Made In America - Review

Last week I went to see Made In America. It is a documentary about the formation and existence of the Bloods and Crips. This is a subject that I feel well-educated on, so I was very skeptical going in to the movie. Here's my review. 

Positives: The first thing I noticed about the movie was the amazing visuals. The movie has incredible overhead clips of South LA and great shots on location as well. The visual production of the movie is very good. It starts off talking about the migration of Blacks to LA and then into the Watts Riots. The historical parts were very good and the interviews that accompanied them fit nicely. Every point that I hoped to hear was there. As the movie continued, hearing from the former gang bangers was very good as well. 

Negatives: The movie centered about the projects and Compton. Doing this makes it feel very sensational. That combined with the non-historical segments which were just interviews with young men basically saying they are going to do what they do gave a very one-dimensional view of the whole thing. The movie did touch on things like self-hatred and lack of male role-models, but all of it was not very well organized. It jumped around a lot. There was a focus on reformation toward the end, but I think the portrayal could have been solved by interviewing young people that had now made the choice not to bang, or never did bang and tell that story as well. 

Overall: Overall, I would not recommend that people go out and view this as soon as possible and I would not recommend that people not see it. I don't feel that it brings anything new to the story. In fact, I was surprised that it did not touch on the changes occurring today. Over the last 20 years, the population of South LA has shifted toward a majority Latino population. Although it is often overstated, and seems to have leveled off, South LA is definitely 60-70% Latino (although you wouldn't know from watching the news). This has changed the operation and dominance of Bloods and Crips. For example, some Blood and Crip gangs have put aside past beefs as numbers dip due to people moving out. Also, many gangs have just straight up died off because there are no new members due to the changes in population. I think there has been more pressure for some youth to join gangs in areas where the shifts have occurred for the mere fact that the number of youth is less then in previous generations. None of this was addressed in the film - meaning that the film brings nothing new to the understanding of how and why the gangs exist.