"...and there was the man in the middle, with a kind of black, sneering coolness..." - R. L. Stevenson, Jekyll and Hyde.

Certain corners of the internet are agog over the news that Abel Ferrara is working on a version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, starring Forest Whitaker as the good Doctor and 50 Cent – yes, that one – as his alter ego.

I find it somewhat distressing, or at least questionable.  The idea of casting Fiddy as a monster isn’t such a problem, what with his career-making turn as Frankenstein, but I’m concerned about the cultural baggage that goes along with this particular monster.  The whole point of Hyde is that he’s the id personified.  Not just evil: irrational, set in opposition to civilization and even to conscious thought.  There’s something unpleasant about casting a rapper in this part.

Ask yourself:  what’s the difference between a rapper and a poet?  If you answered “nothing,” good for you.  But I think most people, if they’re honest with themselves, and not thinking about it too hard, think that poetry is intellectual and involves skill, while rap is “emotional” (i.e. instinctual), and involves some kind of inborn talent.  Rappers, after all, have to be “real,” while poets—at least these days—just have to be “good.”  And while this is to a certain degree true of all pop music, the dichotomy is… not without racial undertones.