preview

Style Wars Film Analysis

Decent Essays
Open Document

The documentary Style Wars (1983) is about the emergence of graffiti, breaking-dancing, hip-hop, and rap in the early 1980s. Directed by Tony Silver and co-produced by Henry Chalfant, Style Wars delves deep inside the underground and mysterious world of the New York City cultural scene, primarily in Brooklyn, which helped create the conditions and environment for cultural evolution spread across the United States and eventually the world. The producers' original intention was to make a film about hip-hop and break dancing as explained in the additional footage after the credits roll. Through the process of research, they discovered this whole subculture of graffiti and its rebelliousness towards authority. The graffiti aspect the filmmakers …show more content…

On the other side of the law, the documentary features well-known artists such as Case2, Skeme, and CAP, as they discuss how they started out painting graffiti and how the culture becomes quite competitive over the years. The music and dancing elements emerging out of the artists' frustrations with a lack of upward class mobility and neglected social issues. As a viewer, I was unfamiliar with much of the "street-lingo" that is used in the film but the filmmakers do a good job of having artists explain what they are doing to ensure the viewer does not get left behind with certain phrases or words such as "bombing." Bombing or tagging means to perform an artist's graffiti on a surface, usually a large building or subway train as depicted in the …show more content…

The individuals shown in the film are very protective of their work and that of their friends, in some cases creating turf wars. For some, the goal seems to be to create the largest possible graffiti they can, while others want to paint graffiti on as many surfaces as possible. Eventually, much of the city is covered up causing even further turf wars to ensue with artists covering up their rival's work causing retaliatory behaviour from both sides. When describing how city officials and the police view graffiti, Mayor Koch classifies graffiti as a "quality of life offence," similar to pick-pocketing and shoplifting. Graffiti is the only criminal offence of the three, as rapping and break-dancing do not break any laws. The film shows an image of two New York City police officers standing in a subway train covered in graffiti as a symbol of the cities loss of

Get Access