![]() ![]() “Every once in awhile you have these exceptions to the rule, like Fruitvale Station or even Boyz n the Hood, which unfortunately spawned a series of copycat films that weren’t as community oriented as Boyz n the Hood was,” he said. Bunche Center for African American Studies. And it’s rare that Hollywood films present counter-narratives to those villified depictions, pointed out Darnell Hunt, Director of UCLA’s Ralph J. And like Fruitvale Station, the conditions that the story brought to light were also reflected in a contemporaneous bit of citizen journalism: the video that showed Rodney King being beaten by the LAPD was also seen by national audiences that year, and in 1992, South Central Los Angeles erupted in protest.įor many non-black audiences, news stories like these, or racially polarizing characters on reality TV, are what shape their perceptions of young black males. When the movie came out in 1991, it was controversial and groundbreaking - an insider’s perspective on the perils and beauty of life in the ‘hood, and the hazards of being young, black and male in America. But he did offer one reference point that sheds light not only on the state of black cinema, but on racial understanding in America: John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood. When I asked the director about other nuanced depictions of black men that he drew on as he wrote the movie, Coogler said he was mostly inspired by real people. At the same time, (Grant) was a product of his environment, he came from a very diverse environment,” he said. It’s not a racial utopia…issues of race come up, as they did that night (Grant was killed), obviously. “He had friends that were Hispanic, Indian, Filipino…that’s kind of how it goes in the Bay in many ways. Coogler said that’s simply a reflection of Grant’s life. ![]() Audiences see Grant interact fluidly with people of diverse ethnicities, both in casual exchanges and in deeper relationships of the sort that are the norm in this demographically anomalous region, where even racial animus doesn’t always conform to the black-white binary so common elsewhere in the country. A less hailed, but just as significant, feature of the movie is its representation of the San Francisco Bay Area’s racial dynamics. Coogler has been widely lauded by critics for his humanizing portrait of Oscar Grant - as a doting father, a not-quite-reformed weed dealer, a recently unemployed young adult, and a tender son. It seems inevitable that Fruitvale Station will benefit from the publicity, first of the verdict in the Zimmerman case, and then of President Obama’s surprise remarks about the history of anti-black racism in America. “For me, the film is about humanity and it’s about relationships, and the relationships left behind when a human being’s life is cut short.” “People draw a lot of parallels between what happened with Oscar and Trayvon,” he told me as he prepared for a screening in Atlanta. The timing of the movie’s release is more than a little eerie, and when director Ryan Coogler discusses it, he is cautious, saying he didn’t anticipate the two would become linked. Tweets about the verdict twinned the hashtags #oscargrant and #trayvonmartin as the same story, different state. This phenomenon was first noted at opening weekend in Oakland, where audiences watching the story of Oscar Grant, an unarmed young black man shot to death, emerged from theaters to hear that George Zimmerman was found not guilty of the murder of Trayvon Martin. When moviegoers talk about Fruitvale Station, which pulled in nearly $4.7 million over last weekend’s nationwide release, they often talk about the sobbing that you hear in the theater as the credits roll, especially noticeable because the tears flow openly from the men in the audience. ![]() This piece originally appeared on Turnstyle News. ![]()
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