I can tell you why Fruitvale Station didn't get nominated and it's not because its lacking any artistic depth or cinematic intricacy. The movie is crafted to catapult street culture or inner city culture onto the big screen without diminishing it by giving into the hegemonizing effects of white suburban culture. However its use of what I dub "Street Aeshetics" has prevented it from entering the good graces of Oscar land. Mainstream media is not ready to get rid of its elitist academically driven judgement of society and high art rejects art that has been made with clay and sidewalk pavement (much to the dismay of many dead artist who relied on such materials to get by). Street Aesthetic praises city culture and rages against the notion of "nothingness". It preaches building up your community, not getting out. Or if it does preach about getting out, the voices waiver, embroiled in a struggle between where they are from and a foreign land that is suburbia. This reliance on Street Aesthetic to tell a story is in my opinion a budding art form and as long as inner city kids like me are foolishly given a college education from an Elite institution, soon we will see a shift in the critical discussion of art. You need a city kid to spot it, but anyone can interpret and analyze a movie through the lens of Street Aesthetics. Street aesthetic is unique in that it serves two purposes.
The first purpose and the one I consider to be primary is the impetus to emotionally move those from the inner city with its content. It is the Oscar award winning movie (or Pulitzer Prize novel or Game of the Year game) that can be easily understood and more importantly empathized with by those from the inner city. It doesn't cut corners or create a tidy depiction of Oscar Grant. Instead it portrays him through the eyes of his own culture. He is a man of faults, but the weight of those faults that are typically over sensationalized by the mainstream media are instead contextualized by the people around him. This movie is jarring for most non-inner city folk because it forces them to reconsider their stereotypical notions about the black man who is a criminal. To many people black men who do crime are the problem. They plague the black community and make up a large percentage of the black community (or as some people have phrased it to me, are the "loudest" in the black community"). These assumptions make it ok to hold preconceived notions, otherwise known as stereotypes, about black people.
But Fruitvale Station fights against this stereotypical portrayal. Instead it takes the incarcerated black man and portrays him as the Father, the Son and the animus of the community. He is not perfect, but he is an integral part. One, who is from the inner city, cannot help but relate with Oscar Grant. He is your neighbor or your best friend. He is no different from many people in our lives and even for some of us he is much like ourselves. If you find yourself disagreeing, then you are most likely not from the inner city and therefore cannot easily connect with the cultural content being displayed. For once the cultural capital needed to interpret art is found on the side of a building in graffiti as opposed to the footnotes in a Norton Anthology.
Does this seemingly foreign cultural complexity make it impossible for non-inner city people to be able to connect to the movie? No. This hurdle is tied to the second purpose of Street Aesthetic. Street Aesthetic is cognizant to the hegemonic forces at work in its medium. Therefore it strives to bridge the gap between those who are being mediated by white suburban hegemonic culture. This bridge often comes in the form of an outsider looking in. For Fruitvale Station the girl at the supermarket, Oscar's mom and the married man are three bridges provided to non city audiences. The girl at the supermarket allows Oscar to show the universality of his humanity. Oscar isn't only a black man who cares about black (Latino/Asian/Minority would probably also fit here) people, but someone who cares about the people around him. Setting him up with ulterior motives such as him trying to get his job back, allows the audience to safely maintain their preconceived suspicion of his character. His mother who is portrayed to raise him well and to be a secure role model in his life, exists to connect to the audience, who is mouthing (inside) with Oscar's mom the chastisement she gives him for his poor life choices. However, her wisdom and reliance on normative institutions ultimately fails her in the end, resulting in the death of her son. Finally, the man who Oscar meets outside the area where his girlfriend is using the bathroom represents the perfect bridge between two individuals. The man portrays himself as a rags to riches story, which required him to also cross the line between right and wrong, thus bringing himself down to the same moral compass of Oscar. The only difference is this man somehow created his own start up. The movie does not explore why the prospect of Oscar doing the same is very small, but instead brushes it off and creates a scene of camaraderie that borderlines unbelievable. The notion of them having this deeply reflective and personal conversation does not seem out of the realm of possibility, but the man handing his business card did seem a tad incredulous for a man who just met Oscar in the hazy euphoria of New Years Eve. Then again perhaps New Years Eve is the only time those shenanigans would take place. Regardless, the man exist to allow non-city audience members to finally relate. They begin thinking, "wow, I misjudged Oscar he is more like me than I thought." This misconception is necessitated by stratification. If you want an audience you need to connect with those with money somehow. I am not saying that those from the inner city cannot possibly understand or empathize with the story of Oscar Grant. I am merely suggesting that movie is cognizant of the cultural gap between it and its audience and it strives to fill that hole with a series of bridges that serve as cultural training wheels.
