Critical Investigation Task #3 Historical text analysis and research

Key Notes in the Film: 

Reefer Madness was originally made as "Tell Your Children" and is a 1930's American propaganda exploitation drama drug addiction film revolving around the melodramatic events that ensure when high school students are lured by pushers to marijuana , that they don't cave in as this will lead to manslaughter, suicide, attempted rape (madness). The film was directed by Louis Gasnier and starred a cast composed of mostly unknown actors. It was originally financed by a church group  and was intended to be sown to parents as a morality tale attempting to teach them about the dangers of cannabis use. 

The significance within the opening (how drugs are portrayed to a passive audience)

• At the beginning there is a note for the viewers appologising in advance for the upcoming content and the "menace" which is "destroying American youth".  "Marijuana is a violence narcotic" and is "the real public enemy". - note to self: the media are selective with what 'news' is in relation to Gautung and Ruge's News Values - in relation to drugs (print newspaper articles: "Cocaine Kate". 
• Directly addressing parents "Your son/daughter" (to be in contact with drugs..) - Moral Panic upon a 1930's audience 
• Zoom close ups of drug scandals on newspaper covers; similarly still exists in UK news - e.g. "Cocaine Kate", The Sun. Non-diegetic parallel classical music accentuating panic among an audience. 
• White A class American teacher/professor projects views in relation to the negativity and "danger" associated with drugs, upon a passive audience (the parents and an audience).  The scene resonates imagery of dictatorship within the government associated with the political views of the drug war.
• Initially, the 'dictator' had his back turned to an audience (Medium Long Shot) and facing the parents, which reverted to a medium close up of the professor addressing the viewer placing us in the seats of the parents he was addressing. 
• Documentary news style aesthetic is illustrated through the scene changing while the professor's voice becomes non-diagetic sound as he describes the panic revolved around marijuana while the scene captures high angle shots of marijuana fields. - this style of editing adds a sense of realism to the production emulating similar features to watching to the news.  

Comparing this to "Run: Richard" 

• One could interpret "Reeffer Madness" to be a text that ultimately intended to educate a 1930's audience, however, a 21st century audience would dispute this and argue that in fact injects moral panic upon a passive audience, (Hypodermic Needle Model and Cohen), revolved around drugs. This contrasts greatly with "Run" by Channel 4, a social realistic production that can also be interpreted as a text that intended to inform audiences. However, it is prime Channel 4's approach differed greatly in terms of representation of drugs and those associated with them. The production is clearly capturing the social effects and consequences circulated around drugs and those dependent on them, whilst refraining from dehumanising and injecting panic upon audience groups. One could argue that this is due to the increasingly desensitised social norms that are forming in society in comparison with the early 20th century. 
• The text "Reefer Madness" in juxtaposition with "Run: Richard" provides sufficient evidence towards the differing approaches that British drug related texts have in comparison with American texts. The evolution of American related drug productions using "Reefer Madness", "Scarface", "Miami Vice" , are model examples of the moral panic in terms of drugs and youth and drugs and ethnic minorities that American productions happily highlight. In comparison, with the arguably more raw approach that Britain has towards drugs and how the honesty that is depict them within the film platform. 

Issues and debates: 

• Stanley Cohen's 'Moral Panic' - the opening of the production, where the professor directly addresses the audience, in a news style bulletin format, is a prime example of the director's attempt to inject worry and fear upon a 1930's audience regarding the use of drugs amongst the youth. This is therefore a negative illustration of the "youth" as "young, wild and reckless",  and despite the production being a non-fictional film, it almost serves as an informative tactic for producers to inject fear upon audiences and marginalise drugs as a bad thing in society. This is further evident through the fact that they compare the use of marijuana to be worse than cocaine and heroin, which has scientifically proven to be true and in modern society is a social norm. 

Theories: 

Audience

• Blumbler and Katz - In terms of 'Surveillance', as information about the world was decreasingly accessible in the early 20th century, audiences relied on the niche amount of news that they were able to access from TV and Cinema, as well as film productions to be educated about what was happening in society. Therefore, 'Reefer Madness' acts as informative product to insight audiences about drugs, their effects and how they will impact society, (through the eyes of the director). 
• Adorno's Hypodermic Needle Model - The audience that are presented as passive creatures on screen (the parents), which accurately reflects the behaviour of the 1930's audience as they are directly addressed by the professor about the danger of their children being in contact with drugs. 
• Stuart Hall -  The dominant reading of drugs being portrayed as a negative and dangerous weapon that will destroy society and the youth, was accentuated. 

