Police Brutality,Over-Policing,and Mass Incarceration in African American Film

The importance of film in society is one that is difficult to fully grasp. Despite declining theater attendance, box office sales are higher than ever and have been consistently increasing in the United States for the last 30 years (Statista, n.d.). Furthermore, 75% of American or Canadian citizens went to a movie theater in 2018, with the average citizen attending five films per year (Motion Picture Association of America [MPAA], 2019). The African American population represented 16% of the total moviegoing demographic for popular films in 2018, but represented 35% of the population for those who attended Black Panther (MPAA, 2019). Directed by Ryan Coogler and populated by a talented Black cast, Black Panther represented a cultural “event” that remains the fourth highest grossing film in American box office history. There were only 16 Black directors among the top 100 grossing films in 2018, and that was—sadly—a vast improvement since the last decade (Smith et al., 2019, p. 3). Despite “larger” representation among directors and the success of Black Panther, only four Black female directors were among the top 1,200 films (Smith et al., 2019, p. 4). This shocking contrast between the representation of Black men and women among filmmakers speaks directly to this article’s focus on police interaction and brutality in African American films. Dozens of films from in the last three decades showcase interactions between the police and African American men, and by focusing on those that have been successful at the box office, a more consistent pattern of plot and style can be established. While these interactions are less common for African American, one of the most popular Black-produced films this article addresses happens to focus exclusively on African American women, providing a rare opportunity to access the social imaginary. The last three decades of film has not changed much of the narrative regarding the interaction of police and African American communities in film due to frequency of police brutality in everyday life. Film is perhaps the most potent medium for demonstrating this injustice, and the films discussed in this article, Boyz n the Hood, Do the Right Thing, Set it Off, Training Day, and Get Out, show, or allude to, a system of oppression that exists within police departments against African American communities. ¹

Before discussing the films in detail, it is necessary to define and provide context to the issues that have been laid out. Police brutality is “conduct that is not merely mistaken, but taken in bad faith with the intent to dehumanize and degrade its target” (Bandes, 1999). This is distinct from “excessive use of force” which lacks the impetus of intent in inflicting dehumanizing harm, and is focusing on the poor judgment of an officer (National Institute of Justice, 2019). Over-policing is the placement of an unnecessary number of police officers to a certain area, or the rapid escalation of police tactics in the face of crime. Political scientists Amy E. Lerman and Vesla M. Weaver (2014) dive into the massive consequences of both over-policing and mass incarceration in the United States. Mass incarceration is a reference to the U.S. system of captivity that has seen more people per capita imprisoned than any other country in the world (Brennan Center for Justice, 2018). The Sentencing Project (2017), which promotes nationwide prison reform in the United States, does an excellent job compiling the multitude of statistics necessary for a full analysis of the U.S. prison system, and one is particularly telling, “the number of people incarcerated for drug offenses in the U.S. skyrocketed from 40,900 in 1980 to 452,964 in 2017.” This paired with the fact that the crime rate has dropped consistently over the last three decades makes mass incarceration appear baffling (Petit & Gutierrez, 2018). People of color are far more likely to be arrested and convicted of a crime with a one in three and a one in six chance for African American men and Latino men, respectively, that are likely to be imprisoned born in 2001 or later, against a one in 17 chance for White men. These statistics are the reality for communities throughout the United States and are represented in the five films discussed in this article.

When looking at African American directors of the last 30 years, it would be outright negligent to omit the work of Spike Lee. Lee’s career spans the entire period under study and the best film to begin this articles analysis: Do the Right Thing. The 1989 film has been extensively written about, was critically acclaimed upon its release, and created a huge amount of controversy (Baker, 1993; Bogle, 2009; Lubiano, 1991). The film is seen by many to be Lee’s best work despite his many other successes. It tells the story of an African American community in New York City on a hot summer day, and is undoubtedly a significant cultural landmark focusing on racial conflict, police brutality, and gentrification. Boyz n the Hood directed by John Singleton is the coming-of-age story of young Black men in an intercity community, exploring the differing life available to them. The film tells a powerful story and authors have written about it extensively due to its realistic depiction of the challenges that young African American men face (Boylorn, 2017; Nadell, 1995). Set it Off directed by F. Gary Gray is a film that, while not a coming-of-age story, has similar themes to Boyz n the Hood. The movie centers around four African American women who decide to become bank robbers after an incident of police brutality and wrongful death. The film is more action-oriented than the other movies being examined, but the realistic tragedies the characters face remain familiar. Surprisingly, this movie is not as extensively written about as the previous two, but its focus on African American women was widely touted at the time of its release and often mentioned in the decades since (Keeling, 2003; Smith-Shomade, 2003). These three films stand together in the pre-2000s as pillars of African American filmmaking, demonstrating many similar threads regarding the interaction of the police and the African American community.

