“Our art is a
reflection of our reality”[1]
To what
extent do the representations of black people in 'Straight Outta Compton' reinforce negative stereotypes?
‘Straight
Outta Compton’[2]was one of the most successful movies in 2015
and received so many good reviews. However just once when we thought
stereotyping was unacceptable in society as the African American community has
been through a lot in the past years in the US. Still a large amount of African
Americans actors plays criminal roles in Hollywood fuels the racial stereotype
that black men are dangerous and have zero respect for the law. An example of
this is films like ‘Menace to Society’[3]
and ‘Boyz in The Hood’[4]
they all showed young black males dealing drugs, stealing and gang violence.
Also, disrespecting women, swearing and killing each other these are the main
factors in many movies starring African-Americans. What are stereotypes and how
they are formed: "Stereotypes are like fictions they are created to serve
as substitutions; standing in for what is real"[5]. Stereotypes
are gathered by thoughts, beliefs and reality through individuals then
generalised to the rest of the race or gender. So in this essay already formed
stereotypes of black males will be discussed and how they are reinforced to the
film ‘Straight Outta Compton’.
‘Straight
Outta Compton’ is a biopic about
the rise and fall of the very successful and controversial rap group NWA. The
film showed the audience the beginning of how the group came together, then
their success from their album, tour, then their fallout over contracts and
alter egos in the group. This links to Todorov’s theory of: “all films followed
the same narrative pattern. They all went through stages called the
equilibrium, disequilibrium and again equilibrium”[6].The
film director F Gray Gray was black and the producers were NWA members
themselves Ice Cube and Dr. Dre so the film tried to portray everyone in a fair
way while telling the truth about what happened. "Compton, California, was
some of the most dangerous places in the country. When five young men
translated their experiences growing up into brutally honest music" NWA
are the “godfathers of gangster rap”[7] as
they said whatever they wanted to in their music on without thinking about the
consequence of great flow and amazing rhymes. “The rap group’s 1988 album ‘Straight Outta Compton’ seared into
popular culture with their lyrics expressing an underclass’s rage and
alienation: “See I don’t give a fuck, that’s the problem/I see a motherfucking
cop, I don’t dodge him.”[8] These
types of lyrics took them apart from the other rappers as they created their
own genre of Gangster rap. With that ‘I don't care attitude' and they
demonstrate their lack of respect for the law and rival gang members.
They were the voice of the voiceless as the
ghetto areas in America were huge fans of them as they understood them and
could relate to what they were rapping; even young white people were fans.
Their fan base grew but so did their hate club as: “they received a letter from
the FBI, declaring that their music encourages violence against law enforcement
and requests them to stop”[9]. The
FBI and police didn’t appreciate the song ‘Fuk the Police’ and so there were
protests in some cities from civilians crushing their album saying that they
would not let them perform in their city. However, in 1991 where footage was released by a
bystander of an innocent black male, named Rodney King, getting beaten by 4
police officers made it to local news stations and national news stations. NWA
were always talking about this topic in their raps “Ice Cube rapping "F**k
the police/A young ni**a got it bad cause I'm brown/And not the other colour so
police think/They have the authority to kill a minority”[10]. Then
people started giving them more recognition and asking NWA for interviews from
the mainstream media. Then when the 4 police officers were found not guilty LA turned
upside down as people started rioting and looting in LA. As people gathered
together to protest against the men being sent to jail but they were acquitted
of the charges and that's when the LA riots in 1992 began: “Poverty, police brutality and lack of
employment opportunities laid the groundwork for the unrest”[11].The
black people took all their frustration out of the streets of LA by rioting and
looting.
They are seen to be one of the most
influential groups ever as their music affected a lot of people. It’s an eye
opener for many, as these men go on to live the American dream: “American dream
idea nature of the American Dream in
Western media texts, Since the American Dream focuses on the idea of achieving
happiness through economic wealth and social status”[12] of
fame and money. It’s also a rag to riches story as they grew up in the ghetto
however they go to eat lobster in fancy hotels. However, I believe that some
scenes exaggerated to make the film more entertaining and please the viewers as
“One feature of ethnic representation in the western media is the gradual
disappearance of crude stereotypes and demeaning representations of "black
people”[13].
