4.3 About graffiti 13
4.4 About costume 13
5. Conclusion 15
Bibliography 16
1. Introduction
Studying the development of Hip-hop culture makes contribution to human values. We should inspect with justice and objective perspective.
Step Up, manufactured in America by Anne Fletcher, has won many prizes like TCA in 2008(Teen Choice Award). Step up series of films contains of Step Up, Step Up2: the Streets, Step Up3: Make You Move, Step Up4: Revolution and Step Up5: All In.
It is an inspiring, creative and stylish series movie filled with abundant Hip-hop elements, for instance, MC, Rap, the street dance, DJ, graffiti, etc. Take Step Up 4 the Revolution for example, at the very beginning the flash mob showed us an amazing performance. Except for the new-school Hip-hop dance, there were many representative elements like mind-blowing remixes, loose-fitting pants, freestyle basketball, and the hottest DJ on South Beach, Penelope.
Shifting from the normal street culture to a vital component of the current fashion, the function of Hip-hop culture can not allowed to be ignored. Originated in 1970s in America, the culture spread all over the world at a rapid speed thanks to the modern media. Nowadays, both voices that allocate and criticize Hip-hop can be found everywhere. America or western countries are not the only place in which Hip-hop is popular. In Asia, it is making more and more voices. Therefore, undoubtedly, it is significant to study Hip-hop for the fashion development and transformation of values.
2. Hip hop – a positive attitude towards life
2.1 The common understanding of Hip-hop
As we all know, a type of dance can be the symbol of pision of different social classes. For example, the European classic dance -- ballet, is considered as a refined and elegant art, which belongs to the upper class. However, hot street dancing reminds people of hooligans. And Hip-hop is unfortunately defined as ruffian culture.
Hip-hop has been in a dilemma for a long period. On one hand, it is Hip-hop itself that cannot be argued. We have to admit that some part of property of Hip-hop is composed of rebellion, deviant and spurn. We can know from A Revolution -- Hip-hop by Zhao Fang that, some people say that Hip-hop is one kind of marginal culture which is mostly popular among young people. Since it yearns for freedom, advancement and differentiation, it primarily caters to the youth’s psychological features [1]. In spite of this, they agree that Hip-hop has little public recognition and there is inevitably distance away from the mainstream culture. On the other hand, it is about the misunderstanding from the public. In the flash mob show mentioned above, we can see this scene -- when music started and the show was on, most passerby were totally shocked at first and then stop to enjoy the unexpected show. It is easy to see people’s admiration on the mob. But an old man just covered his granddaughter’s eyes, who seemed so enjoy at that moment. Actually, there is no lack of people who hold the idea that Hip-hop does harm to teenagers’ mental and physical health. Even in China nowadays, people are accustomed to consider the street-dancing boys as hooligans. Take the character in Step Up for example -- Tyler Gage. At the very beginning of the movie, he spent most of his spare time with his two bros on partying, idling about, and in discos to goof his surplus energy. They immersed themselves in a life of debauchery. We should know that this was only the image the team shaped to contrast with Nora Clark, an amazing ballet dancer and a daddy’s girl as well. In the latter part of the film, the situation shifted. Tyler showed his thirst for change. He said “Partying, stealing the car, mess around? Do you really think that this is the best we can be?”. The unlimited potential and positive spirit of these young bloods should not be overlooked. 《舞出我人生》嘻哈文化包容性(2):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_46954.html