Straight Outta Compton: Ugly Omission

[Sir X]

Culturally, we feel the need to sanitize those who achieve great things in order to force the world to fit into the moral box we’ve been conditioned to create. We don’t want to believe that our heroes can be bastards. But bad or damaged people can do great and brilliant things. And as it pertains to social ideals that have far-reaching ramifications—i.e. homophobia, racism, misogyny, etc.—we have to be willing to stare at the ugly aspects of our favorite artists’ personalities. It helps to temper our tendency to hero worship. But also, in facing the ignorance of those we admire, we’re forced to face the fact that that ignorance exists everywhere—not just “over there” in some undefined space where only the narrow-minded or extreme right-wing congregate.

Eric Clapton is one of the most famous blues guitarists in the world—a Brit who discovered the music as a youth and who considers himself a disciple of Muddy Waters and a kindred spirit to more contemporaneous bluesmen like Buddy Guy. But despite having built his name on the music of black people, Clapton unleashed a horribly racist rant



http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...c-biopics.html

[Mosiah]

"The black wogs and coons and Arabs and ****ing Jamaicans and ****ing [indecipherable] don’t belong here, we don’t want them here.” - Eric Clapton

[Sir X]

I shot the Sherrif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10qLYy6hiFQ

[Islandman]

Director defends 'Straight Outta Compton' accuracy

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The director of "Straight Outta Compton" says he's "very happy with the accuracy" of the movie that depicts the creation and eventual breakup of influential rap group N.W.A.

F. Gary Gray says he relied on accounts from surviving members of the Southern California group, including credited producers Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, for key details and scenes in the film, due in theaters Friday. But he acknowledged in an interview at the movie's premiere Monday night that notable moments from N.W.A.'s history aren't in the film.

"Obviously you can only do so much when you have two hours and 10 years and five guys in one movie, but I'm very happy with the accuracy, especially given that I got it from the members of N.W.A," Gray said

http://news.yahoo.com/director-defen...154519123.html

[Historian]

Good Post

Good post, boss! What the writer has said in this article is all so true!

[Hortical]

Who gween check it out? There will always be some amount of controversy with a biopic. The biopic movie Lincoln left out the significant role of Frederick Douglass in the abolitionist movement.

[Karl]

Excellent post.

[Islandman]

I watched in this afternoon. I thought it was a decent account of NWA and what it represented. The movie certainly didn't pretend they were choir boys and showed quite a bit of violence on the part of the group...Easy E pulling guns on a guy whose girl had given him a blow job, Cube using a baseball bat to trash the office of a record producer he felt had robbed him.

One could probably argue that Dre's character was oversimplified as being the nonviolent, sane and reasonable one in the group, and only a passing mention was made of the assault charges he had as a result of that incident with the female radio personality . However a movie is not a documentary and given that it focused more on the group NWA and the reality of South Central LA at the time they emerged I believe it was reasonably close to reality.

[Historian]

Re: I watched in this afternoon

I’man, I have never seen a movie on NWA, and so my comment above was made after quickly reading the writer’s commentary yesterday. But I fully agree with your last sentence (“A movie is not a documentary and given that it focused more….”).

It’s ironic, by the way, that Eazy E (who died from AIDS back in the 1990s) is apparently the only one who paid the ultimate price for their excesses, as both Dre and Ice Cube in particular have reaped immense success and adulation from their early exploits.

I watched in this afternoon. I thought it was a decent account of NWA and what it represented. The movie certainly didn't pretend they were choir boys and showed quite a bit of violence on the part of the group...Easy E pulling guns on a guy whose girl had given him a blow job, Cube using a baseball bat to trash the office of a record producer he felt had robbed him.

One could probably argue that Dre's character was oversimplified as being the nonviolent, sane and reasonable one in the group, and only a passing mention was made of the assault charges he had as a result of that incident with the female radio personality . However a movie is not a documentary and given that it focused more on the group NWA and the reality of South Central LA at the time they emerged I believe it was reasonably close to reality.

[Islandman]

Yes that is true Historian. Interestingly enough Eazy E was actually the one who initially invested money in NWA to get them off the ground. He could do that because he was at the time a mid-level drug dealer who was cash-rich.

In the end he was much less successful financially than Dre and Cube who were the main talents in the group. He was just about to ride a new wave of success with producing Bone Thugs-n-Harmony when he became ill.