Straight Outta Compton and Menace II Society are both films that investigate cinematic portrayals of young African Americans in unfortunate situations. One film displays how a couple of individuals made it out of that situation through hip-hop music. The other film displays what can happen if those individuals become stuck in troubled environments. Both these films are related because they direct ambitious characters through unwarranted circumstances, like police brutality, that either lead to a life of criminality or a life of success. This narrative is displayed through multiple avenues, one of course being story arc, while the other is cinematic tools that include aspects like lighting, costume, and music. Straight Outta Compton and …show more content…
Paula J. Massood touches on this concept in “Out of the Ghetto into the Hood” when she writes “the focal point of many Blaxploitation films was an adult male, whereas hood films narrate the coming-of-age of a young male protagonist and the difficulties of such an undertaking in the dystopian environment of the inner city” (147).
Both of these films display their understanding of the social climate in different ways. Straight Out of Compton maintained a militant ambiance throughout the film. Felix Gary Gray uses the perspective of a news caster, as well as reaction shots of the members of NWA to display African Americans reaction to the Rodney King trial in 1992. After this scene in the movie, the rest of the film carries an understanding of the dynamic between law enforcement and the urban neighborhoods that are depicted in the film. Menace II Society foregrounds social commentary to an even greater extent. Sequences of the film are devoted to the Watts riot at the beginning. The flashes of the riots do not come and go like they did in Straight Outta Compton, but they rather linger throughout the story arc of the film. The Watts riots do not have much to do with the literal narrative of the film, but Hughley Brothers make sure to reference the Watts riots as a starting point for an era drugs and violence in that urban neighborhood when Caine says in his narration “When the riots stopped, the
Snow covered cobbled streets, lined with lanterns and lamps of unique design. Inside brewery, in an intersection called Five Points housed people of all different diversities. Black, German, Irish even pure American, were huddled together in this dark and dingy brewery where light barely reaches it except through the very windows it holds. This was what the beginning scene would look like in a movie. A specific movie called Gangs of New York directed by Martin Scorsese. The movie in comparison to the “Gangs of New York, Excerpt” by Herbert Asbury, “Five Points” by Tyler Anbinder, and “A Pickpockets Tale” by Timothy Gilfoyle, were similar in some ways but each had their differences. Yet, to compare and contrast which
In the movie “Boyz in the Hood” director John Singleton, paints a clear image of the problems that happen very often in the African American communities. The movie deals with issues such as: the importance of a father in a young man’s life, the ongoing violence of black on black crime, and how black people are put in situations where they are put to fail and not succeed in life.
While the 1970’s and 80’s marked a decline in movies featuring black actors and a lack of black directors, the mid 1980’s through the 1990’s invited a new generation of filmmakers and rappers, engaging with the “New Jack” image, transforming the Ghettos of yesteryears into the hood of today. A major director that emerged during this time was Spike Lee. According to Paula Massood’s book titled, Black City Cinema, African American Urban Experiences in Film, “…Lee not only transformed African American city spaces and black filmmaking practices, he also changed American filmmaking as a whole.” Lee is perhaps one of the most influential film makers of the time, likely of all time. He thrusted black Brooklyn into light, shifting away from the popularity of Harlem. By putting complex characters into an urban space that is not only defined by poverty, drugs, and crime, it suggests the community is more than the black city it once was, it is instead a complex cityscape. Despite them being addressed to an African American audience, Lee’s film attract a mixed audience. Spike lee’s Do the Right Thing painted a different image of the African American community, “The construction of the African American city as community differs from more mainstream examples of the represents black city spaces from the rime period, such as Colors…, which presented its African American and Mexican American communities through the eyes of white LAPD officers.”
The Film I Am Not Your Negro is a 2016 Documentary that depicts the key events of the 20th Century African American History. This documentary was inspired by James Baldwin’s thirty-page unfinished manuscript. The manuscript was going to be his next project in which he called Remember This House. The manuscript was to be a personal explanation of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his close friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Unfortunately, in 1987 James Baldwin passed away leaving the unfinished manuscript to be forgotten, well that is what some thought. Now master filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the manuscript James Baldwin never finished. The outcome is a fundamental examination of race in America, using Baldwin's original thoughts and materials to make the project possible. I Am Not Your Negro is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of Black Lives Matter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond. And, ultimately, by confronting the deeper connections between the lives and assassination of these three leaders, Baldwin and Peck have produced a work that challenges the very definition of what America stands for. Though this is the main thought of the documentary there are many key features that make this film much so about whiteness in American History and now.
In the 1991 drama “Boyz in the Hood”, Written and Directed by John Singleton. He successfully attempts to portray what life was like and in some areas in America still is for African Americans living in a rough Los Angeles neighborhood. It displays a portrait of the harsh realities that plagues the black community and by displaying uninviting living conditions that is South Central L.A, Singleton aims to share to the world the self-destructive deviant behavior that is to this day, destroying the African American community. Some of the self-destructive deviant behaviors include gang life, selling drugs, and gun violence. Various issues are displayed in this movie involving the black community including deviance, poverty, gentrification, the importance of a father in a young man’s life and black on black crime. Singleton displays a tale of three friends growing up in the “hood”, plagued by drugs and violence and layers textures over rough and compelling visuals of black culture that shows us what it means to come to maturity, or die trying, as a black male. In this essay, I will be giving a thorough analysis of the film, as well as covering certain points from the movie from a sociological perspective to explain why singleton chose to write this film.
