Stereotypes, Gender and Power Relationships Hughley 1
Stereotypes, Gender and Power Relationships
Kyrah Hughley
March 5, 2020
AFAS 371
Tani Sanchez
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The film Set It Off introduced a lot of different concepts and ideas about identities of
Black women that were otherwise unknown. Prior to the film, Black women were seen as
caretakers and relatively unimportant alongside their counterparts—which is the big difference
between men and women. Black men have a bit more leeway when it comes to character choices
but are typically used for roles such as the ones presented in New Jack City. Though when Black
men and women started to get their deserved screen time, it was still difficult to portray real
Black people. White people were only receptive to the stereotypical Black characters so seeing
four Black women act as dominant as the men in New Jack City was obviously different. Black
people are extremely diverse in their values, appearance, and thinking, but it’s hard to express
this when single-sided stories are more acceptable than the truth. All in all, stereotypes, gender
and power relationships based on Black women in the film Set It Off are a great way to see just a
glimpse of the diversity they hold.
As we all know, in the beginning of film and television white people played all roles and
if the film called for a person of ‘color’ they would literally paint themselves to represent that
group of people, thus giving birth to Black-face, red-face and yellow-face. As time went on,
stereotypes became the determining factors for who got what roles. White men and women were
more likely to be casted as the stars and Black men were more likely to be casted as anything
important over Black women. Films of all genres typically hold some type of stereotype which
can be based on the character of the film itself. For example, many cowboy movies look the
same; Rom-Coms look the same, the ‘Who done it’ films look the same, even the action movies
look the same. As far as crime films go, in the early stages of film, many crime movies started
white men with typical, disposable white women at their side. In the 1990’s, Black filmmakers
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decided to flip the narrative and created movies like Set It Off, to contradict the stereotype of the
typical roles for women in general but Black women specifically. The film New Jack City holds
similar tension and level of crime but the fact that the stars of the film are everyday Black
women makes it just that much different because who would have thought Black women could
play such roles? F. Gary Gray, Spike Lee, Ava DuVernay, John Singleton, and many others did.
They were the changemakers the film industry needed to see.
Gender undeniably plays a role in the dynamic of any film. As stated before, Black
women were not casted to any role that would positively reflect the influence and power that
they truly hold. Women in general have not been treated with respect in films because gender in
Western views are a way to classify status, power and wealth. Men are basically seen as superior
which is the reason they have and still are casted as main characters. In the late 1960’s, Molly
Haskell wrote the following statement in her book From Reserverence to Rape: The Treatment of
Women in the Movies (third edition): “ The decade began unpromising, grew steadily worse, and
at present shows no sign of improving”. After her analysis of women in movies, which included
how women are mistreated, underrepresented and sometimes non-existent, she was able to push
for more accurate depictions. As time went on, more women appeared in films and with more
bold directors, women of color (but Black women specifically) can be seen on big screens and
enjoyed by all. The article “Rock-a-Bye” states that “By including African American women as
subjects and participants, the traditional view of gangster genre was complicated and changed”.
The film Set It Off was a perfect way to show that women can in fact play different roles. As
discussed before, New Jack City and Set It Off hold some similarities and the fact that women
can play the role just as well as men shows that women are just as deserving.
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Power relationships are shown in the way that each character interacts with the main
character(s). In New Jack City, the way people interact with Nino Brown is a great way to see the
power relationships. The Cash Money brothers adore him, other crime mobs respect him and
people on the streets fear him. In Set It Off we can see the power relationships by the way that
the group interacts with each other. The difference in the two films is that women are naturally
more inclined to receive disrespect from men because of gender norms but in the film, the
women are just as crafty and powerful as Nino Brown.
In conclusion, Black women are more than capable. The film was given a 6.9 / 10 on
IMDb and 67% on our reliable Rotten Tomatoes. The budget for the film was $9 million but the
box office reported an income of $41.6 million. To say that the movie did well i s an
understatement. Set It Off p ortrayed four everyday Black women doing crimes that no one could
have ever imagined Black women pulling off. The four characters also successfully showed a
wide range of emotions, roles and characteristics that are not typically shown by Black women.
Cleo was a lesbian, Frankie was extremley educated, Tisean was a bit timid and Stony was a
great leader. Though the film was in the same genre as New Jack City, i t was the complete
opposite of it because of the power relationships, gender roles and stereotypes.
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Works Cited:
Haskell, Molly. “From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies .” Google
Books, Google, 1984,
books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=2Oz3DAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=wo
men%2Bin%2Bmovies&ots=REvsmJhJm_&sig=ftZuFGHg_nzIT64dq2pBHxElWpk#v=
onepage&q=women%20in%20movies&f=false.
“Rock-a-Bye Baby!”: Black Women Disrupting Gangs and Constructing Hip-Hop Gangsta
Films By Beretta E. Smith-Shomade
