I just recently finished this film last night (this morning) and wow I was blown away. This film reminded me of a piece of literature in motion. First and foremost, I would highly recommend you watch this film if you haven't. I also do not want to ruin the film in this blog post if you haven't seen it yet either, and I don't think what I am about to discuss will.
What this movie got me thinking of, relating to this class of multicultural women, was the role played by Kiersey Clemons, Diggy. Within the first moments of the audience being introduced to her, we find out that she is one, a woman, and two, a lesbian, and then are directly thrown into how her family every Sunday, has some short of ritual prayer at Church to "pray the gay out of her". The reason I bring this up, is because the audience, without this blatant notification of the narrator telling us who Diggy is, the audience mainly would have assumed that Diggy was just the third boy in the group of the three because of how she dress and acts. This film speaks to many contemporary movemtns that are happening today, and how black men and women are stereotypically seen, especially those growing up is less fortunate neighborhoods where the easy choice is to turn to drugs and the only way to go to college is if you are playing ball. Well, these three friends do not fit these stereotypes. Diggy is a black woman who is a lesbian but we would not have known otherwise, Malcolm is a black teen who reminisces of 90s dress and hip hop, and is the "nerd" to all. Jib is the third member of the group and is latino. The three spends their days getting good grade, jamming out in their rock-type band, and dream of getting with girls.
The three are forced into one large learning experience, and fall down a slippery slope, a common theme throughout the movie, that one things leads to another, when riding home from school once, taking an alternate route to not run into a gang filming a youtube hype video. They run into Dom, A$AP Rocky, and things go for a wild turn from there.
I think this film speaks on levels to what we have been discussing in class, even though the main character and this film shows the coming of age of Malcolm, it most definitely still relates to class. Ziggy is a boyish lesbian of the hard inner city, but smart, sensitive, while still being unapologetic and witty. She shatters the stereotypes of women and black women in her role in "Dope". This film at heart and within each of the three characters, also to others, break the stereotypes of inner city, while introducing the audience to the many facets of inner city life, and show us reasons why and what more there is to less fortunate who are often overlooked and almost always stereotyped.
I think that your look at this film is especially interesting, because I feel that you detail one of the elements of sexuality that we have not discussed: For example, how one who identifies as a lesbian cross the gender lines to be considered "boyish", but still retain he gender identification as a female. This could also go along with how ones dresses to cross the gender lines. But on the whole, I think that there is some good discussion to be had, especially when we think about individuals who identify as transgender. As to your reference in this film, it could reveal a lot about discrimination, identification, and larger roles in society, which I feel are major themes that were talked about at length in class.
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