Pitbull as Contrast

CW Mention of Sexual Assault

Armando Christian Pérez—most commonly known as Pitbull, the Latin pop rapper—is fun to dance to at weddings. His lyrics are mostly about drinking, dancing, lust, mantras for a good night: “Excuse me / And I might drink a little more than I should tonight / And I might take you home with me if I could tonight / And baby, I'ma make you feel so good tonight / 'Cause we might not get tomorrow.” In one music video, he wears matching tuxedos with the penguins from the animated film “Penguins of Madagascar.” He’s a spokesperson for Voli Vodka and Bud Light. His songs are catchy (I’ve had several stuck in my head for the last few days while finishing this essay). Pitbull is achieving his objective: one I find sorta silly, but enjoy at a party or on the top-40 radio station.

But I probably wouldn’t look to Pitbull’s persona or music for a tender moment of self-reflection or anticipatory grief. So I’m delighted by the way two works of art—Jennine Capó Crucet’s novel Say Hello to My Little Friend and Clare Barron’s play You Got Older (directed by Jonathan Berry)—use Pitbull expertly as contrast. Both works summon the artist (his image or his music) to create emotionally devastating conclusions. Pitbull, used surprisingly, made me cry. Twice.

The protagonist of Jennine Capó Crucet’s excellent novel, Say Hello to My Little Friend, is Ismael (aka Izzy), a barely twenty-year-old unauthorized Pitbull impersonator in Miami. The story begins when Pitbull’s people send Izzy a cease-and-desist letter. This betrayal by the artist kicks off a quest: Izzy telepathically communicates with an orca whale incarcerated at a seaworld-like park, attempts to become Scarface, hunts invasive iguanas, and tries to solve the mystery of his mother’s death during their passage from Cuba.

I really loved this book, so funny, a page turner, profound. Perhaps my favorite part, though, was its coda. After the book’s riotous and tragic adventure, the book ends with a hilariously thoughtful letter from Pitbull to Izzy, offering some “hard-earned consejos” about being an artist in Miami. This fictional, epistolary Pitbull interrogates what it means to be an artist:

Part of what makes the imaginary Pitbull’s letter so funny is how it flips between tones, both contradicting and reinforcing the supermodel-grinding, Bud Light-hawking, super-tight-suit-wearing image we’re most familiar with. The letter features sharp aesthetic and political analysis: a desire to write an opera about climate change under a pen name, a close reading of a Patrick Rosal poem, an analysis of his song “Rain Over Me” as an anti-ageist ode commenting on the US’ increasing Latino majority, and a parenthetical about how honored he felt to meet with Alutiiq elders after a concert in Kodiak, Alaska. Pitbull’s letter has details that made me laugh out loud: the “excellent” bear repellent he was gifted in Alaska, Mark Anthony not returning his calls, his opinions on Snoop Dogg’s collaboration with Martha Stewart, his lapsed subscription to Poetry magazine. And ultimately, it is full of sharp and tender self-awareness about his role in commodifying and reinforcing the stereotypes of his city:

Amidst my giggles, I was also moved to tears by this letter, by the fictional Armando Christian Pérez’s rigorous inventory of his artistic wrongs, by the profound responsibility of being an artist amidst the collapse, by his devotion to place, to a city. It’s a thrilling writing exercise: what if an artist who’s sold out your home wrote an accountability letter? In writing it, Crucet is speaking to herself and to artists like her who share these devotions, setting a rigorous bar for what their art should do. Near the end of the letter, the character of Pitbull writes: “I want to believe I’ve made my peace with the immense failure that my kind of success rests upon.” Capital tries to twist art at every turn, and too often, we as artists rationalize our complicit choices. Pitbull, known for his “inane and borderline-nonsensical” ways, for his “pandering nonsense,” becomes a refreshing vehicle for rigorous honesty about artistic integrity (or lack thereof). May he model this self-awareness for us all.

The other time Pitbull made me cry was in 2018, at a play that was just….fine.

Clare Barron was the hot new playwright in the American Theatre in the mid-’aughts. I quite liked her play You Got Older and even dreamed of directing it before the rights went to Chicago’s (large and esteemed) Steppenwolf Theatre instead of the teeny tiny company I worked with (this happens often with next-big-thing playwrights like Barron). The play is about Mae, who “goes home to take care of her dad, who has cancer and can’t stop masturbating.” She is post-breakup and mid-meltdown, fantasizing about cowboys and high school crushes.

Looking back on it, I see how the play appealed to my twenty-something white feminist gaze. The play’s interiority, its sexuality, its messiness, its care seemed revelatory to me at the time; I felt seen. A few years later, I, like Mae, went home to Washington State post-breakup and mid-meltdown to live with my dad. I get it, but I don’t look back on it with as much interest; it feels mumblecore and narrow. I found its Steppenwolf production largely unexciting: slow, disconnected, a little boring. I was surprised to learn, while finishing this essay, that it has an Off-Broadway revival opening next week (the timing of this essay was coincidental). I’m curious how it will hold up almost a decade later. For me, it’s not a play I’ll remember on my deathbed.

But I might remember its final moment on someone else’s deathbed. In the penultimate scene of You Got Older, Mae’s dad says, “It’s in my lungs.” The scene ends as Mae replies, “Just give me a minute. I’m going to hang up. And then just give me a minute. And then I’m going to call you back.”

The scene then rapidly changes. Barron’s stage direction reads, “A breath and then brass. Sexy brass. Dance music. Pop music. It’s Jenny’s wedding.” In this production (directed by Jonathan Berry), we hear the catchy opening of Pitbull’s “Timber”.

Timber is a bop. There’s an almost-out-of-place harmonica riff. Kesha’s voice does acrobatics. Pitbull raps about drinking and dancing, swinging your partner, taking another shot. The chorus has an echo that makes it easy to sing along.

Let's make a night you won't remember, Kesha croons. She was one of Timber’s songwriters. In 2014, a year after Timber was released, she filed a lawsuit against Dr. Luke, the song’s producer, saying he had drugged and raped her at a party when she was 19. In 2016, she claims that he tried to blackmail her into taking her name off the song as a songwriter, and that he was refusing to pay royalties to all 16 songwriters to keep her from being paid for it. He kept her trapped in a punishing record contract and an abusive legal battle for over a decade. She says she won’t, but I bet she will, TIMBER! Pitbull raps at the end of a verse.

This song about not remembering might not otherwise be too memorable, but I remember it—because of Kesha’s abuse, because of this play—with grief. In You Got Older’s final scene, the siblings tumble onto the stage dancing wildly, dorkily, joyously. Barron’s stage direction reads,

Mae’s sister Jenny wore a tea-length wedding dress with high-top Converse (a costuming choice that feels so charmingly 2018). Maybe hipster-y string lights descended? I think there was a corsage? Maybe someone did the robot?

They danced for a long time, like…maybe the whole song. Three minutes and 34 seconds lasts a long time onstage. But, as Barron’s stage direction says, “They know it’s the last dance of the night and they dance like it’s the last dance of the night. Dad is not there.” For the duration of Kesha and Pitbull’s chart-topping number, we witness his absence.

Every time I hear “Timber", I think of that staging. It’s honestly a common song for wedding DJs, so I’ve heard it on dance floors a couple of times (I once basically tried to narrate this essay to someone on the dancefloor, screaming my theatre opinions into their ear). It came on the radio while I was driving my dad’s car last week, and I cranked it up; loud pop music is the only thing I like about driving.

As I sing along to the call-and-response chorus, I feel an anticipatory grief: which loved one could be gone by the next time I hear it?