How does this show how the genre/society/issue has changed?

• There are many ways to identify the evolution of the drug war when comparing the two texts "Reefer Madness, 1939" and "Run: Richard". It is firstly evident through the specific drug is being represented - marijuana is a B class drug and "Reefer Madness", created an extreme moral panic in association with it and it's effects on the youth. Whereas, in 2013, "Run: Richard" revolves around a heroin addict, which is an A class drug and instead of the production embodying a panic around the drug and the dependent, it instead educates the audience about the social effects without dehumanising the character. However, a noteworthy point to recognise is the fact that this could be due to the opposing countries that are producing the texts - America v.s. Britain.   

Bibliography

- Goode, E. and Ben-Yehuda, N. (2009) Drug Abuse Panics, in Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance, Second Edition, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK. 

(Refers to "Reefer Madness", Marijuana Panic in 1930's - other drugs through to the early 2000's, and the moral panics circulated around them) - ideal for historical text)

- Critcher, C. Moral Panics and the Media. Buckingham: Open University Press, 2003. 

(Examines moral panics within the media and uses drugs as a case study to convey how the media injects views towards passive audiences through rave/drug culture creating a public outcry) 

- Critcher, C. Critical Readings: Moral Panics and the Media. Maidenhead [England: Open University Press, 2006.

(Describes the differences between Moral Panics in the USA v.s. UK, and taps towards supporting case studies including drugs) 

- Malik, Sarita. Representing Black Britain: Black and Asian Images on Television. SAGE Publications Ltd, 2001

(Use as a reference towards representation of black lead male in Run, would this illustration of the heroin addict been different if he was white - compare to white males in other productions) 

- MacKinnon, Kenneth. Representing Men Maleness and Masculinity in the Media. London: Arnold, 2003

(How drugs are used as a tool in American productions to accentuate a sense of manliness and dominance 'Wolf of Wall Street' - draw in with themes revolving race, too.) 

Manning, Paul. Drugs and Popular Culture: Drugs, Media and Identity in Contemporary Society. Cullompton, Devon, England: Willan Pub., 2007.

(The 'normalisation' associated with drug culture, the evolution of war on drugs and how it is changing and expanding in some cultures - more in America, who, within media texts are portrayed to be more liberal, in conjunction with British social realistic productions such as Channel 4's Run, Benefits Street and ITV's Jeremy Kyle - the dehumanising presentation of those associated with drugs) 

Lee, Lydia L. (2015) "Drugs in the Media: The Production of Hegemony," Sociological Imagination: Western’s Undergraduate Sociology Student Journal: Vol. 4: Iss. 1, Article 4. 

(The essay establishes the elite's attempt to maintain social control and dominant ideologies about the immorality and deviance associated with drugs and how this is reiterated through the mass media - use examples within the news in the UK and productions from commercial broadcasters to enforce the different quotes. The essay strongly sways towards the view that the government intend to create a view condemning the use of drugs.) 

Crano, William D. Mass Media and Drug Prevention Classic and Contemporary Theories and Research. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002.

(The book outlines the mass media's war on drugs, how and it's effect on society [hypodermic needle model] - other theories are applied, in relation to extensive media based context) 

Wheatley, Simon. Don't Call Me Urban: The Time of Grime. Newcastle upon Tyne: Northumbria University Press, 2010.

(The book is a contemporary documentary exploring one of the biggest social issues in the UK - drug abuse, through the deprived, predominantly black, but white youth too. I can relate this to my study through the social realistic productions and documentary's the British TV broadcasters air - that reflect these lifestyles, that have formed stereotypes and representations - e.g. TopBoy.) 

Reinarman, Craig. Crack in America Demon Drugs and Social Justice. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.

(Key Quotes in the book revolve around America's techniques in the media, that associated drugs with ethnic minorities during the "war on drugs" and the impact on their lifestyles - social and historical context on the representation of drugs in society in the US. Does this explain for the growing positive "American Dream", that US productions revolved around drugs, now convey?) 

