District B13 Identity

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The film District B13 does not come off initially as a hip-hop film but the deeper underlying message shows to unearth the true racism and discrimination by the upper class surrounding the ghettos and identity of hip-hop culture in France. District B13 is an action thriller that takes place almost a decade in the future from when it was released, in 2004, and depicts a lawless culture that has grown out of control due to the lack of care by the French government. The government, fed-up with dealing with the unruly citizens, walled-off the worst section of the city and, as it turns out, decides to bomb the District when they can no longer fix the problems that have spiraled out of control. One of the film’s main characters, Leiho, exemplifies…show more content…
Leiho and his sister Lola are not the stereotypical gang members and attempt to fight back against the culture that surrounds them. Leiho even tells Damien, “My only mistake was being born in District B13”. In the audience’s first introduction to Leiho he’s taking the stolen drugs from Taha, the drug gang leader, and dumping them down the drain while tainting them with chemicals. The scene is completely contrary to a stereotypical view and helps to show the audience the goodness that still exists in the District. He and his sister Lola are not bad people but because of the way they’ve been treated by the government and walled-off from society they’re treated the same as Taha and his gang members who are inherently bad people. The film attempts to show that despite what the government and, as the Defense Secretary Krüger says, “the citizens” feel, District B13 is not simply a lost-cause full of horrible people that need to be taken care of. So much of the racism, in both the U.S. and France, stems from some small sliver of truth but has encompassed and affected so many people who do not deserve to be treated the way they are. District B13 pushes the dichotomy of good and evil in the film to help the audience to sympathize with the struggle the hip-hop culture faces to get a truthful identity and pull away from the stereotypes that ravage their

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