This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Candid Camcorder
Plot Overview
A Midwest family consisting of a
father Alan (Andrew Stoddard), mother (Michelle Marie White), son
(Kevin Wiseman), and daughter Melinda (Rochelle) take turns holding
their camcorder on the other three posing with L.A. panoramas in the background. When the
dad stops in South-Central to read the road map, the boy films a
“cool” black wino on the corner. Dummkopfs! Prudence
would dictate a hasty retreat from this black neighborhood.
However, since the opening shot of the street map centered on
M L King, we want to judge a people
by their character, not by their skin color. “Gang Tapes”
accommodates us when the camcorder records the day-to-day lives of
the East Side Ridaz now speeding away
in the car they hijacked.
In their nighttime perambulations, their
headlights sweep across a mural of animals such as we'd find
on Noah's ark. Dr. Ide writes,
“Noah feared that any intercourse within each species in
the ark would lead to an explosion of the number of that species and
thus forbade all beings ([human] and animal) from coitus. Only
three of the passengers refused: Noah's son Ham who feared that if
he didn't have coitus with his wife his brothers Shem and Japheth
would discover that their sister-in-law was already pregnant by a
giant, the dog and a rooster. To expose their crime of coitus during
this ‘holy voyage of abstinence’ the yahweh [i.e. God]
of Noah turned Ham's skin black, lengthened his penis and made him
so lustful that he would engage in sex at any instance” (36).
I heard of the same punishment described once on a German
shortwave broadcast discussing Jewish beliefs, but it added
also that because of his insolent words, Ham's lips were thickened,
and because of his perversion his hair was turned kinky. Ham's
firstborn son Cush (Gen. 10:6),
settled in Africa. Cush
is Hebrew meaning black. Researcher Bodie Hodge confirms that “As
a general trend, Ham is the father of many peoples in Africa”
(122). Dr. Ide adds, “Ham sired
four sons: Cush (translates as ‘black’) … and Canaan
the youngest” (62).
A 14-year-old gangsta wannabe Kris
(Trivell) poaches the camcorder off his older brother Travis (Don
Cambell) and goes to town recording all that happens around him. Due
to his inexperience with the device, his shots often emphasize these
very tells in the Negro. He photographs them in front of a bright
background, which closes the aperture enough to darken their
faces blacker representing sin. He has his brother purse his lips
(“Blow one, Travis”) to make a smoke ring, and other times
his closeups center on fat lips, emphasizing insolence. A lot of his
standing shots of seated gang members display their kinky hair in
various styles, representing perversion. When someone pulls the
cap off Cyril (Darontay McClendon) recently released from prison,
it exposes his shaved head (“That nigger's head looks like one
big scab.”) And he's up to getting their long penises, portraying
lust, past the censors. He describes his own sexual propensity as,
“Big 12 is ready.” Filming a home invasion he gets shots
of one homie raping the housewife (Nancy Whitworth) draped over
the bed, using deep thrusts that wouldn't have worked with a short
penis and an uncooperative partner. And when one brother pees through
a chain link fence at night, he stands well clear of it and still
his schlong reaches through.
Ideology
One of the sites visited by the hapless white family was Mann's Chinese Restaurant displaying famous footprints embedded in the sidewalk. When asked if she recognizes some of the names, Melinda replies, “It's from you guys' time,” to which the mom adds, “It's from before our time.” Alan's bare foot fits snugly into a print of Sean Connery's. On the other side of the car jacking, Kris also fits the steps of someone before his time, someone who interrupted a dad's vacation.
Noah's father Lamech had (Gen. 5:29) “called his name Noah, saying,
This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands,
because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.” After the
flood one day, Noah took some leisure time, stripped down in his tent,
and got drunk. Mrs Noah being a good wife made herself scarce
while Noah decompressed from his day's labor. She went off to
visit her youngest son Ham telling him not to bother his father.
Disobedient Ham came knocking and discovered Noah plastered. He went
and mocked him to his two older brothers (Gen. 9:20-23). Ham was perturbed that
his father had gotten naked without setting about to procreate
as God commanded. He also didn't like his father taking a recess from
rebuilding the wrecked world. Noah's rejoinder was along the lines
of, “Oy! Vey!
You want we should have children and work harder? Okay, your descendants
(Canaan) can be slaves to your brothers. Oy! Vey!” (Gen. 9:24-27).
In biblical wisdom terms it's like, (Prov. 30:17) “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.” There's a biblical alternative to mutilation in, (Exodus 21:26) “And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.” Ham's offspring went into servitude rather than his having an eye put out or whatever. In the historical context of God having just drowned the whole world for its wickedness, and going forward instituting capital punishment (Gen. 9:5), a heavy-handed discipline for gross disrespect doesn't seem so out of place. And Noah did seem to have control over the animals (birds) particularly the ravens (Gen. 8:7). But rather than effecting corporal punishment he assigned extra chores to Ham's line. Those extra chores ultimately included Negro slavery.
In the movie “Gang Tapes,” Kris was disobedient to his
mom (Sonja Marie) as a matter of course. We see him disobeying her
left and right. She's a working mom wanting the best for “my
baby” who strays into gang involvement outside her knowledge.
Kris's dad is out of the picture. His mom won't even talk about him.
The closest Kris comes to a male authority
figure in his life is the preacher man in the distant town where his
mom takes him (over his complaint) to church. The sermon is on Fruits
of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23.) The
preacher's salient point is that just as we're observed by cameras
all around the neighborhood, so God sees everything we do,
both bad and good. Kris mocks him by running his camcorder from a
middle pew as he's preaching. Looks like he's setting himself
up to have his light put out by a West Side Nigger, or some suffer
other appropriate damage.
Production Values
“” (2001) is a low-budget, urban. indie film portraying gang life on a stolen, shakily-held camcorder. It was directed by Adam Ripp. It was written by Steven Wolfson and Adam Ripp, although the movie was mostly improvised by the cast consisting of former gang members from Watts and South-Central Los Angeles, and one real actor Darris Love. Both dialogue and violence were thus realistic.
MPAA rated it R for strong violence, language, drug use and some sexuality. It was blacklisted from theaters for fear it would engender violence. Its rap music was on the bombastic side, but from an artistic standpoint it could be an extra sign of danger, like a rattler's rattle. It's 1½ hours long.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
A venomous snake has a vertically slitted pupil like a cat's eye, but I prefer to identify them by their skin color rather then get nose-to-nose. If I need to handle one, I'll use a stick, not my hand. If you want to get a handle on black gangs, this movie will do it without necessitating personal involvement. It's a sad commentary on the life, but it's not political. It doesn't lend itself to repeated viewings.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Decent cringeworthy action scenes. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children under 18. Special effects: Wake up and smell the 1990s technology. Video Occasion: Okay for a Rainy Day. Suspense: Several suspenseful moments. Overall movie rating: Three generous stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture taken from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev 1769. Software.
Hodge, Bodie. Tower of Babel: The Cultural History of Our Ancestors. Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Pub., 2013. Print.
Ide, Arthur Frederick. Noah & the Ark: The Influence of Sex, Homophobia and Heterosexism in the Flood Story and its Writing. Las Colinas: Monument Press, 1992. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org