Critical Investigation Task #1 Textual Analysis

Multiple elements of the opening (Equilibrium state, Todorov) force an audience to pity and empathise with Richard's character. In particular, the medium close up of him mournfully admiring his daughters drawing mid-way between long shots capturing him frantically packing up his belongings, after being evicted from his hostel, immediately allow an audience to build a (Personal Relationship - Blumbler and Katz), with the recovering heroin addict. An audience are presented with an array of events that ultimately comprise the life of one in the state of a drug recovery scenes and the predicaments that they find themselves in, i.e. the medium close up of an addict taking an intake of heroin. In terms of Gauntlett's idea of the "media opposing censorship", this allows audiences to be educated by the graphic material to engage with the narrative further.  Other events involve him missing a counselling meeting (long shot, tungsten white balance, creating a cool blue effect complimentary with the hospital location and bumping into his angry ex-wife (binary opposite; the stable parent, also tapping towards the stereotypical, black C demographic lone parent family view). 

Richard finds himself parallel to the classical sombre music which displays him to be walking alone on the bare grey pavements through a variety of high angle, bird’s eye view and medium long shots. This not only reiterates the loneliness that his character has embodied but it also portrays him to be an outsider and outcast from the rest of the society that he is living in – often a trait associated “junkies”. Medhurst would support the attention to detail set upon the specific stereotypical mannerisms and overall mis-en-scene to present this stereotypical " recovering drug addict" identity clearer to an audience.  Despite the strong sense of upset personifying the character, through the non-diagetic sound bridge, there is a transition of hope. This 'hope' is found through medium long shot capturing the tungsten lit streets glistening upon the crimson car door which is slightly ajar. His endearingly creepy yet hopeful face lights up and he sets inside his new home up for the night. This contrasts significantly; with the crisp lighting which wakes him up, followed by a medium close up of a white man (Binary opposite, in terms of social class) peering into the rear mirror at him. This is followed by the long shot of an old worn out estate beside a white Victorian house that almost accentuates the social divide between the two males – one, a black heroin addict and the second, a white B demographic business man.

Richard finds himself pleading to his mother for support, which is the first conversation where extreme close ups present the upset emotion and lifeless spirit within his character as he states “Please mum?”. This juxtaposes with his mother’s lack of maternal instincts as she simply hands him money to “get yourself cleaned up”. This money acts as an action code (Barthes), planting the seed upon an audience – will he return to the dreadful drug dependent lifestyle or use the money wisely. With the action code set into place, the next scene reverts to Richard conversing with his ex-dealer. The scene begins with a black tinted Audi, reiterating the illegal and criminal persona of the dealer as he proceeds to state “Old Man Rich”. The nickname implies close relations, however the adjective of ‘old’ provides the audience with a sense of faith and relief that he has been clean for a very long time. The dealer’s direct approach in instigating a conversation with Richard “Have you seen Jon Jon?” (Fellow heroin addict), is reinforced through the stillness of the camera contrasting with the slight wobbles that compliment with the uncertainty and uneasiness that Richard is feeling. This discomfort is accentuates as the dealer asks “Do you have a line, just in case you make a turn?”, in which Richard responds shaking his head “I’m alright, but thank you”. And for the first time, he directly looks at the dealing in the eye. The diagetic dialogue finalises with the dealer stating “You’ll gfet hungry soon, you lot always do” and then he drives away. The use of ‘hungry’ is animalising to Richard’s character and demeaning, evoking further pity amongst an audience for him.

The journey in which an audience witness Richard to set out on is almost like a path of temptation, full of obstacles in which he is forced to face. This is highlighted through the "heroin addict reunion", which is set in a dirty room, encrusted with beer cans, alcohol bottles and additional drug addict paraphernalia. The shot is low lit and there is little natural lighting peaking through the curtains reiterating the sense of isolation that drug addicts live in. The roles of the other characters, such as ‘Jon Jon’ are violent and desperate, alongside the female ‘Liz’ which is gaunt and needy, contrasting greatly with the passivity in Richard illustrating his change in well being. In regards to Berger's comment "men act, women appear", within this scene it is underlined through the emptiness expressed in the character of 'Liz' opposing with the dominant males. It is almost as though this group presents an audience with a hierarchy, one which Richard finds himself at the top of – passive and collected in comparison with the others who struggle to speak and are desperate for a bit of “brown”. This is enforced through the medium close up after ‘Jon Jon’ taking a hit of ‘brown’ and then stating a word inarticulately. One common denominator between them is the murky grey and blue clothes that they wear, essentially labelling them as a group of drug addicts, together, which underlines them as outcasts from the colourful life surrounding them.

