Quote:
Originally Posted by SummerChild
7thSon, I hear you with the committee although I don't know if I agree with it - but my point for posting is to ask the question of how is the portrayal of stereotypes here any different from what the AA man wrote or produced Boys N the Hood did? I wonder if he formed a committee to determine whether his movie would garner the support or disapproval of the portrayed population - in that case, the AA population at large. Movie directors and producers probably are often portraying whatever is in their minds w/out forming any kinds of groups or anything else to determine how it will be received by the affected population. This is just another example of that.
How is Boyz N the Hood any different on that front?
SC
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SummerChild,
The difference to me is, the subject matter in and of itself. The contrast between the making of a movie about steppin', as opposed to one about the 'hood/ gang bangin' and all of that, makes me pose the question, who would that be sacred to anyway, if only to the people who were into that lifestyle? But to make a movie that involves an action or event that is sacred to many, many who traversed the terrain to become Bruhs or Sorors, should in my opinion, be treated a little more tenuously. What is the cost for depicting the sacred nature of an action that comes as a result of a sacred journey? The cost is the demystification of the action/event and to me, the possible de-mystification of the journey. Do we have to allow everything to become demystified in our culture and commercialized? Na.
I agree with you about the creative mindsets that make movie magic, with no true concern about the affects of the pre-affected population. But to what cost is there, during the making of a movie that depicts and details Doughboy and Tre' growing up in the hood? You have to decide that yourself. For me, there was nothing sacred lost when that movie was made. No one was trying to keep the secrets of bangin', mystified. The nation was already keeping record of the African American lives that were lost, decade to decade, year to year. But, there was a cost to making that movie. As a matter of fact, one cost that was immediate was when real lives were lost when fights and crap broke out at the movie theaters nationwide. An additional cost was, when those actions by some of us AAs, actually confirmed some of the stereotypes that existed about us, prior to that movie.
7thSon