Whiteboys

Being from Iowa, I am usually offended by stereotypical portrayals of Iowans as dumb farmers, oblivious to the real world. That said, I really liked this movie. Part of it is the fun of seeing familiar places and landmarks (bridges, bars, cop cars, local personalities), but I also was intrigued by the story.

Most reviews I've read about this movie criticize the makers for trying to run on one joke for 90 minutes. Instead, I think the audience laughs because the characters (especially Flip) are trying so pitifully hard. Flip is like any teenager (in Iowa or elsewhere) who's searching for his spot in the world. He doesn't like his life (what teenager does?) and he is drawn to the "idea" of the ghetto he gets from music videos. His fantasies are so opposite from what he knows -wealth, women, recognition. In his fantasy world, everyone fits into the slots he gives them with no questions. The problem is he can't separate his fantasy from reality, and when reality slaps him in the face (Chicago) he is forced to take a look at who he really is - a faulted, bigoted, everyday person.

It's hard to face our faults, and the filmmakers must use an exaggerated character with exaggerated actions in an extreme situation to make this seem less like a cheesy story about some loser wannabes with no clue and more like a paradoxical look at facing ourselves. Without this movie's extreme and often sad backdrop, I would write it off as another "we're more cultured than you, aren't Iowans dumb" story. Instead, I think this is a smart, biting story that challenges us to take a look past what we want everyone else to see and examine who we are underneath, faults and all.

Someone needed to make a movie like this, a commentary on how white suburban teenagers have latched onto hip-hop and "ghetto" culture, and made it part of their identity, when in reality they don't have a solitary clue of what it means to be Black in America. Someone needed to make a movie that made the point that white America's affinity for Black culture rarely translates into actual understanding of Black people as actual human beings, or into an understanding of their situation. Someone needed to make a movie that showed hip-hop-as-consumed-by-white-kids as what it is: a new version of a very old theme in American popular culture -- the Black man as dirty savage, cunning and dangerous, yet stupid and witless at the same time.

But "Whiteboys" is not this movie. The movie can't seem to decide if it's a comedy or a cutting social commentary, or both. So it fails as both. The central problem is that the main characters are stereotypes themselves, the East Coast-imagined version of what someone in Iowa is supposed to be like. It's impossible to believe that Flip and his gang are for real. Flip especially comes off as a delusional mental patient, not as a misguided, out-of-touch kid. The images of farm life were as cartoonish as the images of hip hop life the movie was mocking. Perhaps this was part of the point, but all of the overlapping of targets of parody just made the whole matter confusing.

The movie would have been much better off if had ditched the whole Iowa-farmer theme, stopped reveling in stupid images of kids rapping in farm fields, and instead focused on a group of kids in Any-Suburb USA, the kind of kids that we all have met -- privileged white kids who are drawn to the false glamor of ghetto life presented on TV, utterly oblivious to their own privileged station in life.

It took me a few days of flipping past this movie before I finally convinced myself to see what it was about, but I was surprised to find that it was actually entertaining. Whiteboys looks into the lives of farmtown white kids obsessed with black "gangsta" rap and the lifestyle that seems to surround it. This movie is filled with funny moments but also has some pretty serious moments. As I read the other comments, I noticed the main people offended was from Iowa, and everyone else just had something go over their head. I can say that even though I've never met any white boys this stupid, it is some wannabees out there who may have saw this movie and saw themselves a little bit. I found it funny the way they saw Khalid because I see that happen all the time. I can't tell you how many times someone has came to me assuming that I automatically know where to get drugs from. On the flip side, it is also some black kids in suburbia who idolize a thug lifestyle and wish to try to live it out,too. So really it not so much about race as it is dealing with growing up, coming of age, and finding yourself and all those things. Oh yeah, you can throw in rebelling from your parents, too. It was intersesting to see how the characters had changed by the end of the movie. I guess I'm done rambling now, but this is definitely worth renting when you've ran out of big name moives to rent, personally I'd buy the DVD but wouldn't spend more that $15 to buy it.

I saw this movie on HBO during my senior year of high school (2000-2001) and thought it was great, and it had a message. It is definitely a message that needs to be spread. Back in the town I grew up in in Upstate New York, the "whigger" thing (white n 1gger) was really big to the point where I was probably the only kid in my town who still dressed normal and listened to heavy metal and punk instead of rap. It really got to be aggrivating because I couldn't relate to hardly anybody accept my close circle. Then I saw this movie and after the end, I am thinking that all of these kids at my school should take a look at this movie and then take a look at themselves. I loved Danny Hoch's performance by the way. As far as a rating, I give this movie a 7 on my scale of 0 to 10.

As I read reviews of this movie I just can't keep feeling like most of you just don't get it. I'm reading comments here on IMDb like "white boys trying to act like they are black (c'mon that is terrible)" or "can someone say Wigger...". You are missing the point. This movie is simply one big satire of young white teenagers who grow up in decent or rich environment (or Iowa) idolizing the ghetto life that they see on MTV and trying to mimic it. As a product of a large city public school system in the mid nineties I saw these kinds of kids every day. It's pretty depressing actually. Low self-esteem kids with terrible identity disorders trying so desperately to find themselves. Or not? Maybe most of them just don't know how to act. Whatever it is I'd have to say that this movie was on point with every aspect of this kind of lifestyle. For someone like me, who went to school with kids like this, Whiteboyz is a hilarious movie! Flip dog is just so incredibly lost in his gangster world, working out scenarios with Khalid before his talks to him, rapping in front of the mirror, etc. Khalid even tries to explain this to Flip and Flip is so lost he just doesn't understand what he is telling him. Khalid was probably the most normal kid in the movie. He respected his Mom, he has aspirations to go to college, and wasn't all about getting in trouble. What was the most revealing about what this movie was trying to do was the scene where James comes out of his "gangster" act and starts ranting racial slurs. Did James have multiple personalities? No. How could you miss the point after seeing that? There are plenty of people I'd like to show this movie to but sadly they won't get it. It's definitely one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. It was acted out perfectly and just down right hilarious. Unfortunately, most of the people just don't get it. Recommended as a wake up call to all you gangster white boys out there that grew up in a stable home. Cheers!