The impulse of many reading this is probably to laugh. Many might think that this notion of "street aesthetic" is a fantasy developed by a cultureless and artistically inadequate inner city kid. However, I know that the movie uses powerful imagery that can only be fully understood with knowledge of city culture. The use of the pitbull, a commonly misunderstood dog, slaughtered in the movie creates a powerful foreshadowing of Oscar's death. The pitbull is consistently used for dogfighting in street culture, but it's also used for protection, a first line of defense if you will. The pitbull is the ADT for a poor inner city family. Also, the location by the water and it being referred to as the place by the water mirrors the small pockets and "safe" havens one must find in order to regain sanity in the city. The closeness to water is a common trope, of escaping the suffocating experience of the city.These are only two, I can go on and on about cultural signifiers that the movie uses.
Street Aesthetic does not ignore race, but race isn't a pre-requisite to engaging with it. What I mean to say is that just because you are black doesn't mean you have the cultural capital to engage with street aesthetic. There are plenty of blacks who will watch Fruitvale Station and be unable to connect with some of the themes in the movie. Just as there will be Latinos who connect far more strongly with the story of Oscar Grant. Does this strip him away from his blackness via a homogenizing "urban" label? No. Ingrained in inner city culture is a necessity to categorize by race and ethnic background. One cannot separate the race or ethnicity from the person because the city constantly reminds you about those identities. I'm unable to speak about this from the black perspective (I am not black), but I know that there are some themes in Fruitvale station that will not be understood by any individual who has not experienced inner city culture. The same is probably true for some of the black experiences portrayed in the film, ones that I cannot fully understand without engaging with black culture (and many experience I'll never fully understand). The point trying to be stressed (and possibly quite poorly) is that Street Aesthetic both affirms ones racially driven experiences, while removing the subordination of a racist society on said experience. It also acknowledges a "melting pot" (and I use that word while wincing) experience one faces in the city where we certainly are forced to deal with a hodge podge of individuals (often time minority). Furthermore, these minorities have strong communities that have stores that carry their own traditions and way of life, making it common for one to experience culture in a more visceral manner as opposed to those who are forced to branch out into a predominantly "this or that" neighborhood, where one culture is the context for all others existing.
I finish this exposition of "Street Aesthetic" feeling quite unsatisfied. I have so many questions that I haven't yet sorted out. First, I wonder if a movie that does no provide a bridge for a non inner city viewer would still be considered Street Aesthetic. I also foresee a stringing racial critique of my use of blackness in this essay. I can understand how this might be read as a threat to black culture, but I feel many blacks from the inner city who read this will see it more as an accurate interpretation of the dynamics of race and class. Also, when we work with social class more, one will find that the city experience isn't only germane to the poor, making the dynamics of middle and even at times (though rare) upper middle class a problematic element in many of these films. It's hard to watch the scene between the married man and Oscar and not feel a little perturbed by the huge disconnect between the situations of the man and Oscar. I really appreciate anyone who decided to waste their time reading this far into this post. I understand that the musings of an undergraduate commands very little respect. Feel free to insert your own observations. I strongly believe that this is the beginning of a new critical discussion of art. One that serves to undercut the bourgeois theory that most of my peers work from, completely ignorant to how the normative white, upper class assumptions they bring into the world.
The first purpose and the one I consider to be primary is the impetus to emotionally move those from the inner city with its content. It is the Oscar award winning movie (or Pulitzer Prize novel or Game of the Year game) that can be easily understood and more importantly empathized with by those from the inner city. It doesn't cut corners or create a tidy depiction of Oscar Grant. Instead it portrays him through the eyes of his own culture. He is a man of faults, but the weight of those faults that are typically over sensationalized by the mainstream media are instead contextualized by the people around him. This movie is jarring for most non-inner city folk because it forces them to reconsider their stereotypical notions about the black man who is a criminal. To many people black men who do crime are the problem. They plague the black community and make up a large percentage of the black community (or as some people have phrased it to me, are the "loudest" in the black community"). These assumptions make it ok to hold preconceived notions, otherwise known as stereotypes, about black people.
But Fruitvale Station fights against this stereotypical portrayal. Instead it takes the incarcerated black man and portrays him as the Father, the Son and the animus of the community. He is not perfect, but he is an integral part. One, who is from the inner city, cannot help but relate with Oscar Grant. He is your neighbor or your best friend. He is no different from many people in our lives and even for some of us he is much like ourselves. If you find yourself disagreeing, then you are most likely not from the inner city and therefore cannot easily connect with the cultural content being displayed. For once the cultural capital needed to interpret art is found on the side of a building in graffiti as opposed to the footnotes in a Norton Anthology.
