A Never-Ending Issue

Portraying African Americans as the criminals has always been a problem and occurrence in many movies.

Starting from 1967, in the movie In the Heat of the Night African American actor Sidney Poitier takes the role of Virgil Tibbs who is a Homicide Detector. He goes to Philadelphia to visit his mother. During his time in Philadelphia, a rich person is found dead. The police accused him for being the suspect, even though he wasn’t, but simply because he was black.

Menace to Society is a film from 1993 is about the life of hoodlums which involves the use of drugs and violence. The start of the movie sets off the criminal issues in the movie. Watching the video, which starts off with two African American men , Caine (Tyrin Turner) and O-Dog (Larenz Tate) walking in a liquor store. The Korean woman who works there stares at them as if they were suspicious about stealing. Moments after, O-Dog shoots the Korean man behind the counter he then takes the Korean woman to the back and kills her as well. These two characters are already seen with a gun which predicts the rest of the movie will deal with a lot of violence and gang related situations. The way they are dressed gives them the “thug look“. The thug look can be described as guys wearing baggy clothes that are usually one solid color, large loose chains, and acting tough. Thugs tend to use a lot of profanity.

In the 2010 movie Twelve, most of the characters in the movie, are white except for the drug dealer, Leonel. The role of the drug dealer is played by Curtis Jackson also known as 50 Cent (Rap/Hip-Hop Artist). He is an underground drug dealer, selling an addictive drug cocktail "Twelve." His character plays the role of a thug-look-alike drug dealer. He kills one of the other characters for not having money for the drug "Twelve."

In these different movies, African American are not all seen as thugs, they are seen as the "bad guys". It has always been that way in society and through the movie industry, even if they’re not, people assume they are for the simple reason of being black. They are known to be that way because they are from a “poor low class life-style” in which they are mainly considered to be ghetto.

Crowther, Bosley. "Movie Review - In the Heat of the Night - NYTimes.com."
     Movie Reviews, Showtimes and Trailers - Movies - New York Times - The New
     York Times. 19 Feb. 2012. Web. 14 Feb. 2012.

Holden, Stephen. "Movie Review - Menace II Society - NYTimes.com."
     Movie Reviews, Showtimes and Trailers - Movies - New York Times -
     The New York Times. 19 Feb. 2012. Web. 14 Feb. 2012.