I grew up with this music. I remember when all the answer songs were coming out, all the kids would gather around a boombox on the playground to hear them. We'd listen to the latest ones back to back to hear the whole "story". For around a month, you heard Roxanne beef tracks all the time.
The good ones were allowed to play - sometimes got a replay. The bad ones got booed. It a track was especially bad, someone hit the stop button and we moved on. There were beefs in the neighborhood and among us kids, but we'd never heard a beef played out in songs. Not on the level of Roxanne.
So what does this film have to say about that short but intense cultural phenomenon? Almost nothing.
This is a cookie cutter "overcoming, rising up" film, with paint-by-numbers misogyny, racism, poverty, sexual abuse, nobody believing in her dream, the list goes on. Everything but the kitchen sink.
Of course her father is a deadbeat. Of course. Because of course all black fathers are deadbeats.
Of course she has to battle rap to support her family. Of course. Because poor people slaving at their art just to put food on the table warms our cockles. Of course.
Of course no one believes in her abilities and tries to convince her to "get real" and that "no one will take a female rapper seriously". Of course.
It just never stops touring these cliches and pounding them home with all the nuance and care of a sledgehammer.
The characters aren't authentic in the slightest. The script is a joke. None of the dialog is from the period. It's 2017 dialog transposed to 1982. It is, frankly, what middle and upper middle class people THINK or IMAGINE people in the hood talked like back then. This is a film solely for people who weren't there. It's for people who definitely grew up on the right side of the tracks. It's flattering to their noble notions of poverty and race.
Of course the critics gave this a pass. Of course they did. To do anything else proves their blah blah deep-seated racism blah blah obvious ignorance blah blah misogyny. This film puts on the critic armor, and puts it on thick.
What we're left with is a vacant, soulless, sanitized and not even slightly nostalgic tour of a magical, made-up hip hop ghetto. Nothing of the true grit, grime, hustle and struggle is anywhere to be seen.
In it's excessive degree of dishonesty, it's manages to be insulting, both to the history it's supposedly portraying, and to audience sensibilities. It assumes we're wide-eyed rubes who can't tell the difference between champagne and ginger-ale. It's the worst dis track of them all.
The good ones were allowed to play - sometimes got a replay. The bad ones got booed. It a track was especially bad, someone hit the stop button and we moved on. There were beefs in the neighborhood and among us kids, but we'd never heard a beef played out in songs. Not on the level of Roxanne.
So what does this film have to say about that short but intense cultural phenomenon? Almost nothing.
This is a cookie cutter "overcoming, rising up" film, with paint-by-numbers misogyny, racism, poverty, sexual abuse, nobody believing in her dream, the list goes on. Everything but the kitchen sink.
Of course her father is a deadbeat. Of course. Because of course all black fathers are deadbeats.
Of course she has to battle rap to support her family. Of course. Because poor people slaving at their art just to put food on the table warms our cockles. Of course.
Of course no one believes in her abilities and tries to convince her to "get real" and that "no one will take a female rapper seriously". Of course.
It just never stops touring these cliches and pounding them home with all the nuance and care of a sledgehammer.
The characters aren't authentic in the slightest. The script is a joke. None of the dialog is from the period. It's 2017 dialog transposed to 1982. It is, frankly, what middle and upper middle class people THINK or IMAGINE people in the hood talked like back then. This is a film solely for people who weren't there. It's for people who definitely grew up on the right side of the tracks. It's flattering to their noble notions of poverty and race.
Of course the critics gave this a pass. Of course they did. To do anything else proves their blah blah deep-seated racism blah blah obvious ignorance blah blah misogyny. This film puts on the critic armor, and puts it on thick.
What we're left with is a vacant, soulless, sanitized and not even slightly nostalgic tour of a magical, made-up hip hop ghetto. Nothing of the true grit, grime, hustle and struggle is anywhere to be seen.
In it's excessive degree of dishonesty, it's manages to be insulting, both to the history it's supposedly portraying, and to audience sensibilities. It assumes we're wide-eyed rubes who can't tell the difference between champagne and ginger-ale. It's the worst dis track of them all.