Critical investigation proposal

Working title

To what extent do the representations of black people in 'Straight Outta Compton' reinforce negative stereotypes?

Angle
This is a moral panic as the Media views on straight out of Compton is that they are perceiving the life of a bunch of thugs or gang bangers.Its a rag to riches.

Hypothesis:
Straight out of Compton is represented in a bad light

Media Representations 

• Black ethnicity is represented is a negative way  
• Critics say that they missed out on Dr Dre issues in the 90's of beating up women.
• Also as whole the movie is very degrading for women as they are treated as "sex objects"

Media Languages and Forms 

• Film dark scenes to show the dangerous street of Compton
• real transition to when they get money and successful much more light at pool parties and hotels

Narrative 

• Narrative structure equilibrium-disequilibrium-new equilibrium rags to riches 
• narratives roles protagonist,hero (nwa members),villain (jerry) 

Genre 

• Urban drama 
• Based on a true story

Media Institutions 

• Hollywood universal pictures
• director Gray Gray reinforces or 

• Production companies	Legendary Pictures New Line Cinema Cube Vision Crucial Films Broken Chair Flickz
  Distributed by	Universal Pictures
  Release dates	August 11, 2015(Los Angeles premiere) August 14, 2015(United States)
  Running time	147 minutes
  Country	United States
  Language	English
  Budget	$28 million
  Box office	$193.8 million

Media Values and Ideology 

• This film  has positive value to educate and inform how the police used to treat black civilians 

Media Audiences 

• 15+ 

Social

• Social representation of black people in america are they are drug dealers or unsuccessful or gang bangers
• Rappers are violent and music is not art
• They represent gang culture and reinforce these things in their music

Historical

• Slavery in America began when the first African slaves were brought to the North American colony of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, to aid in the production of such lucrative crops as tobacco.
• This then lead to black people being separated from the rest into bad neighbourhoods like Compton;
• Through 1900's they were fighting their rights and police brutality 

Economic

• The film broke r rated movies records it is the highest selling music film
• African American in the film are seen to be poor and deal with drugs to survive
• in the film you see how they react towards contracts and money 

Political

• In the film they are against the government as they feel like they don't help them out especially police 
• Police brutality was huge in the 1980's and so on
• This lead to the riots in 1992 due to the killing of a innocent man Rodney king by police kicking and hitting them

Issues and Debates

• Representation and stereotyping is related to my study as the whole film is about the story of NWA and their life and in the film you can see how they were stereotyped and given bad representation.The film showed the police given rough and random searches on African american civilian in compton because they stereotype and thought they were drug dealers.then when the film came out the media straight away assumed that film would influence people to riot and the film have a negative effect on them and make them react angrily.
• Media effects is also related to my study as iam analysing why the media mostly underrated and stereotype straight out of Compton.So this would also make the audience stereotype it and not go see as they know the bad things about the film because of the film
• News Values this theory is analszing the news and so this relates to my study as CNN had segment saying there was no violence at the straight out of Compton.Compton. This shows that the news value number one thing is bad news and or something unusual and so it there being no violence at the shows being showed and there was just long lines.

  Negativity

  Bad news - involving death, tragedy, bankruptcy, violence, damage, natural disasters, political upheaval or simply extreme weather conditions - is always rated above 'positive' stories (royal weddings, celebrations etc)

• Moral Panics the process of arousing social concern over an issue - usually the work of moral entrepreneurs and the mass media.this is the definition and so this links to my study as the media(news) are trying to make this a social concern.As the police has told some people not to watch the film as it will gives a bad representation of the police but not of the rappers.

• American dream is the ideal by which equality of opportunity is available to any American, allowing the highest aspirations and goals to be achieved.This relates to the story of the movie which is their rise to fame and its rags to riches story.

Theories

• Audience theories 

This links to my study as I want to find out whether the representation of black people in the movie has made the audience feel.the black feel angry or do the white people have sympathy.Why does the audience consume the text? such as uses and gratification or effects model of moral panic they are intrigues to see what happens.

• Gender and ethnicity theories 

This theory links to my study as the question is does the movie reinforce black negative stereotypes.So does the ethnicity of the characters live up to society representation of them being uneducated drug dealer,gang bangers, guns and drug uses and treat women badly.The male gaze was strong in the movie too as they always ha beautiful women around them in nearly all of the scenes and so it may suggest that they were just objects they were just there to look.

• Marxism and hegemony 

Over powering black people in the film was the aim as the police and white people had more authority on them as they were poor and hardly of them enjoyed school and dropped instead of ice cube.Even in hat scene you can see ice cube looking at the white students that were separated from the black students.

• Genre theory 

Urban drama movie so the genre helps out the audience has it have any correlation.The genre draws a different audience to a normal drama as its urban its more up to date with the new days.Even though its trying to represent the 1980 however they switch it up for us to understand more clearly.this audience pleasure as some of their favourite rappers were in their such as eazy e or ice cub e or snoop dogg and even tupac.

Media text 
Straight out of Compton 

other media texts
Cnn coverage segment
Ride along the movie
Think like a man

Tv Documentaries
The worlds most dangerous groups

Academic text books:
Dear white people
Red notice 
black 47 and beyond

Internet links
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/straight_outta_compton/
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/13/opinions/straight-outta-compton-lisa-france/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_Outta_Compton_(2015_film)
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/aug/30/straight-outta-compton-review-pulsating-account