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Analysis Of The Movie ' Straight Outta Compton And Menace II Society '

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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

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