Tutorial targets

1. Re write up intro 
2. how does the film use stereotypes 
3. how the film is packaged or fiction
4. quotes -make sure they are properly explained and incorporated 

Introduction to my Critical Investigation essay

This essay focuses on the representations of black people in Straight Outta Compton and to what extent the film reinforces negative stereotypes of black people. Straight Outta Compton was one of the most successful movies so far in 2015 and made 200 million worldwide receiving so many good reviews. However just once when we thought stereotyping was unacceptable in society as the African American community have been through a lot in the past years in the US such as the police brutality situations as many of black lives a have been taken due to police stereotyping them and believing they are guilty while they are actually innocent. Still a large amount of African Americans actors plays criminals roles in Hollywood fuels the racial stereotype that black men are dangerous and have zero respect for the law. Also disrespecting women, swearing and killing each other these are the main factors in many movies starring African Americans. However, must consider that the film Straight Outta Compton is a 2015 American biographical drama about the rise and fall of the Compton, California hip hop group N.W.A. "Stereotypes are like fictions they are created to serve as substitutions, standing in for what’s is real" stereotypes are gathered by thoughts, beliefs and reality through individuals then generalised to the rest of the race or gender etc. 

Essay Plan

To what extent do the representations of black people in 'Straight Outta Compton' reinforce negative stereotypes?
Key Concepts (MIGRAIN) and Wider Contexts (SHEP)

Intro:

• In the intro be talking about my question and my main text.
• focus on what the film did with their black characters most successful film of 2015 so far received positive reviews from critics, and has grossed over $200 million worldwide
• Give an arguments for both sides of the argument.
• This focuses on the representation theory 
• "Stereotypes, however inaccurate, are on form of representation.like fictions they are created to serve as substitutions,standing in for whats is real"
• Cultural Studies By Lawrence Grossberg, 1992
• How they reinforce the stereotypes and what the stereotypes are

Paragraph 1 

• Give a more background info on nwa and what impact they had on the world 
• "Compton, California, was some of the most dangerous place in the country. When five young men translated their experiences growing up into brutally honest music"
• http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/straight_outta_compton/
• Stereotyping in the film a black director
• Urban drama funny and sad
• Why they were loved by their fans and why they were hated by others
• Then will make the connection to the film that was made about them narrative equilibrium(Todorov) rags to riches
• and talk briefly about how they were represented

   Paragraph 2 

•     Urban drama
•     Primary audience - black males and females however this changed dramatically 
•     Textual analysis of one scene with the women giving oral sex
•     The word "nigga" and the word "hoe" used 
•     "male sexual dominance, with women framed as objects and denied any agency or their own gaze" media magazine odd future...
•     https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/media-magazine/articles/16889
•     Stereotype of black males mistreating issue/debate
•     Was the scene exaggerate and is it true?
•     Thugs take over the school bus scene 
•     Stereotyping black males thugs and unemployed
•    "For many years,African Americans were simply objects within popular culture whose representation tended to be quite stereotypical and especially problematic"
•     African Americans and Popular Culture 

  Paragraph 3

•     Historical text Super Fly is a 1972 blaxploitation, crime drama an African American cocaine dealer who is trying to quit the underworld drug business.
•     blaxploitation was in the 1970's it was genre with a black audience but it grew
•     They are set in poor neighbourhoods
•     "These movies used a mostly black cast and featured stories set in urban America"
•      "The films focused heavily on the dark undercurrents of society and promoted many incorrect stereotypes about black people"
•     http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-blaxploitation-films.htm
•     Similar to Straight outta Comptons as it shows ethnic slurs gang violence or drugs 
•     Reinforcing the stereotype poor black people,violent,drug users   
•      Levis Strauss binary oppositions -Black people vs white /poor vs rich 

  Paragraph 4

•     Point against as the film can be telling the true story 
•     "Eazy-E's widow, Tomica Wright, gave the actor playing Eazy unseen footage of the rapper — including outtakes of music-video shoots ­— to help him capture the late MC's personality"
•     http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/14-things-we-learned-about-straight-outta-compton-20150813
•     Celebrating the creators of gangsta rap music
•      Many rappers nowhere days are influenced by NWA
•     They were trying to really get inside of their heads to perceive them correctly 
•      So the representations in the movie is not negative because that how they really was
•     "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 in voices that were defiantly unapologetic."

  The Words and Music of Ice Cube

•     They were loved by black because of the truth they were speaking so authentic and gave the people a voice 
•     So the film represented that as they represented in a bad light as they were the villains propp

  Paragraph 5

• "Black males males make up less than 7 percent of US population,yet they constitute almost half of the prison  population."
• Africana Cultures and Policy Studies
• "Blacks and Hispanics are about 70% percent more likely to have had contact with the police than white people are"
• These are the negative stereotypes as the film portrays illegal use of drugs and guns
• So it shows the black representation in the film that they have no fear for the law
• Narrative pleasures
• The film representation of black males:
• unemployment,baby mamas,single mothers,drug abuse ,drug dealing,a lot of swearing 
• They describe each other as nigga and hoes

   Conclusion:

•      The film didn't reinforces negative stereotypes because the film was a biography 
•      Dyer - stereotypes are a projection of the real world
•      The stereotypes are all real as the members grew up on  
•     "The groups root in the struggling working class neighbourhoods of Compton and south central are manifest in NWA image and messages.Rampant unemployment ,drug dealing and drug abuse ,absentee fathers ,teen pregnancy ,police brutality and a litany og the inner city woes are chronicled in the groups music and captured vividly in the harsh language and intentional of NWA shock value"

  The Words and Music of Ice Cube

•      The film didn't reinforce negative stereotypes as this is what they grew up in.This sort of environment in Compton they grew up to see that violence and drug abuse it would be a miracle if they didn't go in that direction as that is all they knew
•      Perkins - Stereotypes are not always negative, establish elements of the truth.