Bodied

Adam is a graduate student and wants to write his thesis on battle rap. He comes to it with an academic curiosity: he will study the linguistic structure of the insults used. He goes into the field, meets the rappers who battle and starts recording. Then one night he gets on stage himself and wins. He does it again. Before long it is clear he is good at it. At the same time his circle at the university and his girlfriend are disturbed by what he says. He defends himself in both worlds and claims he is not doing the same thing in each. Joseph Kahn directs. Calum Worthy plays Adam. Eminem is among the producers. Kahn directed music videos for many years and the film's visual tempo comes straight from there. The matter it treats is the limit of speech; the narrative criticises both the sensitivity of the academic world and the licence of the stage at once. The battle scenes were shot with real rappers and some of the texts were written by people working in the form. The narrative does not defend its lead; as the film proceeds his intent looks steadily worse. The ending is plainly uncomfortable and leaves the viewer alone with their own reaction. It won an audience award at a festival and was distributed largely over the internet. Who it is for: viewers who like rap culture and satire with hard dialogue. Who it is not for: the language is heavy throughout, it aims to provoke, and some scenes are directly hurtful.