger "Love and Hip Hop" reality TV series, which characterizes love through narrow representations of race, gender, and sexuality. Their analysis reports that this television program suggests that love is a literal battlefield. The characters move from one physical or verbal altercation to another, demeaning one another, trivializing the racialized body, and rendering one another's emotions and careers disposable. Although the love triangles analyzed in this article present clear examples of this, it is important to note that they are just two of many more examples. Overall, the show promotes an ideology of non-White people as dysfunctional and violent, packaged through a lens of sex, glamour, consumerism, and celebrity status. "Love and Hip Hop" can potentially confuse the meaning of both love and hip hop for young people. Schools become complicit in promoting this miseducation, as school curricula is largely silent on these topics. To remedy this, Edwards and Esposito call not only for the inclusion of love in the curricula, but also for an ethos of love to become the permeating sentiment in school communities--where educators consistently strive to create loving, inclusive spaces where youth are affirmed holistically in their personal and academic growth.
Descriptors: Popular Culture, Television, Intimacy, Interpersonal Relationship, Racial Factors, Violence, Sexuality, Social Attitudes, Misconceptions, Curriculum, Educational Environment, Power Structure, Minority Groups
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: New York
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A