- A still from The Field
Nearly two weeks ago popular video site World Star Hip Hop released a documentary called The Field: Chicago (A Profile of the City’s Hottest Artists, the Violence That Surrounds Them, and the Hope Music Brings to Their Lives). World Star has helped expose rappers such as Chief Keef and Riff Raff to a wider audience, but it’s also gained a lot of infamy for hosting raw, user-submitted footage of real-world violence—a clip posted in late November showing a teen girl from Texas beating up one of her peers has garnered more than 22 million views (I won’t link to it, but this New York Daily News piece on the viral video can explain more about it). I was compelled to watch the 40-minute documentary given the role World Star plays in culture online (and off), and I wasn’t the only one—it’s been watched nearly 20 million times since it debuted. Reader film critic Drew Hunt also watched it, so we decided to talk through our thoughts about The Field on Gchat:
DH: Right, so did I, which was probably unfair.
DH: Even when the film was explaining early Chicago gangs, its images are never journalistic. They have a highly subjective nature. I’m thinking of the landscape shots of Englewood and other neighborhoods—they have an anthropological nature and they’re presented in a very realistic fashion. In fact, I think learned the most about Chicago gang violence by seeing images of these neighborhoods, which are under-served and worn down yet filled with people—people who fill the streets and seem to be outside all the time.
LG: Absolutely, but I don’t think there was any intention to discuss violence outside of the guise of rap. Music is such an important part of why outlets like World Star decide to cover violence in the city, and it’s a shame that it doesn’t get beyond covering hip-hop. But even that is shallow: when, say, Durk talks about not knowing what he would be doing if he wasn’t rapping, I wish they’d have gone deeper; and he’s on camera more than most folks. Then again, it’s only 40 minutes long—there’s only so much you can do with that amount of time, but not all that time is even spent wisely. I get the sense that the filmmakers treated most subjects with kid gloves—they never pushed them too hard and never really got them to open up. Especially in the case of Lil Mouse, the pint-sized MC who mimics the street raps of other drill artists and briefly became the focus of a little online “controversy” because of his lyrics. He spends most of his screen time either talking about how quickly he can write a song or showing off his baseball trophies (?!), which brings up so many questions.
