Music Festival Criticised For Controversial Video About Gender Diversity

May 3, 2017

Electronic music festival HARD Summer has come under fire for a controversial festival trailer that tackles the issue of gender diversity in dance music.

HARD Summer has been criticised in the past for its lack of female artists on the bill, only booking four last year. This year, however, they have put a focus on booking females.

Festival head Gary Richards told Variety, “I asked agents for female acts and a lot of them didn’t even have any, so I just asked around.”

The festival continued its tradition of releasing a parody trailer this week, centring this one around the issue of gender diversity. The clip shows Richards calling agents and asking for female artists and ends with the director giving fake boobs to DJ Snake, What So Not, Party Favor, Claude VonStroke and Kayzo.

Director Agata Alexander told Nest HQ that through the trailer, “I wanted men to stand up and make the point for us. Us women shout in the dark a lot of times. We need men to stand up for us as loudly as possible.”

Many, however, see the trailer as a way for the festival to pat itself on the back for their lineup while fundamentally ignoring the problem.

As NYLON point out, females only have 38 seconds of air time in the trailer while men dominate the whole thing.

“Crazy idea. Just book women without breaking your own arm patting yourself on the back about it,” producer The Black Madonna wrote on Twitter further adding, “Or making competent women choose between patronizing promotional schemes and getting paid to do what they do as well as men.”

https://twitter.com/blackmadonnachi/status/859552395428331520

“It’s ok to book a diverse line up without promoting it like that and expecting a cookie afterwards,” US producer Jubilee also wrote on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/JubileeDJ/status/859524911072763905

Furthermore, some are critiquing the trailer for being transphobic with one particular tweet leading director Alexander to respond on Twitter.

pretty sure just about all of you reading this big upping @HARDFEST trailer know a nonbinary person who feels awful today bc of that video

— thiccolas grinding chefn (@jmweast) May 2, 2017