While I can objectively understand why someone could enjoy Hustle & Flow, I could not just sit back and enjoy the story. Pros: every man has a dream, art as a passage to meaning and transcendence, the makeshift studio process, the wife being super understanding and encouraging her husband. Cons: sexual exploitation, violence implied and explicit (the women constantly flinched whenever Djay got anger, the eviction scene and the big denouement). I don’t expect all movies to be a sanitized version of life, and I enjoy an anti-hero as much as the next person, but POSSIBLE SPOILER

The happy ending seemed like a copout. I enjoyed the ending because it made me feel good for watching the entire movie, but I recognized it as retroactive female empowerment to ratify the constant female exploitation that transpired for the majority of the film and implicitly requires that women must always support and adopt the man’s dream (see what happens to Lexus) instead of having one of her own. And to couch whatever is actually happening between Shrug and Djay as love seemed ridiculous considering the known dynamic between a pimp and his ho.