Product: Gangland: The Complete Season Three (2009)
Rating: 3.0
fsu fight club set to a hard-core soundrack
seriously? 'all the trappings o' a gang'? just cause a couple o' pinheads choose to classify a group o' people as a gang doesn't necessarily make the claim true...'subculture' is a sociologically more accurate description. besides which, police villifying hard-core kids - who were ALWAYS 'on the cop's radar' - goes all the way back to the very beginning o' the hc scene, and is well documentedthis series has - via sheer repetition - effectively established the hallmarks o' gang behavior :- territorial disputes: only, fsu doesn't squabble over turf, nor do they tag, throw up gang signs, or roam the streets deliberately looking for trouble from other gangs. they're just kids who go to shows to listen to music and let off some steam- drug trafficking and use: meth (and earlier coke) largely finance all actual gang activities vs. straight-edge kids who choose not to drink or do drugs...steroids? ok, that one is actually believable, however despite being illegal, can hardly be compared to substances like crack !!!- ultra-violence: this one typically involves knives and - especially - guns, resulting in particularly large body counts; to include xecuting innocent civilians. meanwhile, fsu members still believe in the concept of settling disputes with their fists - NOT w/ knives or guns...hey, can anyone actually tell me just what is the difference between and fsu brawl and the brawls we xpect/celebrate every week in our professional sports?! christ, just look at hockey and tell me that's NOT swarming! and policing up the scene o' neo-nazis was actually a good thing - and i doubt any honest cop would even dispute the means on that one!- oh, and did anyone notice that the boston cop said NO fsu incidents in 2 years?! name just one other gang in this entire series so far that the same could be said about !- in fact, the ONLY similarity is a mutual distrust o' authority, but for very different reasons - gangs naturally fear authority because they actively engage in illegal activity; whereas fsu member's distrust stems from questioning the tenants o' capitalist societies - and rightly sofrom the very beginning, hard-core music has largely been about fostering thought, NOT fear...in fact, when Elgin James waxes poetic about his own mortality, there is more honest perspective found there than everything else i have heard uttered by gang members in this entrie series so far - combined !not to undersell what this series has done right, but an otherwise informing xamination has clearly run out o' ideas as this chapter sadly represents almost textbook misrepresentation o' something which carries with it simply the hint o' the dangerous, but is really just a VERY small group o' young people who are largely misunderstood in their passion for a particular music style, and belief in living drug/alcohol free (oh dear gawd! think o' the children!). the lack o' proper historical context here - to include NOT reporting on the harassments and beatings that cops regularly visited on these youth from the very beginning all around the country - also serves to underscore the attempt here to lump this group o' people into the same mold as the legitimate gangs xamined so far who actually ARE hell-bent on living with the overt intent on dealing death and destruction to those around them in their quest to xpand their drug empires - to include deliberately targeting civilians for no reason save moving up in rank...this one chapter positively reeks o' filler. coming in S4 - the pensioner wars; and, gangs o' nerds who launch cyber attacks against those who claim Spock spoke the immortal phrase, 'may the force be with you'...- don't just question authority; question everything !!!parting shot : the allegation that their girlfriends were hiding knives from the police (a technique employed by other gangs as we have already seen) seems far-fetched, particulary as there was absolutely NO mention o' stab wounds in the 1 unfortunate fatality directly linked to this group. in fact, there was no mention o' knives being used in ANY o' the fights initiated by this group!!!