Director Martin Scorsese also explored the theme of family ties being torn apart by unpredictable violence. His intense films regularly starred actor Robert De Niro. Scorsese's “crime trilogy” included two mob pictures in the 1990s. The first film in the trilogy was Mean Streets (1973) - the one that established Scorsese's reputation. It was about the lives of aspiring, small-time crooks in the Little Italy section of New York.
The other two films were GoodFellas (1990) - adapted from Wiseguy, which followed thirty years in the lethally-violent criminal careers of rising mobsters and was based on the life of actual ex-mobster Henry Hill. And Scorsese's Casino (1995) examined a Mafia criminal dynasty making its presence known in a brutal takeover of 1960s-70s Las Vegas.
Although many of the gangsters in these films met with death and destruction, this did not prevent America’s love affair with them---the glorification of the white ethnic gangster in cinema became an American guilty pleasure. Indeed, the vast majority of these films are considered classic. Even though these glorified thugs flouted the law at every turn and committed despicable acts of violence, they were still cast as charismatic and strangely sympathetic figures. The audience and the American public somehow found itself subconsciously; as well as consciously, pulling for them.
Fade To Black
The late 60’s and early 70’s brought the Black variation on some of the themes contained in the earlier gangster films. These gangster melodramas, with elements of social protest, were dominated by a single (male or female) charismatic personality. The genre contained stories of the pimp or pusher at a crisis point, caught between the needs of his people (Black Nationalism) and the pressure to sellout from “The Man.” Standout examples are Superfly, played by Ron O'Neal; and The Mack. Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and Sweet Sweetback (1971) has been credited with kicking off the genre---Sweet Sweetback's Badaaass Song was fierce and uncompromising and deemed inaccessible to whites. Peebles went ahead and produced it anyway, financing it largely himself. Unable to show the film in many cinemas, he persuaded a few black cinemas in Detroit, San Francisco and New York to show it. The response was incredible. Black people in droves went to see what was, essentially, the tale of a promiscuous black antihero as he made his way towards Mexico to evade the white police. Peebles wrote his own score and enlisted the assistance of the newly-formed group called Earth, Wind and Fire who happened to be friends with one of his production crew. Black Caesar (1973), starring Fred Williamson, was modeled on 1931's Little Caesar and needed only slight color tweaking to attract a new (and predominantly Black) audience. Blaxploitation films have been criticized for glorifying criminal behavior and perpetuating negative stereotypes, but the genre seldom gets credit for addressing issues and concerns relevant to the overlooked urban/inner-city demographic.
In the 1990s several Black directors explored issues of urban justice through stories of children growing up in urban America. Films such as Boyz N the Hood brought vivid images of disenfranchised and violent neighborhoods and the obstacles involved in growing up in these neighborhoods. These films questioned whether the criminal justice system works in neighborhoods isolated from both the creation and the protections of the legal system, and where the rules of the criminal justice system sometimes collide with the rules of the neighborhood justice system. In this same time period, Hollywood released many more films directed by Blacks, films such as Ernest Dickerson's Juice (starring Tupac Shakur and Omar Epps), Allen and Albert Hughes Menace II Society, and Spike Lee's Clockers. Though some of these flicks have enjoyed cult status, they received castigation and criticism that the “classic” films which portrayed whites as the gangsters, criminals and thugs rarely received---John Singleton’s Boyz-N-The Hood stands out (and mostly alone) in receiving critical acclaim while portraying inner-city violence.
The Scarface Generation
Perhaps no film has made more of an impression on what would later become gangsta rap than the 1983 film Scarface---the name Scarface, and its many variations, can be found in scores of songs and albums (as well in artist and group names). It stars Al Pacino as Tony Montana, a Cuban-immigrant who shoots and kills his way to the “top” to become the head of a powerful and brutal drug empire. It also, in my opinion, far-and-away one of the most explosive and bloody films in the history of the gangster-film genre. Four short years later, LA-based rapper Ice T emerged with his album Rhyme Pays (1987) which depicted hardcore street-life. In 1988 N.W.A.'s (Niggaz With Attitude) underground album Straight Outta Compton firmly established gangsta rap within the American music scene. Its keynote track F*** Tha Police was considered so shocking that radio stations and MTV refused to play it. Nonetheless, the album went platinum. N.W.A. and gangsta rap's popularity was compounded with the release of their second album EFIL4ZAGGIN in 1991, which debuted at number two in the Billboard chart with neither a single nor a video and became the first rap album to reach number one. Snoop Dogg then became the first rapper to go straight to number one with his album Doggystyle (1993). The reliance on crime in the lyrics of gangsta rap fuels much of the controversy surrounding the musical style. And while it has been criticized for glorifying the negativity of the streets, gangsta rap's defenders claim that the rappers are simply reporting what really goes on in their neighborhoods. In other words they are telling a story through their specific cultural and experiential lens---this is not an endorsement of gangsta rap, but rather an attempt to properly contextualize the genre.
Conclusion
Granted, the high profile scandals and tragedies that have accompanied some of the biggest names in rap and gangsta rap adds fuel to the charges of it being too violent--- such as the trials of Sean “P Diddy” Combs and Snoop Dogg and the murders of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. (Biggie Smalls). Nevertheless, I remember gangsta rap in its infancy (before any of the aforementioned incidents took place) and condemnations of its ultra-violent lyrics and persona were being voiced even then. Hypocritically, the bloody Genovese and Colombo crime family wars were taking place in New York in the early 70’s (when the first two Godfather movies were released) and a correlation between that reality and The Godfather was not made. Neither was any strong assertion made concerning Brian DePalma’s Scarface glorifying and promoting the actual cocaine-financed mafia that was on the rise in the 80’s.
In American popular culture and in the consciousness of the American public, real and media white violence and crime is deracialized. For example, when the tragedy occurred at Virginia Tech there was a flurry of questions about how it would impact people’s views of Korean Americans. Was that question asked in regard to whites when Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City? What about Columbine? Or Ronald Gene Simmons? For every Cho there is 10-15 Bundys, Gacys, Specks and Dahmers, and yet there is no condemnation of white culture (nor should there be) or a feared backlash against whites because of the actions of a notorious few. The same can not be said of Black folk and other people of color. Our problems and concerns are usually treated as some sort of racialized pathology, whereas white indiscretions and transgressions are viewed as the innocuous and colorless “societal” or “social” ill---detached and divorced from whiteness. On a related note, Salon.com’s headline story, about the Sopranos, for Saturday June 9, 2007 is titled: “Our Favorite Murderer.”
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