A moment, in which Richard stands tall, is his rejection of the drug (Car scene with Liz).

Media Magazine Conference

Bill Thompson - 'What has the internet done for me?'

• 1983/84 was the initial outbreak of the internet (in simple form) 

- Thompson's Internet 'positives':

• "The internet is interchangeable"
• "The internet is open to innovation and creativity"
• It can be a "dangerous place if you want to speak freely or bad about the government"
• It is a good "tool for citizenship" and "valuable for free speech but not too safe"
• It allows you "to engage with other people when they are not there" and is "a good place for engagement"
• "The network is a great place for creative expression

- Thompson's Internet 'negatives': 

• Bullying, Abuse, Extremism, Unwanted porn, Child Abuse, Fraud, Scams and Conspiracy theories 
• "Context Collapse" - main danger, where something is open to the world for everybody to see and can be taken out of the manner it was initially said in.

- Thompson's Additional Opinions:

• "The internet is designed to be hard to control" 
• People tend to "care about what people think about them online" - new digital status
• "The Dark Net" - "good place to keep journalism", "layer on top of the internet to value"

Natalie Fenton - 'Media Power and Life after Leveson' 

• "Has concerns about democracy in the UK"
• "Leaders are friends with the media, which distorts democracy"
• "A healthy media is ideal - plurality, makes our own choices"
• News media is becoming more advertising based which is where most of the money is coming in from
• "In the last 3 decades we have seen an explosion of news through TV and new and digital media, but the small business model [news] is struggling to keep up"
• "Some journalists are paid by click" - showing that institutions are starting to rely on audiences."
• "The internet gives power to 'prosumers' - people who can' create their own messages and define the world in the way they want, which leads to a new meaning of politics."
• "Corruption of Power" (Fenton describing Hackgate)
• 'Monstering' - targetting people who are weird and then associating 'bad news' with them, e.g. Chris Jeffries, innocent but targeted by news organisations (front cover shots) because of his appearance and sexuality, for the murder of a young girl - "they do it for sales"
• "Rupert Murdoch Clan" - they attend each other's "pyjama parties and events" (relationship between politics and the media 
• "Murdoch Empire" - no political party has won without the help of Murdoch
• 3 Companies control 75% of the news sales
• Stuart Hall: Role of Media in circulating 'common sense'
• "Those who have power, use it in particular ways" 
• "Look at the absence in the media - what is missing" - this is important
• "Discourse and dominant narratives: racism, immigrants - half untrue in the media" 
• "Surveillance limits freedom" 

Owen Jones 

• "The UK is one of the richest countries to have existed, yet one million in the populace are suffering" 
• "It's unfair and injustice, that so much wealth is created but kept for the elite" 
• Jones believes that the government are making it harder for young people
• "All injustice is created by people" 
• "Injustice is temporary and can be changed" 
• "We stand on the shoulders of giants"
• "There is a problem with the media, the press is run by rich media moguls" 
• "You're discriminated based upon the job of your parents" 
• "Same background journalists impact the news reported and how are they mean't to understand" news related to other ethnic/social groups
• "Media is reported by a niche group thus the reporting isn't diverse"
• Jones encourages the use of social media to express views and speak about experiences
• "The government were taking drugs" - yet a black man is 7 times more likely to be charged if found with drugs than a white man, "which isn't fair".

Notes and Quotes: TBC

“What are the underlying values and ideologies in drug related texts such as “Channel 4’s Run” and how does this compare to American texts on the same subject?”

What will this question answer?

·         Race and drugs

·         Social class and drugs

·         Health care system in the UK and America

·         America’s liberal views towards drugs vs. UK

·         How do American drug related texts illustrate them vs. UK

What other film texts will this essay cover?

UK drug related films – Run (Social Realistic), Skins (Teen Drama), TV Docs (2)

US drug related films – Miami Vice (Drama series), Requiem for a Dream (Drama), Wolf of Wall Street (Comedy), Scarface (Action) and Reefer Madness (Stoner Film)

____________________________________________________________________

Main Text: Run

Online Articles

-      Telegraph Article “Run, Channel Review” by Sameer Rahim, on July 15 2013

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/10180944/Run-Channel-4-review.html

·         “Last night’s Run (Channel 4), the first of four interlinked episodes that are being shown on successive evenings this week, was hardly sugar-coated, but such was the humanity of the writing and especially the performances that the characters felt compellingly real” – evidence to support the truth illustrated on screen, brutal approach to drug related themes

·         “This is the first show created by Daniel Fajemisin-Duncan and Marlon Smith – who grew up together in Brixton – and was clearly a labour of love. Channel 4 should be applauded for allowing them to realise their unsentimental vision.”

