Nexflix has given an opportunity for the independent - "straight to DVD" market to flourish.
Unfortunately this has also allowed certain content authors to submit unpolished works to the mass market. I have rented several of these films over the past several years. The unmistakable pattern contained within a significant portion of them as they depict "Black life" are the themes of:
- Drug Dealing / Criminality within the Black community
- A love triangle between the actors
- The course language used between Black males and females
I am less concerned about erecting a "children's book" version of films without bad language as much as I am made to wonder if that which is dramatized is in fact a true depiction of the language and scheming tendencies of some people. They appear to remain at the edge of violence. The words always pressing the buttons of the threat. If a weapon was made available something might "get popping".
Most of all I wonder about what this says about the health of the relationships within our community. A pair of people with this amount of verbal hostility between them have little chance of having "Health Relationship Outcomes" in which their individual interests are synergized as they come together.
Of course we can view this as a matter of "free speech" and then put this as a non-issue because the DVD "Dre's Karma" and other such films have such a small scope of distribution. Besides "Fox News" and "Rush Limbaugh" have far greater distribution amongst "White people" thus they are more worthy targets as threats to Black people - in the opinion of some. The point that this misses is the one vital measure that I always make about the activities in our community:
What do they do when they are LEFT ALL ALONE to do what they do without any external motivation about what to do our any "green lighting" process that imposes someone else's vision upon their content?
Why was it justified for the "voice of the community" to protest against the images spread by "The Birth Of A Nation", "Blaxploitation" films or the coonish characters seen on the upstart networks (The "WB" or the "UPN" networks) as they got their footing but the pattern of offensive work distributed by independent Black producers don't appear as worthy of scrutiny? These points weren't rendered as a matter of "Free Speech". Instead these "Protectors of Blackness" acknowledged the consequences of a message that was propagated into the public domain and they pushed back.
I firmly believe that these recent media pieces that are coming from WITHIN can't be "pushed back upon" lest those doing the pushing acknowledge that there is a problem at the cultural level in the real world which must be corrected rather than merely going after the film depictions of these dysfunctional relationship, making sure that they are not released as "dirty laundry".
Sadly there is more "art imitating the real lives" of certain elements of our community than what can be comfortably justified. In certain communities in which they are "left to operate in their own world". this is the type of corrosive "dog eat dog" relationships that are produced - particularly between man and woman. The "Gerry Springer / Maury Show" type debates over the identify of the father of the child in question is the unfortunate consequence of this stage play.