WILD STYLE (1982)

During the 1960s and 1970s — as the streets of New York City erupted in violence, social decay, and economic demise — young, multiethnic, inner-city kids devised their own solution to the traumatic challenges that they continually faced. Unifying the preexisting elements of rapping, graffiti, dancing, and deejaying (a method of using sound equipment and records to create totally new sounds and combinations from those originally recorded — scratching, rapid repeats of segments, remixes, etc.), these diverse youth created an alternative to the hopelessness found in their neighborhoods. During the mid-1970s, this local phenomenon was ignored by mainstream America; yet by the 1980s, not only did hip-hop culture have a national presence, it was sought globally. Movies such as Wild Style, Style Wars, and, later, Beat Street and Breakin’ allowed international audiences to experience the many facets of hip-hop culture, including the unique approach to speaking and writing English.1

This movie is a representation of the earliest Hip Hop culture. Its setting was in New York, South Bronx. Wild Style presented the rising of Hip Hop culture and a story plot about the life of youth. Through this movie we could see that Hip Hop culture was born in untidy-environment. So many youth were living there and most of them were black people.

Wild Style represented a daily life of youth and also its problems. Raymond as the main actor in this movie had dilemma in his life. It related to graffiti as his interest and her love life. Raymond in this movie shouldn’t write for money because I think graffiti is an expression coming from one’s idea and the inspiration which becoming its base can not be forced to rise anytime.

Hip Hop culture consists of some elements. They are rap, graffiti, break dance, and disc jockey (DJ). All of these elements were presented in this movie. We could see so many scenes showed some performances of youth that time doing those kind of elements.

I think Wild Style sent us message about freedom. Hip Hop culture was an expression of feeling of the youth. Hip Hop was a freedom to be creative.


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