Bodied movie review & film summary (2018)

Our first object lesson arrives when another white wannabe rapper challenges Behn to a battle in the parking lot outside the show, honking cornball rhymes and spiraling his hands over the brim of his sideways ball cap. It’s like one of those ritualized moments in an old Western where a young braggart challenges a world-weary gunslinger to a draw (the punk even has an outlaw’s pseudonym, Billy Pistols). Behn keeps his guns holstered. Adam, a more upscale version of this very same pest, steps up in Behn’s place and vanquishes the upstart, to his surprise as well as everyone else’s. The victory goes viral on social media, triggering a formal offer to battle again and sparking visions of grandeur in the mind of Adam, a bookish young poet who’s lived his life in the shadow of his dad, a famous novelist and professor who teaches at the same school Adam attends (he's played by Anthony Michael Hall, who would’ve starred as Adam back in the day).

Adam treats his upcoming face-off with a Korean-American rapper named Prospek (rapper-actor Dumbfoundead) like a final exam that he can ace through research and sheer nerve. Ace it he does, though at a cost, reaching for stereotypes he swore he’d avoid. “At least you knew I was Korean,” Prospek tells Adam afterward. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s culturally sensitive by battle rap standards.” But even Prospek isn’t sold on the idea that rappers are merely performers. When he raises his glass in toast and speaks in Korean, his subtitle reads, “You’re a racist piece of shit.” “Thanks, man!” chirps Adam.

This poses a question that scholars of hip-hop as well as rock, stand-up comedy, and transgressive theater and cinema have all grappled with: if your art is chum to the reptile brain, and your best rhymes inflict emotional pain, are you an artist, or are you a sadist? And do casualties get to complain?

The best parts of “Bodied” put those questions under a microscope and examine them through varied prisms of life experience. These are represented by the multicultural bomber crew that orbits Behn, including zaftig Black female rapper Devine Write (Shoniqua Shandai); Latinx rapper Che Corleone (Walter Perez), who’s as horny as he is loquacious; and Maya, who tags along until the rancid atmosphere makes her sick. A subplot finds Devine and Che bonding over how tired they are of their adversaries’ racist and sexist material, then coming up with a smart way to mock them in the arena. Adam and Behn continue their conversations about whether a the n-word is defused if a Black man uses it, and if it’s marginally more acceptable for an Asian or Latinx rapper to use it. “There’s a difference between using the word and referencing the word,” Behn warns Adam. But who gets to decide when the line's been crossed?