SOUL AND STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

SOUL AND STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

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Soul and Straight Outta Compton

Soul and Straight Outta Compton are two movies that are very interesting with black actors in the movies as the main actors and portraying their experience in America in different ways. The two movies are very good and very well acted and therefore present different views and way of viewing African Americans and black Americans in the film industry and what they are capable of doing unlike the common belief or faith that there is less representation of black individuals in most movies. These movies are trying to show that blacks can be good and perform the same and even better than whites in most instances. They also try to create a balance between the movies presented in the market full of whites and very little black representation or not one at all. Therefore this paper discusses soul the 2020 film and straight outta Compton and gives views on why they are important movies to watch.

Soul

‘Soul’, which is a 2020 film is a comedy and drama film which presents Joe Gardner, who is a middle school teacher and a pianist living in new york. The movie is directed by Pete Docter and produced by Pixar studios. It is a Walt Disney pictures movie as it is the one that releases it. Gardener tries to reunite his soul with his body after a separation happens by mistake. This happens before he becomes a publicly known jazz musician. It is the first Pixar movie to feature a protagonist who is African-American. Docter was inspired by the concept of determinism and his ideas on the originality of human personalities in the creation of this movie. The film also employs great jazz musicians’ inputs like Terri Lyne Carrington and Herbie Hancock. On the 11th of July of 2020 was when this movie premiered at the London film festival. However, due to covid-19 restrictions, its theatrical release was not possible and therefore even though not theatrically presented to the world it has still gained a lot of widespread watching and popularity. The reviews of its quality are high as well as the critics available for the movie. It has also got many different awards which include the academy awards, Golden Globe Awards, Critics’ Choice Awards, and BAFTA Awards.  

Plot of soul

Joe gardener lives in New York City and He is a music teacher in middle school. He has very many ambitions of playing jazz professionally. Due to his financial situation and for the sake of ensuring his financial stability his mother suggests to him to make his teaching job a full-time job. He gets a word about h auditions of Dorothea Williams and goes to attend and him being liked he is picked to be part of the performers that same night. Joe finds himself as a soul heading to the ‘great beyond’ only to realize that he is headed to ‘great before’. The great before is whereby the elders prepare babies to be born. The souls have badges that allow them into the earth and each of the badges is filled with personalities. At this point, Joe is confused about a mentor and therefore his badge is given as train 22. This is a badge of a person who has lived so long in the past and tries to avoid society.

There is a search for a spark to complete the badge however it is not found. After this failure, the two i.e. Joe and the badge enter into the ‘the zone’. This is a place whereby souls enter in case they experience euphoric trance. This place also acts as a trap for those souls who are obsessed and are also lost. When he returns to earth and the souls enter into the therapy cat and Joe himself. 22 gets into the body of Joe and settles. She also has a conversation with Connie, who tries to leave the school band team. However, he changes his mind immediately he performs the trombone solo very excellently. Dez also accepts Joe’s passion for music. At the same time, terry is an obsessive observer and observes the souls which go to the beyond and realizes that Joe is not available and therefore he goes back to eh earth to get him and therefore by doing this he hopes to restore the count.

When Joe is taken to the before the badge is filled however Joe states that it is because of his traits and not that he had found his spark. However, there is an argument between jerry and Joe and therefore Joe uses the badge to return on earth. Once on earth, he realizes that his activities with 22 gave him the spark needed and therefore would live without the spark. The movie ends with Joe accepting the offer of terry and returning to earth to live in his body.

This movie therefore can be said to have a soul. This is because it deals with a lot of things to do with souls and the major concern of the writer is therefore about souls, their purpose in our lives, how we interact with them and what are they. Therefore even though it is unable to understand souls completely due to their complexity this is termed as very enlightened and heightened curiosity about souls and what it means to have a soul. Therefore it is an inquiry into the areas of human life which have been difficult to deal with. The movie is also filled with emotion. Therefore it is an important movie to watch as it is thrilling to see how the soul plays an important role in the human person and if one is highly interested in this part of human life then it turns out that this movie is a booster of the curiosity.

Straight outta Compton

Straight Outta Compton is a movie that can be said to be about the common activities and things mainly seen in movies. This is because it deals with drug dealing, violence, and crime, and police harassment. However, these are not just depictions but rather the presentations of the issues and activities black Americans have to go through because of the so many stereotypes which dominate the ‘white world’ about black people. In America, despite the movie story, black people are still seen as criminals and therefore this movie is the realization of these activities and acts as a voice that calls to the outside to hear the cry of the African Americans and black Americans towards the systemic racism and white superiority which keeps on getting bigger every time the people of color try to seek justice.

Plot

Eazy-E is a drug dealer and he deals with varied types of drugs. Kelly Park is a gang member while Dr. Dre is a DJ. Ice cube is a young rapper. He raps so much about the injustices that the African American fraternity faces daily that while Dr. Dre convinces easy-e to fund his music work for production. Ice cubes music is rejected by the New York music group however his group encourages him to still sing it and make sure that the truth is brought to the open. For this purpose, they form Niggaz Wit Attitudes. When they are recording straight outta Compton they are harassed by the police in a very ruthless manner. This makes the ice cube sing the song which he calls ‘fuck the police. This brings a lot of problems and makes it not possible for peace to be found as the police feel that they are being insulted. The press calls this gangsta rap due to its profanity and use of language. The FBI with time gets in and informs the group to stop performing the music as it does encourage violence against the enforcement of the law.

The movie ends with Dr. Dre opening his record label called Aftermath Entertainment. Therefore this movie provides a lot of information to do with the experiences of the African Americans and what it means for them to live in this society whereby there is a lot of lack of peace due to racism presented to them by the whites. This movie employs a lot of music to express the ideas, the wishes, and the experiences of black folks, and therefore even though their music is termed as dirty there is a justifiable reason as to why people like ice-cube produce such kind of music.

In conclusion, these two movies even though completely different they have got a lot of significance when it comes to representation of the black folk in the music industry and the film industry. Straight outta Compton is a movie that has its focus on the reality of things and the challenges which the African Americans face. However, the soul movie is a more different one with it dealing with a soul and how this becomes a very difficult part of the lifestyle of the protagonist. However, the two of them have black characters which are very important.

Works Cited

‌ Gray, F. Gary, et al. Straight outta Compton. Universal Pictures Germany, 2015.

“Soul (2020).” Www.rottentomatoes.com, www.rottentomatoes.com/m/soul_2020.