Critical Investigation Task 4 Essay Plan

To what extent does 'Straight Outta Compton' represent black people negatively and does it encourage violence?

Para 1-Introduction-

• My critical investigation is going to focus on the representations of black people within film, news and television in general.

• My essay will look further into the cause of black stereotypes and whether or not movies such as Straight Outta' Compton reinforces and encourages violence.

Para 2- Straight Outta Compton and its representations-

• Does Straight Outta Compton reinforce these stereotypes? Is it down to the audience to create their own judgement? Moral Panic...

“I was told that all back men were inherently aggressive and violent”-Book- ‘Black Demons: The deception Of The African American Male Criminal Stereotype’

Para 3- Comparing other media texts

Representations and stereotypes within other media texts such as Boyz n the hood in comparison to Straight Outta' Compton 

• How they are similar or different in their representations of Black people and how the audience perceives it.

Para 4- Escaping the stereotype?

• Is it possible to overcome the stereotype?

Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority“African Americans, no matter how savvy, educated, or financially privileged, could not completely avoid the conditioning that resulted from the increasingly sophisticated bombardment of subtle and not-so-subtle messages created to reinforce how different and inherently inferior blacks are when compared to whites.” Used quote.

• Successful black people, do they reinforce or challenge the stereotype of black people i.e. Dr Dre? Jay-Z?

Para 5- Is Hip-Hop a aspect of Success for black people or a chance to create Stereotypes?

“For sure, hiphop both saved and changed my life, on so many levels: I have been deeply immersed in hiphop since I was a preteen” Book-The Black Male Handbook” A Blueprint For Life

“Other observers have asserted that hip hop is the result of young people’s being locked out of the American economic mainstream.” Book-Gangster Rap and its social cost: Exploiting hiphop and using racial stereotypes to entertain America

• Look at the two quotes and show the comparison, how do they differ?

“Hip-hop no longer speaks exclusively to the marginalized populations within the United States. The genre is now not solely about expressing discontent or serving as a mouthpiece for the powerless.”quote talks about how Hip-hop has allowed black people to 'have a voice'.

Para 6- . Do the media representations of ethnic minorities wish to inform, educate or entertain us?

• An analysis of whether the writer, and director of Straight Outta' Compton and other media texts have chosen to represent ethnic minorities in a particular way in order to educate us and inform us of what is happening around us or strictly to entertain us.

Para 7- Are the representations fair? Do they reinforce stereotypes or challenge them?

• Does Straight Outta Compton portray black people fairly? Should black people be generalized from this representation?

•  Does Boyz n the hood reinforce or challenge the typical stereotype of black males?

“Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me the movie theatre shootings have been at the hands of white people, right? So why are we worried about violence, again? Oh, maybe because the cops dropped bugs in the ears of certain press people suggesting there might be a higher risk of violence?” Quote analyses the misrepresentation of black people and the under representation of white people to do with shootings and film creating violence.

http://crooksandliars.com/2015/08/cnn-very-worried-about-violence-straight

Para 8- Marxism

• Are the elite in control in creating these stereotypes and do they have the power in representing these groups in that way?

• Do they do this deliberately to maintain power and are these representations for a purpose?

Para 9- Audience and Institutions

Is the audience given their own chance to make judgement? Does stereotypes root from the audience or the distributor of the movie news etc?

How big of a role does the news play in challenging and reinforcing stereotypes? Is it a fair representation? 

Para 10 - Conclusion

• Sum up the essay and link it back to the question and the critical investigation. I.e. SOC and other media texts seem to reinforce stereotypes to an extent however there are other factors that play a role in the creation of stereotypes such as news. The audience also however have the ability to make their own judgment depending on what they consume from distributors in film, news and television.

Critical Investigation Task 3: Historical text

Boyz 'N the Hood- "You think you tough"

This is a scene from Boyz n the hood which was released in 1991 (24 years ago). This scene is a glance of police brutality and treatment of black youth at the time. Surprisingly the officer that is harassing the characters is a black male himself. This links to one of Ice Cube's lyrics as a NWA member "Black Police showing out for the white cop". Considering this is an Ice cube movie that is probably a demonstration of what happened in reality and his personal experiences as a young African American living in the US. Comparing this historical text to a contemporary text shows both similarities and differences. The treatment that black males receive from police is similar and this shows the continuous ongoing issue with police brutality. Straight Outta' Compton shows similar scenes regarding the police and their unfair treatment.

One realizable difference is that black officers now are less likely to harass young black men due to their awareness of the black lives matter movement and issue. The current brutality issue is mainly with racism and white officers harassing and troubling young innocent males. The Boyz n the hood movie seems to tell story well due to these issue being present at the time, meaning the movie was told from first hand experience allowing it to be as a reliable and successful as it was.

In the scene you can see as the clip reaches the end the character named Trey shows emotion as tears run down his face. This use of media language and shot shows the emotions of the character regarding this issue allowing the audience to empathize with him and see his perspective when facing such a huge unjust problem. This in comparison to SOC shows different emotions within this issue. SOC looked at the issue differently and showed an emotion of anger with tracks such as 'F the police'. These tracks showed their anger towards the police and their treatment. To see the difference here you can clearly see that Boyz n the hood comes at this issue with a different emotion, from the tears you can see that this is an upsetting issue rather than an angered one. The contrast in emotions shows a wide variety of feelings within this field. This shows the difference within time. The historical text showed more of an emotional upsetting view whereas the contemporary one showed more of an anger one showing that over time this issue has not be resolved resulting in young black males being angry or fed up rather than upset.