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Dogtown And Z-Boys Film Analysis

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An exclusive club that was started by a group of delinquents and a piece of oak with wheels screwed on, later became the phenomenon that is now known as skateboarding. Wanting to show this evolution, Stacy Peralta directed, Dogtown and Z-Boys, a documentary that captures the history and the iconic moments of skateboarding. The trend of skateboarding was rapidly losing interest in the 70’s until a group of rebellious surfers, commonly known as the Z-Boys, decided to transfer their unique lifestyle and individuality into the dying world of skateboarding. The Z-Boys liberated the declining sport of skateboarding by pushing the boundaries of where they could skateboard and by changing the culture of skating. They went to the extreme to find the perfect terrain to emulate surfing. Fortunately, the California drought presented the Z-Boys with an ideal terrain that would revolutionize how people skated. Instead of riding a …show more content…

Society is no longer depicting them as just a skating group because they were willing to go to the extreme to satisfy their needs for skating and for that reason they were viewed as a gang. For instance, the law enforcement would be called because the Z-Boys would trespass to people’s homes, drain the pool just so they could skate. Although, the actions of the Z-Boys and a real gang can’t be compared, they are still very similar because they both represent a group of people that share the same culture and often have a territorial boundary. For instance, the Z-Boys are an exclusive group of individuals that share a culture that revolves around their passion for surfing and skating, while the gangs that are mentioned in Gang Leader for a Day share their respective beliefs with each other. Even though society has a negative perspective on gangs and the Z-Boys, they ultimately are just an organization that was created to defy society’s norms (Venkatesh 2008,

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