This tells us how western media represented black people in a negative and
demeaning way for narrative pleasures. This links to Dyer’s theory of “those
with power stereotype those with less power”[14]
so, in this case, it's the media, producers and directors of these black urban
films. They are probably white middle aged and middle classed men who
represented them negatively in films to get a better storyline. Many Hollywood
films have the villains as foreign people and also violent or drug dealers are
played by black American males. However, in ‘Straight
Outta Compton’ the producer and directors were black so they just try to
tell the story as truly as possible while still reinforcing negative stereotypes
of black people. They try to be non-biased as possible and try to receive good
reviews and credits from the industry but maybe the black community don’t like
that they have been represented like this.
The film is an urban drama as it contains sad
moments, funny moments and action moments as the film is explicit and contains
strong language but the primary audience would have been black males mostly and
black females: “46% African American, 23% Caucasian, 21% Hispanic, 4% Asian, 6%
“other.”[15]
From this we can see that the film received a lot of white audiences, Hispanic
and Asian as it received a large amount of money was made in its first weekend
and that cannot just happen through the black communities. Furthermore, this
means that many people watched the film and maybe have seen a negative
representation of black people. As the film had moments that reinforced
negative stereotypes: The scene is where the members of NWA in the film were in
their hotel after a show on their tour. 2 Black males were looking for one of
their girlfriends. As Eazy E was receiving oral sex from his sexual partner in
the bathroom. The NWA members came out the room and saw the 2 males and they
said we are looking for our girlfriends. Eazy E replies with "she is
preoccupied with some real nigga dick". The men start speed walking
towards Eazy E reaching for their pockets and as the man says "what did
you say, Lil nigga". Eazy E replies swiftly again saying " I said she
got some dick in her mouth nigga" with him bringing out a sniper rifle as
he walks towards them and that’s when the NWA members, all of them, come
showing no remorse and pointing their guns at the 2 men as the men run away
down the five-star hotel corridors. The males are seen to misogynists as they
have a lot of women in their room and most of them are in relationships and
have kids. This also conveys to the audience that the males are irresponsible
and don’t care about the opposite sex and this just reinforces the stereotype
of young black people have kids but are not physically capable of caring and
taking care of them.
The members walk back to the hotel room
laughing about what just happened. “The movie has a significant woman problem,
female perspectives in the story and in how the main characters treat women.
Director F. Gary Gray doesn't just avoid, he was condemning the N.W.A member
for their violence against women, and he turns it into a joke.”[16]
This connotes the characters were represented negatively as they treated the
women with very little respect in the film. As Director just laughed and didn’t
talk about how extremely bad they were treated. Also, the costumes had an
effect on the audience as the NWA members were wearing dark clothing as they
had much black clothing on them so it seems they were on the dark side
sometimes knows as evil. Then the girls were not wearing nothing as they are in
the bed or on the sofa performing sexual acts. Also, the use of the
backlighting gives the actor a glow effect on their edges as the focus is on
them not their environment so it shows they don't care about the hotel or the
next door neighbours. So once again the black characters are seen to have zero
remorse about the law or consequences and they are seen to be very dangerous as
Alvarado theory states: “black characters are represented to be the dangerous
ones in films”[17].
They are represented to be a threat to society just like straight out of
Compton and other media film starring black characters. The media present black
males to be taking advantage of society and exposes institutional racism on the
black characters. This links to ‘Straight
Outta Compton’ because these are the black stereotypes in society and ‘Straight
Outta Compton’ is reinforcing them.
However, we were still as an audience on their
NWA side and we wanted them to escape alive as us as the audience we have built
a relationship with them throughout the movie and so now we see them as the
heroes in the film. The scene connotes that the members are normal with what
happened as they just pointed specialised guns in a five-star hotel at an
innocent man looking for his girlfriend. “Hyper sexism has increased
dramatically, and violent portraits of black masculinity have become rap
calling cards. “Gangsters, hustlers, street crimes and vernacular sexual
insults (e.g., calling black women "hoes")[18]”.
Rap culture for a very long time has been always portrayed themselves for “not
loving these hoes” since Snoop Dogg said it in one of his songs in 1994 and
it’s just become a thing. As rappers receive many fan love and they are offered
to have sex with female fans, also known as “groupies”, they just refer to them
as hoes. Furthermore, in the scene the males were also laughing at their facial
expression and connect their knuckles to each other shows this is something
they grew up doing and saw happening so it did not affect them but this is not
normal for an average person. As they were a lot of action codes as them
pulling out the guns this a significant event in the film as we see action and
their violent side to reinforcing the black stereotype of being violent and
disobeying the law.
