Straight Outta Compton Takeaway

Rating: 9/10 (8 October 2015)

Straight Outta Compton was a compelling story about one of hip-hops most iconic groups to date, the NWA. The story pays close attention to the lives of Ice Cube, Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, DJ Yella, and MC Ren. The movie is a behind the scenes look at what the music industry and the group were going through during the 1980s. Straight Outta Compton gives a true account of the individual and professional development that the R&B moguls experienced during the peak of their careers. There is a way in which the producers establish psychological affects when such problems plague them from their childhood. While each of the individuals nonverbally communicated how their realities had shaped their lives, they all followed a common goal; surviving through their shared hell and succeeding, no matter what the cost was. The need to survive while pursuing their passions put the NWA at risk several times, which eventually led to the group to go their separate ways. Even after the group disbanded, communication between individuals was still portrayed. This communication gave great insight into the relationships that the members had established and maintained.
Diversity amongst a singular community was also represented in the film, which made everything about the character development emphasized in a natural capacity. The diversity was both geological and familial. Several characters in the film hailed from East Lost Angeles, while the majority of the NWA were from Compton, California. Although there were no diversity in socioeconomic status or in life experience. The relationships they had with their families (or did not have) was the primary type of diversity. Dre. Dre's relationship with one motive for him to work hard on his own to move out and pursue music on his own without any sort of familial support, outside of his younger brother who later died as a result of gang violence. The death of his younger brother weighed heavy on Dre, but also inspired him to pursue his path. The rest of the group's family lives were not disclosed, which I'm taking to mean their stories were not told in order to preserve their memory, given that two of the original group members (Ice Cube & Dr. Dre) assisted in producing the film.
A lot was being shown about how the music industry used rhetoric to pursue artists as well as rob them of their well-earned funds. Manager Jerry Heller employs several types of rhetorical tools used when manipulating Eazy E and in barricading members out of NWA out of his exclusive deal with Eazy. Suge Knight, co-founder of Death Row Records, also showed the ways in which an aggressive and often intimidating leader can exude control over a large number of people while proving to be a truly ineffective leader. Ice Cube's final manager in the film also used rhetoric to withhold Ice Cube's earning from him, which gave an insight into the industrial systematic racism that was occurring during the time period. His outrage, and spontaneously demonstrative breaking of his manager's property, served as a louder indicator of his need to have his needs met.
Overall, I thought the film was excellent and inspired the general population to look at the way they view music icons. It was a tribute, in some ways, to all celebrity figures who have had to start from a horrible youth into the iconic faces and media faces that they become in the future. It was a telling tale about the horrors that these people witnessed and partook in in their youth, but gave a certain humanization to the world surrounding individuals from their backgrounds. Jonah Hill once gave an interview with Jimmy Fallon, and said that Ice Cube never laughed much or said much, but the one thing that made him laugh was watching Friday. After gaining insight into Ice Cube, it is easy to see how such a figure might become a stoic, and why the best time of his life, with his friends, would be one of the things to bring ease to him.