In the 21st century, Training Day, directed by Antoine Fuqua, is something of a tonal shift in African American film. The film concentrates more on the abuse of power and the viewer spends most of the movie looking through the eyes of a new, White, police officer. Jared Sexton’s (2009) excellent article centers on the negative connotations of the film and the scrutiny that comes with success. Finally, Jordan Peele’s Get Out, did not have the box office success of Black Panther, but it had a proportional level of success upon release (Internet Movie Database [IMDb], 2017). It was released to rave reviews in 2017 and is considered a genre-defining film by many. The movie is a horror/thriller putting it in a different category than the rest of the films on this list. It focuses on the relationship between Chris, a young African American photographer, and Rose, a young White woman whose family has an extremely disturbing secret. Despite the less realistic plot, Get Out includes many scenes that feel extremely relatable even with the extraordinary narrative surrounding these scenes. The film includes a common traffic stop scene and an almost worrisome ending with the police, though ultimately ending on a note of relief. Peele (2017) had an alternate ending that nearly made it to release that would have completely altered the final tone of the film but decided to change the ending due to real-world reactions to the picture and changing political situations.

To round out the films and film analyses, sources that include information on the real-world numbers of police brutality in the United States will be utilized to discuss the reality the films attempt to replicate. This is a well-studied topic with notable works throughout the three-decade period, but the important ones to this discussion are works that focus on the summary of police brutality over this period, rather than works on specific incidents (Chaney & Robertson, 2013). Not all of the films focus on incidents of police brutality, or even contain them, but the concern is there for the audience and it is a source of tension within the movies even in the background. An important aspect of this literature is a focus on violence against African American women, which has had more scholarship published in recent years. Specifically, works by Andrea Ritchie (2017) and Michelle S. Jacobs (2017) have opened the door to discussing how African American women have been left out of the mainstream discussion of police violence. As will be later discussed, this gap exists in film as well, which is why Set it Off is such an important example. These movies demonstrate common societal trends regarding police interaction with African American communities and individuals. These interactions are portrayed to be a systematic problem, rather than individual bigotry, and Spike Lee provides a potent example to analyze.

Do the Right Thing opens with an intense scene with Rosie Perez dancing to “Fight the Power” by Public Enemy. Her performance style sets the tone as a film about conflict, and examples of this confrontational narrative are constant in the plot. The tension is first introduced in a scene between three older men that spend most of the movie sitting on the sidewalk, talking about the problems in the community, and a police cruiser. The scene is simple, but it establishes a tone between the two groups that will be almost constant throughout these films. The three men simply stare down the police cruiser that drives by and two officers stare back ending with one member of each group saying, “what a waste.” In the background, an ominous jazz tune plays that makes this interaction feel like it stands the test of time. The men on both sides of this stare down have a sense that this scene is repetitive, the three older men are always on that corner and the officers always drive that beat but still the stare down occurs. The entire scene working together makes it feel like this is the state of the relationship between the African American community and the police, and it is the way it has been for a long time. The police are outsiders in the community trying to impose authority on people they are not a part of and do not respect to the detriment of the public (Lee, 1989).

The film has two major moments in the climax, the first, a fight between Sal and Radio Raheem, resulting in Radio Raheem’s death at the hands of the police summoned to break up the fight. The second instance occurs when Mookie decides to throw a trash can through Sal’s Pizzeria window following radio Raheem’s murder. At the end of the fight between Sal and Radio Raheem, the police arrive to the chaotic scene of a brawl and immediately restrain and arrest Radio Raheem and Buggin Out. Radio Raheem is killed by a chokehold now seems to eerily foreshadow the widely publicized death of Eric Garner in New York City 25 years later. The police hastily put Radio Raheem’s body in the back of one of their cars and retreat from the scene leaving behind an enraged community. The theme of the police being outsiders is symbolized on here by the hurried entry into the scene, and their even more hurried exit from the neighborhood. This case of police brutality feels like the latest to the crowd left behind, and Mookie embodies the sentiment of frustration and anger palpable among the community (Lee, 1989). The resulting riot sees the total destruction Sal’s Pizzeria, and near demolition of the Korean store in the community, but the police do not return. It is clear that despite the constant presence of the police in the community throughout the day, they are not a part of that community and do not act as keepers of the peace, but are viewed as oppressors of that populace.