Spike Lee’s ‘School Daze’ has certainly done good for introducing historically black colleges and black modern culture to Central America than I have seen any other movie about colleges especially black colleges at that it is through this film that I have realize that the media plays a big part in educating us but also can be the cause of not only bitterness that will be built up but also enlightening us black people of our history and also our actions against each other. In the movie ‘School daze’ the themes of life versus dark skin the refusal of one to recognize his own race Are two themes that stood out throughout the film. And it’s only school these confront a lot of issues that aren’t
Discusses how race is a conceptualized concept most often through stereotypes of different groups with the presence of a systematic structure of racism where the dominant group has placed themselves as superior and all other groups are deemed inferior. This structure often produces a negative impact on same race relations. Identity, according to this theory is created due to psychological enforcement of repeated racial oppression. The movie “Boyz N’ The Hood” demonstrates the effect of this enforced systematic structure and its negative impact on same race relations which lead to the ultimate death of some of the characters in this film (Singleton,1991). The movie takes place in impoverished South Central Los Angeles and depicts scenes of violence perpetrated by gangs against the main characters of the movie. Janet Helms points out that racial theory consists of four models White Identity, Black Identity, People of Color, and the Racial interaction model. She points out that the more an individual becomes aware of the social constructs of race and the racist system the closer
Spike Lee and John Singleton write their films about inner-city violence and black youth. Although they grew up in different parts of the United States (John Singleton in Los Angeles and Spike Lee in New York) they have something to say to society. They both strive to expose the realities faced by African-Americans, especially those in inner-city ghettos. With Spike Lee starring as Mookie and John Singleton embodying Tre, both directors showcase their perspective on American society via their characters.
Boyz in the Hood is a statement of how urban youth have been passed a legacy of tragic indifference, and the writer has shown that it is an almost inescapable fate for those born into racism and poverty to repeat the patterns they wish to escape. The movie’s characters are clear representations of how the system fails young black youth in the United States, and the difference one mentor can make for these kids. During segregation young black children became targets for white brutality. This movie reflects what the European mentality and what it has done to the African American culture.
Some challenges between anti-social behaviors and geographic are evident in the film Boyz n the Hood. It a 90’s films created by John Singleton, about a boy Tre styles who is sent to live with his father Furious styles in South Central Los Angeles after he got into a fight at school. At his father 's house, he is taught morals and values of being a respected man. On the other hand, his friends Ricky and Doughboy who are half-brothers has a different upbringing with no real support system, resulting in forming a gang, involvement with drugs and a tragic ending. This film is based on the African American experience in terms of environmental conditions which results in a great deal of African American males being pushed into the criminal justice system.
John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood is an American teen drama film released in 1991 that focuses on three black teens who live in the dangerous neighbourhood of Crenshaw, Los Angeles. The main characters Doughboy, his half-brother Ricky, and their friend Tre grow up together but meet drastically different fates as young adults. As Swanson (2011) points out, it is important to understand the tension within black communities in Los Angeles at the time of the film’s release; the Rodney King beating had taken place only months before and LA’s gang wars were reaching a peak. As a Los Angeles native, Singleton’s goal with the film was to alert people about the situation around them, as he said: “I couldn’t rhyme. I wasn’t a rapper. So I made this movie” (Swanson 2011). To reflect the environment as accurately as possible, the film was shot on the streets of South Los Angeles, so the crew was just as on edge as their characters would be; there were even threats of gun violence from local gang members.
Boyz N the Hood, displays the challenging upbringing of adolescents who have to live with harsh conditions around not only their home but also their surrounding town. The film compares the differences between the lifestyles of Tre Styles and his friends’, Darren and Ricky Baker. Darren and Ricky are half-brothers who are nothing alike. Singleton demonstrates the importance of male leadership in a home in the ghetto of Los Angeles by comparing the difference between the lifestyles of Tre and his friends. While many adolescents in the hood have close friendships, some form close relationships by assembling gangs and create a world of violence due to alcohol abuse, which together ultimately breeds discrimination.
Straight Outta Compton takes place in 1988, Southern Los Angeles. The movie follows five young african americans through their life and the journey they take to become the rap group known as N.W.A. The movie shows the real life racism and police brutality they and the african american community faced (Kurtzman 2015).The movie further details the driving force for the group's music and the muse that drives them. Social and political issues including the Rodney King beating and the Los Angeles riots. A community terrorized by the police the resentative with the rap group transferring them into a movement (Myres 2015).
This film directed by brothers Allan and Albert Hughes was also set in the inner city. This film showed the struggle of a young man trying to overcome his surroundings and leave the “hood';. Menace II Society is an excellent film that “proved one is not always a product of his environment'; (Walker 4). The Hughes brothers depicted typical life in this film showing, sex, violence, murder, drugs, and community.
RACISM AS A CAUSE FOR CRIME AND VIOLENCE: CINEMATIC ANALYSIS OF “BOYZ N’ THE HOOD”