Does this seemingly foreign cultural complexity make it impossible for non-inner city people to be able to connect to the movie? No. This hurdle is tied to the second purpose of Street Aesthetic. Street Aesthetic is cognizant to the hegemonic forces at work in its medium. Therefore it strives to bridge the gap between those who are being mediated by white suburban hegemonic culture. This bridge often comes in the form of an outsider looking in. For Fruitvale Station the girl at the supermarket, Oscar's mom and the married man are three bridges provided to non city audiences. The girl at the supermarket allows Oscar to show the universality of his humanity. Oscar isn't only a black man who cares about black (Latino/Asian/Minority would probably also fit here) people, but someone who cares about the people around him. Setting him up with ulterior motives such as him trying to get his job back, allows the audience to safely maintain their preconceived suspicion of his character. His mother who is portrayed to raise him well and to be a secure role model in his life, exists to connect to the audience, who is mouthing (inside) with Oscar's mom the chastisement she gives him for his poor life choices. However, her wisdom and reliance on normative institutions ultimately fails her in the end, resulting in the death of her son. Finally, the man who Oscar meets outside the area where his girlfriend is using the bathroom represents the perfect bridge between two individuals. The man portrays himself as a rags to riches story, which required him to also cross the line between right and wrong, thus bringing himself down to the same moral compass of Oscar. The only difference is this man somehow created his own start up. The movie does not explore why the prospect of Oscar doing the same is very small, but instead brushes it off and creates a scene of camaraderie that borderlines unbelievable. The notion of them having this deeply reflective and personal conversation does not seem out of the realm of possibility, but the man handing his business card did seem a tad incredulous for a man who just met Oscar in the hazy euphoria of New Years Eve. Then again perhaps New Years Eve is the only time those shenanigans would take place. Regardless, the man exist to allow non-city audience members to finally relate. They begin thinking, "wow, I misjudged Oscar he is more like me than I thought." This misconception is necessitated by stratification. If you want an audience you need to connect with those with money somehow. I am not saying that those from the inner city cannot possibly understand or empathize with the story of Oscar Grant. I am merely suggesting that movie is cognizant of the cultural gap between it and its audience and it strives to fill that hole with a series of bridges that serve as cultural training wheels.
The impulse of many reading this is probably to laugh. Many might think that this notion of "street aesthetic" is a fantasy developed by a cultureless and artistically inadequate inner city kid. However, I know that the movie uses powerful imagery that can only be fully understood with knowledge of city culture. The use of the pitbull, a commonly misunderstood dog, slaughtered in the movie creates a powerful foreshadowing of Oscar's death. The pitbull is consistently used for dogfighting in street culture, but it's also used for protection, a first line of defense if you will. The pitbull is the ADT for a poor inner city family. Also, the location by the water and it being referred to as the place by the water mirrors the small pockets and "safe" havens one must find in order to regain sanity in the city. The closeness to water is a common trope, of escaping the suffocating experience of the city.These are only two, I can go on and on about cultural signifiers that the movie uses.
Street Aesthetic does not ignore race, but race isn't a pre-requisite to engaging with it. What I mean to say is that just because you are black doesn't mean you have the cultural capital to engage with street aesthetic. There are plenty of blacks who will watch Fruitvale Station and be unable to connect with some of the themes in the movie. Just as there will be Latinos who connect far more strongly with the story of Oscar Grant. Does this strip him away from his blackness via a homogenizing "urban" label? No. Ingrained in inner city culture is a necessity to categorize by race and ethnic background. One cannot separate the race or ethnicity from the person because the city constantly reminds you about those identities. I'm unable to speak about this from the black perspective (I am not black), but I know that there are some themes in Fruitvale station that will not be understood by any individual who has not experienced inner city culture. The same is probably true for some of the black experiences portrayed in the film, ones that I cannot fully understand without engaging with black culture (and many experience I'll never fully understand). The point trying to be stressed (and possibly quite poorly) is that Street Aesthetic both affirms ones racially driven experiences, while removing the subordination of a racist society on said experience. It also acknowledges a "melting pot" (and I use that word while wincing) experience one faces in the city where we certainly are forced to deal with a hodge podge of individuals (often time minority). Furthermore, these minorities have strong communities that have stores that carry their own traditions and way of life, making it common for one to experience culture in a more visceral manner as opposed to those who are forced to branch out into a predominantly "this or that" neighborhood, where one culture is the context for all others existing.
I finish this exposition of "Street Aesthetic" feeling quite unsatisfied. I have so many questions that I haven't yet sorted out. First, I wonder if a movie that does no provide a bridge for a non inner city viewer would still be considered Street Aesthetic. I also foresee a stringing racial critique of my use of blackness in this essay. I can understand how this might be read as a threat to black culture, but I feel many blacks from the inner city who read this will see it more as an accurate interpretation of the dynamics of race and class. Also, when we work with social class more, one will find that the city experience isn't only germane to the poor, making the dynamics of middle and even at times (though rare) upper middle class a problematic element in many of these films. It's hard to watch the scene between the married man and Oscar and not feel a little perturbed by the huge disconnect between the situations of the man and Oscar. I really appreciate anyone who decided to waste their time reading this far into this post. I understand that the musings of an undergraduate commands very little respect. Feel free to insert your own observations. I strongly believe that this is the beginning of a new critical discussion of art. One that serves to undercut the bourgeois theory that most of my peers work from, completely ignorant to how the normative white, upper class assumptions they bring into the world.
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