Boyz n the Hood offers a very different cinematic experience, one that centers on the entire adolescent life of young Black protagonists rather than a single day. With that chronology in mind, the movie focuses on the varied challenges young Black men face growing up in an inner-city. The incidents with police are less obvious in the film, as the story does not climax around any police interaction, but there are two scenes that stand out. The first is immediately following an attempted burglary at the home of Furious, after which the police arrive an hour late, and encounter an understandably upset Furious. Two police take a report from Furious, one White and one Black. The Black officer is immediately confrontational with Furious, while his White colleague is terse but professional. Furious is exasperated by the attitude of the Black officer, but nothing more comes of the confrontation (Singleton, 1991). The challenging tone of the Black officer is an important moment of police interaction for the viewer and for a young Tre in this scene due to the later interactions in the film that will relentlessly affect the young Black characters.

Another aspect of this film is mass incarceration. Doughboy and Chris are arrested for shoplifting prior to the film’s time skip, and immediately after the skip, the audience sees Doughboy celebrating his release from jail. The audience is reintroduced to the entire cast post time skip and everyone has been dealt different challenges. Doughboy has become a member of the Crips gang and likely has gone to prison for a variety of crimes; Chris has been paralyzed by a gunshot wound; and Ricky is a high school age father and football star. Tre seems to be the most established, but spends the rest of the movie dealing with consequences of the actions of those around him. As a young adult, Tre is pulled over by the same police officers that answered the burglary call, made by his father Furious, so many years earlier. The Black officer once again becomes confrontational, but this time he threatens Tre with death and indicates that he became an officer so he could scare people like Tre. The casualness with which the officer pulls out his lethal weapon and puts it against the throat of a child is chilling and makes for a compelling scene. The officers eventually leave without any legal consequences to themselves for the moment, but once again it is the authenticity with which Singleton creates this scene that makes it particularly alarming. Singleton is not inventing a new world or a new moment, Boyz n the Hood tells a very real story of Black urban angst in the 1990s, and scenes like this are not foreign to the real world.

The success of movies like the previous two discussed cracked the door for more films in these veins, but F. Gary Gray was able to open that crack a bit more. Set it Off, starring Jada Pinkett, Vivica Fox, Queen Latifah, and Kimberly Elise, focuses on the story of four African American women who turn to crime after many tragedies in their lives. The four women have different motivations for turning to the robbery that guides the plot, but one character, Stony played by Jada Pinkett Smith, agrees to participate due to the unlawful killing of her younger brother by police. The film is then based around a string of robberies by the four women, a relationship, and a detective attempting to unravel it all. In the climax of the film, the four women are interrupted during their last robbery, T.T. is shot by a security guard, Cleo is killed in a shootout, and Frankie is shot in the back by the police. Stony is the only one to escape to a better fate out of the country with some of the money accumulated in the group’s robberies.

The deaths at the end of the film are more theatrical than scenes in the previous films, but the communal experiences the women go through, especially at the beginning of the film, are genuine. The death of Stony’s brother Stevie due to a misidentification of a person and of a weapon is an eerily familiar aspect of news stories involving the shooting of African American men by police (Gray, 1996). Bogle’s (2009) analysis of Set it Off brings up interesting points about the role of victimhood and the broad appeal of the film (pp. 383–384). Set it Off managed to quadruple its budget at the box office, yet the success of this film and others like Waiting to Exhale did not lead to a major market for starring African American women (p. 383). This was further exacerbated by the lack of African American women in director chairs, as most films starring African American women in this period were directed by men (Bogle, 2009). Bogle’s points are important to note as this lightly bucks the Hollywood trend of backing successful genres for time, yet African American women seem not to get their spotlight. This is in stark contrast to films like Boyz n the Hood, which was a part of a growing number of films focused on young African American men.

