We can’t stop reading Ava DuVernay’s ‘Straight Outta Compton’ Twitter review

This weekend, F. Gary Gray’s Straight Outta Compton—a biopic on the rise and eventual disbandment of Compton rap group, N.W.A.—hit theaters and dominated the weekend box office, pulling in an impressive $56 million. But as Selma director Ava DuVernay pointed out in a series of deeply moving tweets, the film is much more than a cash cow. It’s an authentic portrayal of the culture and day-to-day life in Compton, California in the 1990s as told through the eyes of a group of young black men who made a lasting impact on American culture. DuVernay, a Compton native herself, wrote:

DuVernay also recalled the militarization of the L.A. police in the 1990s before and during the Rodney King protests—resulting in a temporary gang truce between the Bloods and the Crips—as well as they way women were grossly objectified by the hip-hop community despite their deep connection to it.

In that vein, it should be noted that DuVernay failed to touch on N.W.A. rapper Dr. Dre’s well-documented history of domestic abuse. “Straight Outta Compton has been widely criticized for failing to address Dr. Dre’s brutal assault of female journalist Dee Barnes in 1991,” writes journalist Allison P. Davis for The Cut. “It fails to acknowledge the contributions of the female emcees like Ice Cube’s protégé Yo-Yo. The movie’s few female characters are either groupies at parties or selfless caregivers, i.e., mothers and doting wives.”

Still, DuVernay recognizes the film’s depictions of misogyny in the film as representative of a time, and the inherent conflict of early hip hop.

Going into this film we must keep certain troubled histories in mind, even while we’re enjoying this story, which as DuVernay points out, is as much about black triumph as it is about black struggle.

You may not have shared the same experience as DuVernay watching the film or agree with her interpretations, but you’d be hard-pressed not be moved, impacted even, by her compelling descriptions of what she felt while watching the film. As she has already done with filmmaking, she’s just raised the bar on film reviews.

(Images via Twitter, Universal Pictures)