Also,
the NWA member uses the word "nigga" so casually as for someone
watching it may be disrespectful and a bit too much. They also call women
bitches and use graphic words as some say they don’t have any filter as Eazy-E
said "she’s dealing with some real nigga dick" and "she got a
dick in her mouth nigga". This also links to the Laura Mulvey theory on
sexual objectification and male gaze as: "presence of women solely for the
purpose of a display (rather than narrative function)"[19]
as the theory says female are seen as extras in the movie and not the main
thing. As the film is R-rated the women parts were on show too: "male
sexual dominance, with women framed as objects and denied any agency or their
own gaze"[20]
This is a great example of the women in the scene are just there to satisfy the
rap stars and if they misbehave they can just get kicked out and the audience
and the characters find that funny. Here the example of the film reinforcing
the dominant ideology of black rappers disrespecting females, being violent and
swearing constantly just like in this scene.
Black males have been playing these troubled
characters in the film have been happening for many years but the first and
most important genre was Blaxploitation films. ‘Straight Outta Compton’ links to many Blaxploitation films such as
‘Super Fly’[21],
1972, a crime drama an African American cocaine dealer who is trying to quit
the underworld drug business. Blaxploitation films were in the 1970's it was
the genre with a black audience but it grew as the film was very entertaining
showing the audience life’s in urban neighbourhoods of a drug dealer, gang
members. This film was very influential as: “Several California organised crime
veterans, including drug trafficker "Freeway" Rick Ross, have cited
the film as an influence in their decision to take up drug dealing and gang
violence”[22].
Critics stated it was a bad time to make these types of movies as they were
reinforcing stereotypes of black people and a media website stated that: "The
films focused heavily on the dark undercurrents of society and promoted many
incorrect stereotypes about black people[23]”.
As Perkins said “stereotypes are not all negative and not always false”[24]. Similarly,
‘Straight Outta Compton’ use of
ethnic slurs, gang violence, drug use and selling all of these negative
representations of black people are as shown in the movie. "These movies
used a black cast and featured stories set in urban America"[25]
they both also show other factors of black stereotypes such as poverty,
unemployment, having no father in families and see white people as their
enemies.
So this created Levi Strauss theory binary
opposition: “Given the colour "white"
people recognize "black" as it’s opposite. When we label skin colour
as white and black, we set ourselves up to contrast the races.”[26]
as the black main actors are criminals, however, the white people in the film
are seen to be the villains as black people were poor and white were rich and
the white police were negative towards the black communities: “The white/black
binary represents a long struggle between the races in the United States of America”[27] the
white Americans were the ones who put the black Americans through slavery so in
the media you can see the rivalry through the white vs. black. As the whites
are seen to be represented to be the villains whether they are police or FBI or
Jerry Heller the manager of NWA who some say he was the reason for the groups
break up. "For many years, African Americans were simply objects within
the popular culture whose representation tended to be quite stereotypical and
especially problematic."[28]
From Blaxploitation movies, it just grew and became the genre of urban drama or
any other actions films as the villains were either foreign or coloured. In
urban dramas the black males had the negative stereotypes in their characters throughout
the 90’s such as ‘Paid in Full’[29], ‘Baby
Boy’[30]
and ‘Juice’[31]
and many more showing the dominate representation of young black males in
America: “The most negative
characterisation-that African American men are "thugs" and in gangs
is true for only a very small percentage”[32].The
stereotype is very repetitive in the media and so the media try to represent
society so what they believe African Americans are they reinforce in their film
but the stereotypes are very negative.
The film also had a positive representation of
young black males turning into successful entrepreneurs and rappers. Then
becoming older, having kids and carry on being successful since the death of
their friend Eazy E. “African Americans don’t always have to be the victim, those
characters are overused and overexposed. Now that we are in the 21st century
different characters and different portrayals of African Americans need to be
shown"[33].
This quote sums up the whole issue on reinforcing black stereotype in movies.
It done as narrative pleasure as the success stories are not taken away from
the movie, the negatives are. There should be more light on the fact that the
movie showed the positive representation of how NWA put their mark on the rap
scene as many of the famous rappers such as Jay-Z, Tupac and Kanye West looked
up to NWA. The positive representations are there such as the whole film is
based on the fact that they worked hard and chased dreams and never gave up
chasing their American dream. "NWA coined the phrase "reality
rap", a term that refined black male expressions of anger and angst in the
late 1980s. If no one else was speaking for urban black men, NWA was, and
invoices that were defiantly unapologetic."[34]
They were loved by others because of the truth they were speaking so
authentically and gave the people a voice who were living in poverty or been
abused by police. They brought communities together to celebrate their music
with their albums going platinum and touring in packed out arenas so the black
community finally had something to celebrate.