A more recent article on Black Entertainment Television’s website, written by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan (2016), claims Set it Off to be “a Seminal Film for Black Feminism.” Sullivan (2016) points to the simple fact that this film concentrates on the four women, their efforts to deal with the challenges against them, and the fact the film is built around their attempts to advance for themselves. While the death of Stevie is the motivation for Stony, the rest of the characters are motivated by wanting to break free from the economic constraints by which they seem bound. Furthermore, this film shows the deaths of two of the main characters at the hands of police officers, with Frankie’s death portrayed as completely unnecessary, unlawful, and cowardly having been shot in the back (Gray, 1996). Sullivan (2016) places emphasis on the relevance of this film today and that the issues the film focuses on are still the issues being talked about two decades later. The movie received plenty of great reviews when released and has become a part of the lasting memory in this genre of film. This film is undoubtedly a trailblazer, but how many films like it have been made since? Widows, a film directed by Steve McQueen in 2018 about a group of widowers who follow their husbands into a life of crime, is the most recent film that comes to mind, but it does not have the same level of social commentary that exists in Set it Off. The fact that Set it Off is still being pointed to as both a film ahead of its time and one that remains socially relevant, suggests a failure of the industry to produce films that focus on the self-empowerment of African American women through an action genre film.

Training Day is similar to Set it Off in that it approaches the themes of abuse of power, racism, and crime, differently from most films that focus on police interaction with the African American community. Denzel Washington plays a police officer named Alonzo Harris who is corrupt and gets a new partner, Jake Hoyt, who slowly comes to realize the extent of Alonzo’s corruption. The film emphasizes the problems that come with the abuse of power and the issues that emerge in situations with power discrepancies. Alonzo touts his authority throughout the film over whomever he can, from Jake to the people that he interrogates, arrests, and abuses. During the film, the audience is introduced to three of Alonzo’s superiors that are all involved in the corruption that Alonzo is party to. Alonzo answers to these men and is clearly put off balance by the authority they have over him. As the extent of Alonzo’s corruption is revealed, Jake is drawn further into it by blackmail and threats until Alonzo decides to have Jake killed. Jake is only saved by coincidence, gets his revenge on Alonzo by forcing him to flee the men to whom he owes money, and is ultimately hunted down for his failure to pay (Fuqua, 2001).

The film’s perspective is from the police, rather than most movies that deal with crime and corruption from the perspective of perpetrators. In Jared Sexton’s (2009) article, “The Ruse of Engagement,” he examines the complicated role of African Americans with official authority within the power structures still controlled by “White supremacy.” Sexton uses Training Day as a case study for this and breaks down the problematic themes in this film, that are paralleled in mainstream society, with a discussion about the cultural history of King Kong and its mention in the film (Fuqua, 2001, p. 59). Alonzo compares himself to King Kong in one of the final scenes of the movie and, according to Sexton, the comparison begs larger questions about the validity of the film’s role in Hollywood (Fuqua, 2001, p. 60). Alonzo is painted as this irredeemable villain who is killed off at the end of the film with no fanfare, and Sexton states “he is not mourned by anyone within the film” (Fuqua, 2001, p. 60). While the movie has nuance in terms of police corruption and the drug trade, it is Denzel Washington’s performance rather than Alonzo’s character that is remembered from this film. It does, however, make an important point from the angle of police departments about the possibility of complete corruption within them.

What comparisons can be drawn from these four films and the important scenes in them? There are some immediate commonalties, the most obvious being the relationship between the police and African American communities as a relationship of oppression rather than protection. From the less serious examples of the stare down scene in Do the Right Thing and the disrespect shown to Furious in Boyz n the Hood, to the scenes of tragedy with the deaths of Radio Raheem in Do the Right Thing and Stevie in Set it Off, the interactions with the police are almost exclusively negative, with only brief scenes of neutrality at best. In Boyz n the Hood, the first scene of interaction shows one officer as disrespectful, but the other is professional if not approachable. In Set it Off, Detective Strode does leave his life in Frankie’s hands in an attempt to talk her down, but this is immediately followed by her shooting. Disrespect and tragedy are attached to these scenes and try to convey a message of systematic abuse rather than individual bigotry.

