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American Pimp. 1999. By Albert and Allen Hughes. 87 min. DVD format, color. (MGM, Underworld entertainment.)
American Pimp: Raw Outtakes and the Hard Truth. 2004. By Albert and Allen Hughes. 70 min. DVD format, color. (sony, Underworld entertainment.)
In his book Picturing Culture (University of Chicago Press, 2000), anthropologist Jay Ruby makes a strong case for restricting the genre category of ethnographic film and questions the conflation of "anthropological cinema" with "documentaries about anthropological subjects" (p. 2). Ruby's criticism of what he sees as the indiscriminate inclusion of an increasingly large number of documentary films into the category of ethnographic film stems from a desire to preserve, if not reestablish, the legitimacy of ethnographic filmmaking and the theoretical rigor of visual anthropology. Underlying Ruby's effort to keep ethnographic film relevant within anthropological research is a commitment to theorize and analyze all aspects of the visual approach to anthropology, repositioning ethnographic filmmaking as a pursuit practiced by those who have been trained as ethnographers and whose audience is mainly other ethnographers and anthropologists (p. 6).
In light of this call for a more restrictive definition of ethnographic film, put forward by an eminent scholar with more than thirty years of experience, it might seem a dubious task to argue for the value of two Hollywood films like American Pimp (1999) and its companion American Pimp: Raw Outtakes and the Hard Truth (2004) as useful ethnographic works. my aim is not to refute Ruby, since I agree with much of what he says, but only to nudge his position a little, with the intent of acknowledging that certain unique nonacademic films have ethnographic value based on the distinctive way they negotiate politically charged landscapes- even if their directors are unaware of the ethnographic theorizing currently taking place in anthropology and folklore. In the case of American Pimp and Raw Outtakes, two films that investigate the world of pimps and, to a lesser extent, their prostitutes, I would contend that the directors, Albert and Allen Hughes, have created works of significant value to those interested in the group-specific practices and characteristics of pimps. There is no question that the controversial style and content of these films have caused critics to reject them as distasteful glorifications of pimping, while...