However, some stereotypes are backed by facts
as the film represents the black’s males contributing to illegal activities as
it shows to the audience that they have no fear of the law. “The major issues
for African American is poverty, low graduation rates, high rates of wedlock
births (parents who are not married) high rates of incarceration (in prison)”[35]. These
are all real facts and it represented in the media as many black males grow up
without a father figure or don’t finish schools and grow up in poverty. This
backs real life events as "Black males make up less than 7 percent of US
population, yet they constitute almost half of the prison population."[36]
This just shows where the stereotypes and representation of black males come
from in the US as there’s a small amount of them in the US however they
occupied all the jails in the US. An example of this is when Dr.Dre got
arrested at the beginning movie for talking tough to the police officers.
"Blacks and Hispanics are about 70% percent more likely to have had
contact with the police than white people are"[37].This
is represented in the film as police have a huge role in the film as they are
in the main scenes. They do random searches in the black communities in LA to
find any illegal weapons and drugs in possession in the movie this is shown as
they are searched very violently and aggressively.
Also, Medhurst states: “that stereotyping is
shorthand for identification”[38].
This means the film directors and producers use stereotypes to tell the audiences
a lot in a short space of time. For example, the customs in the film like the
red and blue bandana suggesting the character represent a type of gang (blood
and Crips). The way they talk by saying "nigger" and swearing and
then their actions like selling drugs or carrying a gun. It’s all a shorthand
identification to help the audience understand the characters more by using
stereotypes. However, this can carry value judgements and therefore be very
negative for the representation of minority groups. As the stereotype becomes
permanent into the audience's mind and therefore by trying to tell a story
using the media they have just reinforced the negative stereotypes. Another
post-colonialism theory it links is Fanon's where he talks about the impact
post-colonialism has had on black people. He also talks about the typical black
stereotypes one of them is them being decivilised as they are represented to be
pimps or gangster who doesn't obey the law.
This is something the US are going through
right now as the police are harming innocent black males because they have the
stereotype of them being drug dealers or violent gang members. Many of them
being killed on the streets started the whole #Blacklivesmatter campaign because
of many black lives being taken by the police. “Police killed at least 102
unarmed black people in 2015, nearly twice each week”[39].Some
of the stereotypes used in the media “Some stereotypes about blacks include
African American being uneducated, loud, violent, males sagging their pants,
bad attitudes, disrespectful, Love fried chicken and Kool-Aid, do drugs and
many more”[40]
these stereotypes are being injected to the audience through hypodermic needles
as they are being reinforced in all urban dramas or any other film playing a
black person. These stereotypes are not facts but the media has reinforcing
them in their films in directing that every black person does those things. So
it has become a dominant stereotype from Levi Strauss theory on representation
“A dominant representation is one which is repeated across the media over time
and so are the values it carries”[41] as
there are not many films that show alternative stereotypes in black successful
men.
Overall the film did reinforce negative black
stereotypes as the film is a biographic drama so what the film represents
actually did happen in reality so it portrays the truth of what happened. So
the film reinforces the stereotypes even more as other ethnicities watch the
film that may have their ideas or thought about black males when they see the
film their thoughts strengthen due to the reinforcement of the film
representation of the black males. “Stereotype is a particularly damaging one.
It deleterious effects young black male ability to find employment, receive
respectful and appropriate treatment in schools and be treated with appropriate
civic regard in public spaces”[42].
“The media is the single most powerful tool at our disposal; it has the power
to educate and result in social change”[43]
as the media can create educate, inform and entertain the audience it can also
reinforce and challenge stereotypes as the film industry has a huge following
especially this film. “As the film made a whopping $60.2 million in its debut
weekend. That’s the fifth-biggest August debut ever, the seventh-biggest
R-rated debut of all time"[44].
The film made a lot of money as a lot of people went to watch so the film was
educated today’s generation of kids on rap music and police brutality. However,
the film probably changes people perspectives on black people as the film shows
how they were brought up in Compton in poverty and against all odds they became
successful and wealthy. Furthermore, the film reinforced negative stereotypes
have not changed some of the other audience’s perspective of black people and
so they still believe all black people are violent, disrespectful to women, have
no respect for the law and they are drug dealers. As the movie represents them
in this negative way therefore this creates a moral panic by the media through
the audience thinking black people are criminals and thugs.
Word count: 3639
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