-      UKTVREVIEWER Article “Run (Channel 4) Review” on July 16 2013

Link: https://uktvreviewer.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/run-channel-4-review/

·         “Everything about it was superbly gripping, featuring characters which we got to know instantly”

-      Telegraph Article “Lennie James: I said yes before I’d even read the script” by Richard Vine on July 15 2013

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10174666/Lennie-James-I-said-yes-before-Id-even-read-the-script.html

·         Lennie James: “A drug addict who’s trying to work his way back from pretty much as low down as is humanly possible; he’s homeless, he’s separated from most of his family, his child, his mum.” – when James was nine he lost his mum and didn’t know who his father was, he was able to thus apply a sense of loss to his role as a drug addict where drugs had forced his family to neglect him.

·         James described the illustration of the production as a city where “life gets decided in the maybes”.

·         Directors, Daniel Fajemisin-Duncan and Marlon Smith: ‘we want to tell our version of south London like that one day’ (influenced by ‘Storm Damage’ that they watched growing up) – They wanted to illustrate Brixton in an honest and truthful way, from their own point of view. Stereotyping was based on what they grew up seeing (shorthand narrative – Medhurst)

·         James: “Before I’d even read the script I’d said yes. It was set in the neighbourhood that I grew up in and it was an opportunity to come home and work with guys who were from my neck of the woods.”

·         The power of Richard’s story elicits a heart-breaking performance from James who says he has always been drawn to characters “who dance among the ambiguity and the grey areas”.

·         To prepare for the role, he walked around Brixton in costume, shuffling through rush-hour streets like a ghost.  “As an acting technique that’s not something that generally works for me,” says James. “

·         But James was keen for scenes in which Richard could stand tall. “I wanted to find moments that could show not just the fallen man, but who he used to be. It was the same with Tony in Line of Duty. I never thought about him as a corrupt guy, I tried to find his motivations.” – James’ main aim was to illustrate the emotions that surround the character and to not reinforce negative stereotypes associated with the black heroin addict – this is clear through the narrative that forces an audience to empathise with ‘Richard’ in more emotional scenes.

·         James believes that British TV drama is currently on a high – “thought provoking and grown up”. 

-      Voice Online Article “C4 Give New Writers a Run” by Davina Hamilton on July 7 2013

Link: http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/c4-gives-new-writers-run

·         To be blunt, Run is not a ‘hood’ tale, nor is it a drama about ‘man on road’, or any variation of the type of racially stereotypical story that the masses might expect a young, black, male writer to produce – particularly following on from the huge success of Channel 4’s hit urban drama Top Boy.

·         On the contrary the writers say they weren’t trying to recreate Top Boy, although some people thought they would do just that.

·         “We knew from the beginning that we didn’t want to overlap with Top Boy and we were aware that being young black men, there might have been the assumption that we were going to create a drama like that,” says Fajemisin-Duncan, who is of Nigerian, Jamaican and Irish descent. – avoiding stereotyping and discrimination towards ethnic minorities when using intense themes.

·         “In creating the drama, we looked for universal themes; collective things that we all share. That allowed us to get around the problem of falling into stereotypes.” – content

·         Aware of the negative side of racial stereotyping, the duo says they are mindful of being labelled as ‘black filmmakers’. However, they also acknowledge the potential positive impacts of being defined by race. – would the illustration of the characters been different if it was a white director?  Compare to representation of black drug dealer in ‘TopBoy’ by white director Yann Demange.

-      Time Out London Article “From Market to Mural: touring Brixton with the creators of Run”, by Gabriel Tate on July 12 2013

Link: http://www.timeout.com/london/tv-reviews/from-market-to-mural-touring-brixton-with-the-creators-of-run

·         Daniel Fajemisin-Duncan lived here (Brixton) as a child and the characters were inspired by those that he grew up seeing. 

·         ‘This is one of the last examples of old-school Brixton,’ says Smith.