This emphasis on the lives, experiences, and police interaction of young African Americans, men in particular, is one that exists in the real world. Film represents one medium in which African American men have had more representation than African American women, but this discrepancy is one that persists in social perception and academic writing about police brutality. The numbers and coverage for police violence and murder of African American men have shaken the United States on dozens of occasions in the last three decades. From the beating of Rodney King, and subsequent LA Riots in 1994, to the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, these events are known and have had their stories told. What about the men and women whose deaths or injuries did not make national news? The films here point out something more systematic, a trend rather than important exceptions. This is done quite well by Training Day and Boyz n the Hood, which both show the hostility and corruption that officers can display toward a population. The fact that the two offending officers in these films are African American is important to mention, and Sexton (2009) opens his article with a quote from James Baldwin (1976):

Blacks know something about black cops . . . They know that their presence on the force doesn’t change the force or the judges or the lawyers or the bondsmen or the jails . . . They know how much the black cop has to prove, and how limited are his means of proving it: where I grew up, black cops were yet more terrifying than white ones.

The idea that systematic change will not be enacted by a few individuals is important, as is the realization that the pressure African American officers face from their White colleagues could make their relationship with their own community tenuous. It is difficult to mend that constant relationship of hostility and oppression between African American communities and the police when hostility has become ingrained in the system.

Systematic police brutality against African Americans is the subject of several studies in recent years that have attempted to explain why these killings, beatings, or simple prejudice occur. Sociologists Cassandra Chaney and Ray V. Robertson (2013) track the details of police brutality in the 21 years following the death of Rodney King (p. 1). Their article utilizes the work of the National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project to better understand how the public views police officers and the influence of race in that view (Chaney & Robertson, 2013, p. 482). Chaney and Robertson have an extensive literature review to show past work on everything from the role of education in the competency of police officers, to the role of critical race theory on this issue. The study is based on a survey of several dozen individuals who were asked their opinions on numerous aspects of police officers and police work (Chaney & Robertson, 2013, p. 483). The findings are fascinating as the divisiveness is extremely clear with several individuals holding the police in disturbingly high regard, with several others professing the opposite (Chaney & Robertson, 2013, p. 501). The study’s focus is on perception, both of the police and of African American men, with their conclusions emphasizing the polar opposite views of the police and the suspicion African American men are subjected to on a daily basis (Chaney & Robertson, 2013, p. 502).

The problems that researchers of police brutality must face are laid out in Geoffrey P. Alpert and Roger G. Dunham’s work Understanding Police Use of Force. They are quite daunting as police departments have differing rules for reporting use of force, the officers themselves are doing the reporting, and access is not always given to outside researchers (Alpert & Dunham, 2004, p. 155). The book is really an attempt by the two authors to understand what prompts the use of force by police and what escalates situations of force (Alpert & Dunham, 2004, p. 183). They come to a myriad of possible broad conclusions, but most of those fall under what they call “authority maintenance theory.” This focuses on the idea that police officers exert the most force, or choose to use force, when their authority is directly threatened or ignored. Force is an option that can be a response to the challenge of authority, but one of the goals of this book is to better understand this response to teach it out of police officers before they are in a situation where their authority is challenged (Alpert & Dunham, 2004, p. 183). The narrative of use of force and brutality is in each of the films here and one way to address the problem systematically will be massive overhaul of the training of police officers; this book represents an important step on how to accomplish that.

A less prominent perspective on use of force and brutality are their effects on African American women, and Andrea J. Ritchie’s book, Invisible No More, aims to change that trend. Ritchie focuses on African American women, Indigenous women, and women of color to show the systematic abuse that occurs in police forces across the country against them. Ritchie (2017) looks at many aspects of police influence on women including sex, motherhood, youth, sexual violence, and policies that control how women are treated by the justice system (p. 16). The violence against women is not as prevalent as it is against men, but Ritchie (2017) argues that that does not detract from the validity of examining women’s experiences with the police and that the types of abuse women go through at the hands of the police are less reported (p. 234). The major arguments that Ritchie puts forward are that police violence against women is systematic, just as it is for men, and that the answer to these problems is to reduce the role of police in the public sphere rather than attempting to retrain or educate officers. It is an interesting argument and over-policing has been a theme in all of the movies that have been examined here and, as Get Out will show, these problems are still present.

