Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Thug means never having to say you're sorry

Where to begin with this clip…First of all, why is Nancy mixed up with this gangster U-turn? Well she “owes” him about $13,000. She owes him because she didn’t have weed when U-turn wanted to steal from her. Why didn’t she have it? Silas stole the weed from his mom and then Silas had it stolen form him by Celia. Then Celia drowned all of the weed in Nancy’s pool. Do you follow? This was all in the season 2 finale.
Now in season 3, U-turn has decided to make Nancy pay off her “debt” by making her do his dirty work. For the next couple of episodes he makes Nancy his “bitch” and starts training her to be like his second in command (which would be replacing poor Marvin). In this clip, Marvin is suspected to have been shot by rival gang members and Nancy gets dragged into her first drive-by shooting. This clip comments on several elements of modern pop culture.
First, I saw the race issues. Of course this all starts a gang war that is basically a black gang vs. a Mexican gang war. Of course the minorities are the gang members. Then we have Nancy, the innocent white woman who is completely shocked by the drive-by and completely above U-turn’s normal payment punishments. If she had been another black guy and hadn’t paid U-turn back, he probably would have shot her. So once again white people are portrayed as blissfully ignorant to the street life…safe in their little bubble. Where as the Mexicans and the blacks are tough. They’re gangster.
But what does gangster mean today? U-turn and Guillermo are gangsters and this show makes them look cool. They are respected, tough, rich and untouchable. Our pop culture is really into gangster right now. Half of our top 40 music is hip hop. And half of those hip hop artist like to sing and rap about gangster life. That is how they want to be portrayed. They think it makes them look bad-ass. Is it really bad-ass? No. The real street gang members live on the crappiest bits of real-estate. They don’t have record deals or fame. They’re just constantly watching their friends get shot. I have no idea where this illusion comes from. It’s not cool at all.
They last and probably funniest thing I noticed about this clip was its comment on going green. Even U-turn, this big thug, is interested in buying an ugly little Toyota Prius. I guess you’re never too gangster to save the planet. Way to push the “green” ideology Weeds!

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