Word: pimp
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There is, however, a car-country answer to Queer Eye: the car-and-bike makeover show. Discovery Channel's American Chopper, MTV's Pimp My Ride and several others turn junkers into sleek street machines and motorcycles into works of art, and in the process tell us how people (mostly men) express and define themselves through their stuff. They're Queer Eye, the shop-class version: the Gear...
...designers gave a nod to pimp fashion, an archetype of blaxploitation, in a sequence with bare-chested men reveling in the adulation of mini-skirted vixens. The segment’s tone was slightly marred by the off-putting notion that a production conscientiously pushing for racial diversity did little to challenge the film industry’s manipulative portrayal of African-Americans in the 1960s...
...There is, however, a car-country answer to Queer Eye: the car-and-bike makeover show. Discovery Channel's American Chopper, MTV's Pimp My Ride and several others turn junkers into sleek street machines and motorcycles into works of art, and in the process tell us how people (mostly men) express and define themselves through their stuff. They're Queer Eye, the shop-class version: the Gear...
...feels the connection between wheels and independence more strongly than teenagers, which is probably why Pimp My Ride became an overnight hit for MTV. With rapper Xzibit as host, it's a kind of hip-hop Queen for a Day. It takes young drivers' beat-up jalopies and turns them into rap-video dreams, rolling Xanadus with DVD players, video-game machines and the mandatory spinning-wheel rims. The show owes everything to the materialistic side of hip-hop culture, but Xzibit says that Pimp's fantasies are at least more accessible than the million-dollar house tours...
...suppose he's right. I also hope, though, that Pimp's viewers - watching a channel increasingly dedicated to the idea that a car, or a mansion, or a new pair of breasts, is the ticket to fulfillment - realize there are cheaper routes to self-esteem. "We're about to put $20,000 into a $900 car," a craftsman boasts as he rebuilds a pathetic Mitsubishi Mirage for Antwon, a 19-year-old art student. The gleaming, finished car is hilariously over the top (it includes a built-in fish tank), and Antwon is delighted. But I have to wonder: Wouldn...