Friday's Treatment of Social Issues
Friday's Treatment of Social IssuesThe movie Friday is a comedy, but it also depicts many important
social issues. The story is set in the city of Los Angeles,
California, in what could be called a high class ghetto. The main
theme of the movie is about a young black man who looses his job and
is influenced by his best friend to smoke marijuana. The movie also
shows the relationships of his family and other members of his
neighborhood. With a zany cast of characters and a hilarious script
this movie touches on everything from gang v lence to the use of
drugs, crime, guns, relationships, sex and life in the ghetto. Because
of all these issues, I found this an interesting movie with a wide
variety of topics to address.
Marijuana has been around for a long time. It's use is once again
becoming popular. Although it's not legal, many people use it socially
and for medicinal purposes. The Hollywood elite smoke it. Musicians
such as Dr. Dre and the Black Crows celebra it's use. Television shows
like Saturday Night Live and Kids In the Hall depict it as harmless
fun. Marijuana fashion has grown into a ten million dollar industry,
with the seven branch marijuana leaf showing up on caps, T-shirts,
earrings and tattoos. Studies show that after a decade of declining
drug use, marijuana use has increased sharply among gh school students
and college students in the last two years (Duschbaun 8).
In the movie Friday, rap star Ice Cube plays the character Craig.
Craig has never smoked marijuana. However, his best friend "Smokey"
smokes marijuana everyday. Craig looses his job, leaving him home all
day with nothing to do to occupy his time. H just hangs out in the
neighborhood with his friends. Smokey tries to convince Craig to try
some marijuana. At first Craig doesn't want to. Smokey is persistent.
He points out to Craig that he doesn't have to work and doesn't have
anything better to . Craig and Smokey eventually sit on the front
porch and get stoned. Peer pressure is obviously the only reason Craig
gives in. Actually he had other options, but he chose not to use them.
Common sense and a simple explanation would have worked for aig just
fine (How to Say No and Keep Your Friends 23) Everyday we are faced
with choices. It is up to us to decide what's right and wrong. Craig
decides to try it and things start to happen that he really doesn't
like.
Craig and Smokey get into some trouble with the neighborhood
dealer, Big Worm. Smokey sells pot for him, but can't pay him the
money he owes because he and Craig smoked the pot. Big Worm threatens
them and sends a gang of "hoods" after them with mach e guns. They
just barely escape and are scared shitless. The amount of gang
violence that can be contributed to the use and sale of illegal drugs
has risen dramatically in the past seven years (Gates 67). It's no
wonder that this is happening with th use of marijuana becoming so
popular again. Violence and crime are issues we hear about every day.
We can watch any news broadcast and see the evidence of these
increasingly worrisome problems. In Friday, both of these issues are
very apparent. Debone, the neighborhood thief and "bully" is co tantly
harassing the people in Craig's neighborhood. He breaks into their
homes, steals their possessions, beats people up to take their jewelry
and other items and is just generally a pain in everyones ass. He is
the most violent person in the movie Craig gets into a fight with him
and pulls a gun on Debone. Craig feels confused and not sure what to
do. His father convinces him to give him the gun. He insists that
Craig should fight like a man with his fists. I don't think that was
very good a ice. Debone was twice as big as Craig and probably 100
pounds heavier. They do fight and surprisingly Craig wins. You would
think that most problems can be solved without violent acts. The
reality is that sometimes, under certain circumstances, that ust
doesn't work. Obviously, this was one of those times.
Sexual promiscuity was also depicted in this movie. Craig's
neighbor has an affair with a preacher. His sisters friend sleeps
around to get drugs. Smokey puts the moves on anything in a skirt. To
so blatantly condone this kind of behavior is repulsive. With the
rampant spread of the Aids virus and other sexually transmitted
diseases anyone with common sense would know better than to behave in
this manner. Unwanted pregnancies and the abortion rate or serious
issues that should also be considered. Craig seemed to have a loving
and supportive family. His dad was a real trip. His ideas about how to
handle certain situations were a bit far-fetched, but he meant well.
Because there was no indication of what age the kids in the movie
were, it's ha to comment on how the parents should have advised their
kids. I do know that quite a few of the kids' actions were
questionable, even illegal. For example, if these kids were minors
they would all be considered unruly. Unruliness is an offense that ly
a minor can commit (Fessler 105). All the kids in the movie were
disobedient, smoked pot and acted in ways their parents should have
been responsible to control. Both of Craig's parents worked, which
left the kids unsupervised the majority of the time. Some of the
parents in the movie also set terrible examples for their kids.
Smokey's mom locked him out of the house so she could have sex with
her male friends. She also got high and disregarded her parental
responsibility to her kids. Although the area where Craig and his
friends lived didn't look like what we might picture a ghetto to look
like in our minds, it was still a ghetto. Poverty and other social
issues make it what it is.......a very depressing and frustrating
place to live. Because of all the negative ways of life including
crime, violence, gangs, drugs and all the other things I've referred
to in this paper, I would conclude this would not be the kind of
lifestyle I would choose to live. Unfortunately, many of the people
that live under these conditions don't have a choice. They are most
often born into these situations or faced with dealing with them
because of financial struggle or lack of resources to change their
ways of life. We can consider ourselves fortunat to not have to deal
with these kinds of problems on a daily basis. That is not to say that
ALL people in the ghetto stay there. There are some who work hard and
get the education or training they need to escape this kind of
lifestyle. Where there's will there's a way and depending on how
strongly they want out, it can happen.
All in all this movie was pretty entertaining. I wouldn't suggest
it for kids who might be influenced in a negative way by the things
that happened or who are not mature enough to know the difference
between right and wrong. The movie does portray a t of negative issues
as being acceptable. This could be harmful to young kids who are
influenced by peer pressure and this kind of nonchalant attitude
toward breaking the law. It is up to us to determine what is okay for
our youth. Parents should de rmine if this would be acceptable for
their kids to view.
Friday is an entertaining, yet morally questionable flick. The
social issues it depicts are many. Viewing it also raised a lot of
questions on how the movie industry doesn't care what they produce.
They are interested solely in making money. Their ob is to entertain
us. They have accomplished that with this movie. It made me laugh, but
because of this assignment it made me realize that comedy was not the
important part of seeing this movie. Realizing how people live and
relate to each other is ritical in understanding our society on the
whole. Recognizing this is how we can begin to make positive changes
to things that are wrong and improve our lives in general.