Step Up 2: The Streets
Okay, so as I mentioned in my Style Wars post below, I own like every 80’s hip hop movie. This fetish with these old school movies has led to my obsession with the horrible hip hop dance movies that follow in the tradition of Breakin’. Such films as You Got Served, Step Up and the latest in a the line, the soon to be classic Step Up 2.
I saw Step Up 2: The Streets in Richmond, because my friend Barry is the only person on Earth who would consider watching this movie with me. I have seen the last 5 Martin Lawrence movies with him, I saw Drum Line with him, I even saw Kangaroo Jack with him. (Although even Barry refused to watch Soul Plane with me). Anyway, after some convincing I got him to go with me.
The movie was a way better dance movie than Step Up and it might have had the best dancing in a film since You Got Served, but the plot was completely nonsensical and the acting was horrible. The one interesting thing about the film plot wise was that in the great tradition of films like Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, Honey and Fame the film is set up to end in a big talent show/ fundraiser thing. And then, they totally skipped the fundraiser so they could “take it to the streets”. It totally turned the table on traditional dance films and blew my mind…
But the most noticeable thing about the movie was how completely blatanly racist it was. The movie was about a white girl in an “urban” dance crew who then got kicked out and had to start a crew of art school drama queers. Her old crew, the bad guys, were predominately black or latino. Her new crew on the other hand only had two black people, who both were light skinned with straightened hair and were extremely non threatening. The crew also featured a completely stereotyped version of an Asian who during the final scene actually screams “I love America!” One of the major points of conflict is that the main white girl was in some sort or relationship with a black guy at the beginning, but she never actually kissed or touched him, but then she ended stuff with him for an Abercrombie wearing boy band looking motherfucker. Amazing. The makers of this film are appropriating black culture in order to both make money and at the same time undermine that same culture. It is actually pretty impressive. They are literally taking it to the streets.
So, in summary. Bad acting, good dancing, unapologetically racist.
PS. You would get extremely drunk if you took a drink every time a guy took off his shirt for no reason what so ever.
PPS. I just googled “Step Up 2, racism” and I found this article who describes Step Up 2 as “the single most racist movie that will be released by any major American studio in the first 10 years of the twenty-first century”. So I am not alone.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8P9leqyY20&feature=related[/youtube]
Low – Flo Rider Featuring T-Pain (Step Up 2: The Streets Soundtrack)
Wow . . . I thought I was the only person who saw the cultural insensitivity of this movie! I totally agree. I think it’s in “fluff pieces” where stereotypes are particularly dangerous. The movie claimed that it wanted to showcase how dance and hip-hop transcends cultural and class divisions, but the plot only served to highlight and exploit these barriers. I hold the writers more responsible for this missed opportunity than the director, though. A few simple plot changes could have given the storyline the level of emotional intelligence that even a cartoon deserves. It’s easy to believe that observations like this will only fall on deaf ears, but I hope more people – in audiences and in the movie industry – will be less naïve and apathetic whenever another studio decides to mass-market such ignorance.