·         ‘People thought [the drinkers] might be dangerous, but they’re only a danger to themselves. A lot of them said there was always someone at the back of their minds, a family member or something, driving them on to get better.’  - They hoped to convey this idea through Richard’s story line involving his family. It’s a story the pair use to powerful effect in the show, as alcoholic and former crack addict Richard (Lennie James) makes a desperate bid to persuade his estranged daughter that he’s reformed.

Critical Reception:

·         Wikipedia shows that the reception of the third episode ‘Richard’ of (1.39 million UK views), which was higher than the final episode of ‘Katrina’ (1.11 million UK views).

Channel 4 Clips (clips provided by to introduce character ‘s profiles/story)

“S1-Ep3: Hope”

·         The clip establishes the stereotypical challenges within a lone parent, ethnic minority family. The scene consists of close ups which allow an audience to embody the character’s emotions and meet him prior to watching the series.

“S1-Ep3: Old Haunts”

·         Harsh brutal comments that drug addicts may have to face - "Dealer: Do you want a line?/ Richard: I'm alright thanks./ Dealer: Oh okay. You'll get hungry soon.". Specifically, the use of "you'll get hungry" establishes a strong sense of animalistic imagery personifying the recovering drug addict.

Books in relation to the topic:

-      Brave New World, 1932 by Aldous Huxley, British writer and philosopher. - Health system in America

Use this text and evidence from ‘Telegraph Article in November 2013 under the politics section by Brendan O’Neill who is the editor of the online magazine’ where he addresses the fact that the novel (Brave New World) may have got some things “terrifyingly right”, in regards to drugging the populace.

The story is about the idea of the government controlling the populance in 2540 (set in London) through a drug which is only meant to enhance their positive emotions – no come downs in real life or through "All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects."(Chapter 3, Page 218, paragraph 26). “You do look glum! What you need is a gramme of soma”.

The article establishes the narrative in Brave New World and how the drug ‘Soma’ subdues all “malice and bad tempers”. Additionally, O’Neill suggests that “Modern society uses antidepressants in a disturbingly similar way. A British psychiatrist is worried that antidepressants are being dished out not to combat serious depression but merely to “get rid of unhappiness”. As in Brave New World, we prefer to supress “malice and bad tempers” with drugs rather than ask what travails might lie behind such emotions and how they might be addressed.” – Similarity in both the text “Requiem for a Dream” – behaviour demonstrated when patient Sara was neglected by the doctors and prescribed to more tablets.

-      Crack in America: Demon Drugs and Social Justice, 1997 by Craig Reinaram. – Drugs and Race

The novel focuses on crack cocaine. It offers a new understanding of both the drug addiction and prohibition. It shows how crack use arose in the face of growing unemployment, racism and shrinking social services (America). Written by a team of drug researchers, the text explores the different impacts on white, blacks, the middle class and the poor. It also discusses how the media and politicians generated the crack scare as the centrepiece of the War on Drugs: Moral Panic.

KQ: “In 1989, American politicians and the news media began an extraordinary frenzy that ran until 1992. Newspapers, magazines and television networks regularly carried lurid stories about the new “epidemic” and “plague” of drug use, especially crack cocaine.” –

The media was injecting (Hypodermic needle model) into passive audiences, resulting in Moral Panic (Cohen). A noteworthy point is that prior to this, ‘Scarface, 1984’ was released based around ethnic minority ‘Tony Montana’ from Columbia, and was painted as a drug related criminal – moral panic in America towards Mexicans and Columbians – through films such as this. Those who were associated with the drug “Crack appeared in late 1984, primarily in impoverished African-American and Latino inner city neighbourhoods”. – page 2

Online research (Historical Text):

-      Miami Vice, Sex and Drugs and Rock & Roll in the TV Market by ONC Wang in February 1988 (from Jumpcut) 

Link: http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC33folder/miamivice.html#n

·         For the last two decades U.S. recreational drug culture could prove its difference from the rest of society by pointing to the mass media's laughable misrepresentation of drug use.

·         For the first time on primetime TV, the signs of drug consumption are actually those of the drug culture, where MIAMI VICE's drug discourse coincides to a large degree with the same stylistic and imagistic vocabulary — e.g., coke mirrors, rock & roll, and MTV pyrotechnics — used by the drug culture to define itself.

·         Miami Vice circulates mainly around the “language of cocaine” – “thematically the cocaine smugglers outnumber both heroin and pot dealers on the show” and “the  stylistic dynamics are more complex” for the users of the drug shown through “the mirror, fast cars, sleek visual style, beautiful dazed models”.

