New film that just dropped, there's quite the buzz over this "rent a rasta"
documentary dealing in part with them wolves or "rastatues", it's a wicked
flick, interesting, good ital roots dub, see some clip at www.filmclub.com
and lemme know what you tink, dem king of BAMBOO...LOL, Maybe it's the roots
tonic that makes it possible

According to some published reports, as many as 80,000 women from all over the world—America, Europe, Asia, etc.—travel every year to the Caribbean island of Jamaica to have uncomplicated sex with available "rastatutes". Naturally, all this scandal makes the real Rastas livid. Their history is long and their hardships many, yet these beach-cruising playboys give their religion (not to mention their lifestyle) a bad reputation. Director J. Michael Seyfert is out to change all that. He wants to uncover this unseemly practice and prove that the men exchanging copulation for cash have very little connection to the Rastafari faith. Instead, they are what you would call Rent-a-Rasta—ersatz imitations of the real deal.

Beginning as a supposed exposé of the sex-for-sale industry in Jamaica (think How Stella Got Her Groove Back without famous authors or actresses) but quickly devolving into an overview of the Rastafari religion. Inside are four or five really engaging stories—the history of slavery in the West Indies, the current reparations and repatriation movement, the story of Haile Selassie and his deification, the current socio-economic climate in the Caribbean, and the notion that fat, older, or otherwise unattractive females worldwide come to this area for the sole purpose of getting their wh*re on. We are intrigued by the notion of such scandalous trysts, well aware that author Terry McMillan (who first uncovered this female version of the mid-life crisis) is currently dragging her boy-toy through a messy, highly-publicized divorce, and Seyfert introduces us to some wonderfully caddish characters.

We hear impassioned pleas from regular followers, as well as the frequent dismissal of "false Rastas." Important names in the religion are given their moment of historical significance, and we even witness a good-natured debate among a group of men over who is the true savior—Jesus or Haile Selassie.

Would it have been better to discuss Rastafari, its various factions, its divided views on repatriation, and the basic tenets of its belief system, and leave the rest alone? Why not address the dreads, the strict diet and leisure mandates (pot = OK; alcohol and tobacco? No way), and the varying influences on the rules and regulations. The idea that smoking "ganja" came from Hindus after all, and many of the religions more stringent codes were derived from a combination of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. We hear how the Rastas refer to themselves as "Jews" (in a more metaphysical sense) and how people who claim to be Jewish are, in their mind, less than devout. They consider such an ethnic term the same as referring to someone as girl-ish, or child-ish—like a girl or child, but in fact not really one at all.
Such confrontational comments add a refreshing bit of energy.

Seyfert avoids many of the island's more picturesque elements (beaches, waterfalls, mountains) to focus on Rasta temples and up-close compositions. Consisting mostly of fabulously expressive faces, we feel both the happiness and the hardship beaming from every single person interviewed.

The 1.85:1 non-anamorphic letterboxed image is crisp and clear, the product of an excellent digital camera creation. There is no flaring or bleeding, and the amount of detail is delightful. The soundtrack, featuring wonderfully atmospheric dub and reggae is presented in a Dolby Digital Stereo Surround mix that is bass-heavy and mostly midrange.

A white woman went to jamaica and say a Rasts and ask him to "do it to me" so he ask do what? She say "Do what you Jamaican men do best" SO he said for that I will need to take you to your hotel room, take off your clothes and tie you up. So she said, of course so they go, she takes off her clothes and he ties her up so she says, "Ok i'm ready do it to me, do what u Jamaican men do best" So he did it - he stole her cash, her jewelry, her credit cards ....

Here a copy of an interview with the filmmaker of "Rent a Rasta"
with the Jamaican American Club in Chicago", Nov. 1, 2006


Prior to going to Jamaica, what was your perception of Jamaican culture?

JMS: As for most Caucasian males my basic association with Jamaica was reggae, sun and sand.

How did your perception of Rastafarians change when you began your documentary? Did you think that the majority of the populations were Rastafarians?

JMS: I had no idea that over 95% of Jamaicans did not have dreadlocks and never imagined Rastas would be looked down upon or discriminated against in the birthplace of their movement.

Historically, Africans, African Americans, Afro Hispanics and Afro Caribbean men are stereotyped as being hung studs, which is a carry over from slavery. Why do you feel this myth is still perpetrated?

JMS: In many Third World tourist resorts like Jamaica, female sex tourists find themselves presented with opportunities to attract men, and so to personify the ideal of femininity and heterosexuality that they are taught to aspire to, or more importantly, this way they can find a real man to sex them, thereby publicly affirming their femininity without losing control and being rejected and humiliated. On some occasions I've heard white women playfully warn each other: "Once you go black, you'll never go back". Black bodies are increasingly used as props in advertising and media and younger white North Americans and Europeans, are constantly exposed to eroticizing racisms through the film, music and fashion industries. These industries retain the old- school racist emphasis on blackness as physicality, but repackage and commoditize this "animalism", so that black men and women become the ultimate icons of sporting prowess, 'untamed' rebelliousness, 'raw' musical talent, exotic beauty, sexual power and so on. As a consequence, many young and some old or ugly white Westerners view blackness as a marker of something both 'cool' and 'hot'. In certain contexts the black body is not feared but fetish-ized. Thus some female sex tourists want black boyfriends in order to live out certain fantasies, whether they be 'educating and helping the noble savage', being the focus of 'cool' black men's adoring gaze or wanting to have "sunshine babies".

Marginalized people are often commoditized and are expendable; AIDS is a global problem. Based on your findings, how can economically depressed communities empower themselves and limit this type of abuse?

JMS: As one Rasta in my film put it: "How can you stop a man from being greedy? People make money from bullets and if they're killing Africans it's no problem". I personally find these show-biz charitable campaigns like "Make Poverty History" appalling. Just as the "War on Poverty". If you want to reduce poverty, stop "combating" poverty and start sharing the wealth. It's that simple. It is absurd that Bechtel Corporation for instance should control the tap water in Bolivia or that Mexicans pay as much for gasoline as New Yorkers, who earn many multiples per minute of what most Mexicans earn in a cruel day. "Free stuff" is not a remedy either. People need to learn the value of their labor and get a fair wage for it. Since that is not nearly the case, Nike and JP Morgan for example are posting record profits year after year. Poverty is a perpetual state of crisis. For many years now I have been studying a small community at the very bottom of the food chain in Western Mexico., not far from the glossy world class resort of Cabo San Lucas. Here, craziest and most interesting is the problem of incentive. Many of the people of El Centenario, for instance don't want anything. To talk to a man about tripling his income is to fill him with confusion; he gets nervous; he starts to laugh; he wants to go and get drunk. This poor man from the moment of birth has been so inundated with problems, so deprived since childhood, that to end up wanting things is a sort of insanity. What he wants is to stay alive another day to tell jokes and visit with his friends in the balmy night air. He wants a few pesos from time to time to buy cheap tequila and beer and dance and feel cleansed of life. Ironically, when you ask "Why is there so much poverty in countries of such tremendous wealth", people will say "good question" and maybe even give you the "deep thinker" civic award. And a few years later, if you ask the same people the same question; they will call you a communist.