50 Cents: It's Not The Movie Billboard, It's The Message

by Earl Ofari Hutchinson

(PNS) -- Let's be clear. "Get Rich or Die Tryin," the semi-autobiographical movie that tracks the life of gangster Rap icon Curtis "Fifty Cent" Jackson from street thug to musical superstar, isn't going to send young blacks sprinting from the theaters to commit murder and mayhem in their neighborhoods. It's a movie, and there's no smoking- gun connection between the violence on the big screen and bodies in the streets.

Still, "Get Rich" and the horde of other boys-in-the-hood movies that Hollywood churned out over the past decade again raise troubling questions.

Why do a handful of influential rap enterpreneurs -- and that certainly includes Jackson -- who are rich and famous beyond their wildest fantasies, brand themselves with a criminal, thuggish image?

Do films such as Get Rich promote, and at their worst, reinforce the ancient thug stereotype of young black males?

And why, despite white fears that young blacks are the ultimate menaces to society, are the victims of the thug- acting rappers other young blacks in almost all cases?

The first is easy to answer. Get Rich will reap a king's ransom at the box office from exploiting the violent, outlaw image of black life. It will boost the sales of Jackson's tapes and games. Legions of rebellious young blacks and non-blacks will happily cough up mega-dollars to revel in this image.

Few give much thought to the stereotypes that these movies reinforce, and they do reinforce them. Films like Juice, Straight out of Brooklyn, Menace II Society, Boyz in the Hood and Poetic Justice, which also purported to give a raw look at "the hood," glorified violence, glamorized gangs and ignored poverty and racism.

Black critics blame Hollywood for this, and why not? It's a soft target. Most studio executives know nothing about life in "the hood." So long as they can turn the thuggish image of the ghetto into dollars, they don't want to know. The young rappers also bear responsibility for promoting the thug image. But so long as it sells, don't expect any apologies or change. In fact, Fifty Cent went one better and sneered that protests of the movie's ad campaign "help me." The sarcastic and sardonic quip says it all.

Then there's the question of the self-destructive violence of some young black males such as Fifty Cent, which is reflexively explained by pointing a finger at the tumultuous and self-indulgent world of rap music. It has been a violent world. In the past decade, the rap landscape has been littered with rappers such as Biggie Small, Tupac Shakur, Nate Dogg, Naughty by Nature, the Wu-Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah, Heltah Skeltah, Cocoa Brovaz and convicted perjurer Lil Kim's crew, who have been assaulted, murdered or have run afoul of the law. They exult the bad- actor lifestyle and play hard on the us-versus-them volcanic rage of many young blacks.

But black-on-black violence though exploited, glorified and even celebrated, especially if there's a payoff in it, is hardly an invention of rappers. In the last two decades, murder has been at or near the top of the list of the leading causes of death among black males under age 25 years. This is the age group that idolizes rappers such as Fifty Cent and that will pack the theaters to see Get Rich. Their assailants were not white racist cops or Klan nightriders but other black males. Their death toll has soared because far too many Americans still don't get too excited about black violence so long as it doesn't spill over the borders of the ghettos into their suburbs.

But pent-up anger is only one cause of the dangerous cycle of black-on-black violence. Many black males are engaged in a seemingly eternal, desperate search for self-identity and esteem. Their tough talk, swagger and mannerisms are defense mechanisms for boosting their esteem. They measure their status or prop up their self-worth by demonstrating their capacity for physical fights, assaults and, yes, murder.

Some blacks even cite a litany of excuses such as poverty, broken homes and abuse to excuse the violence. These explanations are phony and self-serving. Many rappers who have landed hard in a court docket are anything but hardcore, dysfunctional poverty cases. Yet the internal rage that propels them to commit thuggish acts still lies dangerously close to the surface.

It's the glorification of that rage and violence that has angered many community residents. In Los Angeles, some took to the streets to demand that Paramount pull ad billboards that showed Fifty Cent holding a gun extended in one hand and a microphone in the other. They got the billboard removed. Get Rich or Die Tryin may be one man's tale of redemption, but it also exults the criminal violence that has cost the lives of many black men. That's a hell of way to try to get rich.