At some point black artists and producers must understand that the image of the struggling black person in the ghetto trying to be a rapper or trying to get out of the ghetto because they are in a gang is so over done in America these days that there is no more room for another black exploitation film. The two worst movies of all time right now at IMDb both deal with this black/gangsta/rapper/basketball/hoodlum/fu ck the man attitude. This image fails for several reasons:
1) Filmmakers have already beat this to death. The best of these films like Boyz in the Hood, Do the Right Thing, Sweet Sweetback, Cooley High, even Breakin are now almost 20-40 years old. the ghetto is boring, old news, as contemporary as Tin Pan Alley.
2) Regardless of what most people think, white people are not turned off to the image of a story about a black person in the ghetto. the truth is most people,including many black people, are tired of the image of the hoodlum playing basketball, rapping, being in a gang, and being inner city. this is because civil rights was very successful and now people, black and white, see a large black middle class. so they know this doesn't really represent many black Americans anymore. when a movie ad comes across the TV screen advertising the new hip black movie about life in the streets, most people sigh and flip the channel. no originality, done before a million times over, not really even representative of many black people.
3) being a rapper in a gang and being from the streets doesn't carry the weight it did 20-30 years ago. now many people want to be from a safe, normal neighborhood. Black society has seen enough of crack epidemics and collapsing neighborhoods to want to celebrate gangsterism. the tide is turning against the black hoodlum image. Inner cities are being renovated and gentrified. black society is stabilizing.
Simply put, we as Americans have had enough of the black rapping ghetto. It's just not original anymore. Rap is becoming classic rock. Please come up with a new and original storyline like what black people are doing in suburbia and how they mingle with other ethnicities there. this hasn't been done yet, although it is now a huge part of the American lifestyle.