Get Out is one of the most recent films that has an important message about the interactions between the police and African Americans. Get Out was released in 2017 and it draws upon many cultural events in the last 30 years; it is also fictional in a different way from the other movies. The events of Get Out are simultaneously ridiculous and relatable, from awkward first meetings with a significant other’s parents to having part of a brain transplanted into your body so you can no longer control your movements. There are two major scenes in the theatrical release of the film that address interaction with police, and both end up lacking the consequences that occur in the other films. The first scene happens after an incident with a deer where an officer asks for Chris’ license despite the fact Chris was not driving. His girlfriend passionately defends Chris, accuses the officer of prejudice, possibly for nefarious reasons, and the officer backs off. Chris was completely ready to hand over his license to the officer with the motions of a man who had been asked for his information with regularity. If anything, the scene leaves the viewer with a distinct sense of exasperation, which Chris must have been feeling, combined with a sense of resignation. The familiarity of the small breach of Chris’ rights as an American is something remains ingrained in American society and is present in many of the other films here (IMDb, 2017).

The far more significant example of this is after everything that Chris goes through in the movie. After the final fight, with an injured White woman and several bodies in the area, a police car arrives. The ending of the film reveals the officer to be Chris’ best friend Rod Williams, a TSA agent who drove all the way to rural New York because he was worried about his friend (IMDb, 2017). Despite everything that happened in the film, the ending is one of at least slight victory for Chris as he has stopped an evil cult family from claiming anymore victims. However, the ending has a moment of unease right before it is revealed that Rod was the responding officer. After everything that Chris had been through, was he about to be arrested or shot by the police? That may have been the assumption that many viewers made when the police car arrived, and it took exceptional circumstances to prevent that from happening. This is perhaps the most direct example of what the problems are inside police forces in the United States. The expectation that the police will quickly misjudge a situation and make a possibly fatal mistake is a message that is a chilling realization about the readiness to use lethal force by police officers.

The theatrical ending leaves the viewer with a sense of relief at Chris’ survival and success, but there is another way that this film almost ended. In several interviews, Peele discussed the film’s original ending that was the first written and shot ending. This conclusion sees Chris arrested by two White police officers and, rather than saved by Rod, Chris ends up imprisoned, resigned to his fate in the face of his trial, and indifferent to Rod’s efforts to help him win. Peele’s thoughts on this ending are interesting:

I wrote this movie in the Obama era and we were in this post racial lie. This movie was meant to call out that racism that is still simmering beneath the surface. And so, this ending to the movie felt like it was the gut punch the world needed because something about it rings very true, and when something rings true in your core you have to deal with it . . . By the time I was shooting it, it was quite clear that the world had shifted. Racism was being dealt with, people were woke, and people needed a release and a hero. (IMDb, 2017)

The idea that the two-term presidency of Barack Obama ended racism was and is a dangerous one and Peele felt like the answer to that was to remind the audience of the sobering reality of mass incarceration and the fear of police brutality. There is no doubt that the original ending feels awful. Chris’ resignation after dealing with the cult family and his final conversation with Rod are difficult to watch. While Peele was certainly right that the election of Donald Trump and other major events in between the writing and shooting of the film shocked the country out of any delusion of a post-racial society, was the theatrical ending the right decision? Similar to Sexton’s thoughts about Training Day, though certainly to a lesser extent, the theatrical ending teases the viewer with the original ending, and what might be the realistic ending. Despite the realization of many that post-racial society is a fiction, the alternate ending to Get Out would have been, as Peele said, a gut punch to the audience. Even with the success of Get Out, the film’s original ending would deliver a more potent message, perhaps with a sacrifice of narrative satisfaction.

The ability of film to reach audiences and show people stories that they otherwise would not see is still relevant at today’s box office. Films like Get Out and Black Panther demonstrate the ability of Black stars and directors to connect with audiences at the box office time and again. There needs to be a continued expansion of African American directors, especially African American women, as they have received criminally few chances to direct high-budget films even in recent years. Unfortunately, messages about police brutality, racism, and corruption in the films from the last three decades are still extremely relevant today and more films need to be made to make people understand the real-world problems that exist, like mass incarceration and police brutality. These movies, fictional but grounded in everyday reality, can be one of the most effective mediums for promoting greater understanding between communities and authorities in the United States. Most importantly, the “gut punch” needs to be in these films to show people the reality that they are oblivious to or, as Doughboy puts it, “don’t know, don’t show, or don’t care about” (IMDb, 2017).