·         “Cocaine and wealth speak the same language as cocaine remains the drug one can spend the most money on in the shortest period of time.” – Evidence for the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ – protagonist lifestyle and relation to drugs - compare to MV

·         “Heroin becomes too debilitating, antisocial, and is much more class restricted” – behaviour of Richard is symbolised as antisocial, self-harm almost. The author adds “one cannot be "laid back" in the "fast lane."” – Differing lifestyles lead to different drugs – when comparing ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ with ‘Run: Richard’

·         ‘Cocaine’ is described as the idealistic drug, the “rich” drug thus the associations with it in films are hardly with ethnic minorities and the working class or lower demographics, as the drug is utilised by those who are sustaining the income it requires. – (‘Wolf of Wall Street’, white male, in touch with cocaine and his life gets better. ‘Scarface’ – ethnic minority, in touch with cocaine, life gets better and then worse, he dies. Different representations depending ones ethnicity)

·         Description of Cocaine in comparison with others: “Much more glamorous (in a bourgeois sense) than pot, heroin, or acid, coke transforms people into the most romantic drug outlaws possible.”

·         The author finalises: “one overtly unfortunate consequence of MIAMI VICE's infatuation with the drug discourse is its labelling of the drug smugglers by race. This labelling reflects how the drug culture itself names drugs by their area of origin — Jamaican, Colombian, or Humboldt, for example.”

·         Specifically associating race with the drugs: “ The show associated each group with a drug lifestyle: the Colombians with cocaine, the Jamaicans with reggae and marijuana, and the Haitians with voodoo and hallucinogens.”

·         Race and Drugs in America: “The obvious, racist implications of these associations are especially malign when one considers the United States' present foreign policy towards those Latin American states south of Miami's border.”

Academic Books:

TV Documentaries:

Internet Links:

-      The Guardian’s  Article “Black people twice as likely to be charged with drugs possession – report” by Peter Walker, 21^st August 2013

Link: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/21/ethnic-minorities-likely-charged-drug-possession 

·         “Black people are not just significantly more likely to be searched by police for drugs than their white peers, but face almost double the chance of being charged”

·         The study showed: “disparities for cocaine possession in London, with 78% of black people charged, compared with 44% of white people.”

Do programmes such as ‘Run’ and ‘TopBoy’ who are dominated around black males and their relation to drugs, thus reiterate into the mass populace that black people are more associated with drugs than whites? – Moral Panic, Marxists would argue that the bourgeois are associated negative societal values upon a specific ethnic group

-      The London School of Economics and Politics, news and media section - “Ethnic minorities targeted in ‘stop and search’ drug policing” by Naimh Eastwood and Micheal Shiner, 22^nd August 2013

Link: http://www.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2013/08/DrugPolicing.aspx

·         “Black and Asian people are being disproportionally targeted”

·         “Black people are stopped 6 times the rate as white people”

Wider social context in the UK

-       Brookings Institution “How the War on Drugs damages Black social mobility” by Jonathan Rothwell, 30^th September 2014

Link: http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/social-mobility-memos/posts/2014/09/30-war-on-drugs-black-social-mobility-rothwell

·         “The social mobility of black Americans has suffered collateral damage from the ‘War on Drugs’. Being convicted of a crime has devastating effects”

·         “Imprisoning one in three black men”

Similarly in both the UK and US there is frenzy placed upon black people and their relation with drugs. Through drug related films such as ‘Run’, it illustrates how the UK aren’t afraid to highlight the negative drug associations with ethnic minorities, but is it the face that black people are hardly associated with drugs in US films that emphasises the overall problem – (the things that aren’t shown stand out as much as the things that are) – American drug related films tend to be positive, outgoing “the American dream”, by using a leading black male – who, in modern culture they associate with negativity and crime – wouldn’t allow this same concept to be fulfilled.

-      We are the Drug Policy Alliance “Race and Drug War”, under the issues section.

Link: http://www.drugpolicy.org/race-and-drug-war

·         “drug war has produced profoundly unequal outcomes across racial groups, manifested through racial discrimination by law enforcement and disproportionate drug war misery suffered by communities of colour”

Specific ethnic groups are faced with discrimination due to the drug war, as reiterated through negative portrayals of black males in films such as British social realistic films such as ‘Ill Manors’ and ‘TopBoy’