Ishmail Muhammad Junior Seminar Research Question How are impoverished African Americans portrayed in film and media? Schwenk, M. M. (2001). "NEGRO STARS" AND THE USIA'S PORTRAIT OF DEMOCRACY. Race, Gender & Class, 8(4), 116. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/218831205?accountid=11745 In the USIA's propaganda, the word "democracy" operated as an essential, foundational term and was the binary opposite to "communism," the system of human organization that would threaten all that democracy promised the individual. The government's newsreel service filmed a young tennis star at the U.S. Open inNew York meeting the U.S. vice president. Meanwhile, in Arkansas, the commercial media were filming the state's governor, who was organizing white resistance to nine African-American teenagers attending Little Rock's Central High School. Masukor, S. (2015). Manning up: Race, gender and violence in boyz n the hood.Screen Education, (77), 110-115. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1689645900?accountid=11745 Released to critical acclaim in 1991, Boys n The Hood (John Singleton) was lauded as That year's Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989), a film that depicted black communities on Screen with ostensible realism while also delivering entertainment and box-office returns. As the Boys grow up their lives begin to take different paths. Tre and Ricky both hope to attend college. Tre studies hard - he is smart, as demonstrate in the early primary school sequences - while Ricky pins his hopes on a football scholarship. Doughboy is gentle and kind, but his keen sense Of the finality of life in the neighborhood sees him drifting and out of jail for drug-dealing and Petty crime. After an accidental and unmotivated run-in with a gang from another suburb, Ricky Is shot, leading Tre and Doughboy to the actions that will determine their respective futures. Despite his anger, Tre decides not to join Doughboy in a revenge killing, while Doughboy Completes his downward trajectory, shooting three men in a parking lot. Through epilogue text, We learn that Doughboy is shot two weeks later, while Tre moves away to college. Downing, S., Levan, K., & Polzer, K. (2018). Boys in the hood and vampires in the woods: Racialized fatalism in film. Western Criminology Review, 19(3), 74. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/2164137365?accountid=11745 This article shows Studies of street crime and street culture often emphasize the concept of fatalism, particularly among urban minority males. The type of attitude cinema represents within white characters they give them a fantastic attitude. Through content analysis of film, the current study examines media entertainment portrayals of fatalism in White and non-White characters. While African Americans are portrayed in films between fatalism and street culture and crime. Bristor, J. M., Lee, R. G., & Hunt, M. R. (1995). Race and ideology: African-american images in television advertising. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 14(1), 48. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/211100947?accountid=11745 The Article illustrates how the potentially positive effects of including more African-Americans in advertisements are often mitigated by subtle racist elements that suggest that AfricanAmerican inferiority. Suggesting that contemporary television advertising still incorporates racist ideology, some caveats are necessary. First, as with gender-based critiques (e.g., Bristor and Fischer 1993), we are not ascribing conscious racist motivations to any specific individuals, or any advertiser or advertising agency. Nor are we suggesting that the root cause of racism is the media. Lalander, P. (2002). Who directs whom? films and reality for young heroin users in a swedish town. Contemporary Drug Problems, 29(1), 65-90. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/233177735?accountid=11745 I will say this, if ‘Boyz in the Hood’ is the ying, “Menace to Society” is the yang. This film is similar to the daily life of a young African American man which there hardly are any fathers, and offspring are doomed to repeat the mistakes of generations past. Children are raised by the community and after Pernell is imprisoned, Caine to Pernell’s son Anthony) because men who aren’t dead by their twenties have escaped, are imprisoned. It’s an utterly dehumanizing society that is dominated by young men focusing on a tough pedestal. The prevalence of easily attainable guns means a simple insult can escalate to a casual murder with all the emotional detachment of changing a tire. Young men like Caine, who retain a moral compass still fall victim to this violent lifestyle because of the intense societal pressure around them. The only alternative is being a “bitch” or a drug user who is mercilessly ridiculed, outcast, or killed. Most women are treated badly through language and actions toward them. They are almost treated as property or as things to be used up and thrown away. Caine, like so many young black men from the inner city, has grown up in a world where the strong values of an older generation are being undermined by the temptations of guns, drugs and violence. He sees his mother die of an overdose. He takes an older neighborhood man as his mentor, only to see him go to prison. By the time he is in high school, Caine wears a beeper on his belt and is a small-time drug dealer.
