HARD Summer is an annual L.A.-based festival that scoops rock music out of the equation in favor of a bill that expands the common ground shared by rap, EDM, and other, more underground strands of dance music. In conjunction with the announcement of this year’s lineup, HARD released a video that aimed to address the gender disparity of most festival lineups. Alas, the video—in which a skeevy booker puts fake boobs on male DJs instead of finding actual female talent—did the opposite of what it intended, making a clumsy mockery of a real issue, in the process arguably doing more to reinforce the problem than to destroy it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsA766FTm_4
So perhaps today’s apology from HARD founder Gary Richards about the video, which was directed by a woman named Agata Alexander, was inevitable. The apology reads:
Here at HARD Events we are here for everyone. The HARD SUMMER trailer was created as a satirical piece to raise consciousness at a time when equality issues are of utmost importance. Our goal is to promote good music and we are trying to give women more of a platform at our festival.
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My intentions here were only to help, not offend anyone, in supporting Agata’s vision and message. I understand that she does not speak for all women and how people could be upset by the trailer. There is always a risk of misinterpretation when satire is used, but we felt it was right to let her express herself and have creative control over the piece. We want to extend a sincere apology to those who were offended.
We hope the conversations started by this piece bring the change we intended and we will continue to be a champion for Women’s rights within our community and world at large.
Let’s try again next year.
