Set It Off and the Stereotypes about the African American Women - Essay Example

The characters of the film “Set It Off” send the message to the viewer that the problems of the Black women are close to those of the White ones, but the thing that is experienced by the Whites is constant lack of money. Titi, for example, has to find money by any means to prove that she is able to take care of her child, and her regular job does not let her do this due to low salary. The other three female characters also work, but the financial satiation they are in is not much better.

This is, obviously, far from the cliché “welfare mothers”. (Gary Gray 1996). So far as the hypersexual behavior of the Black women is concerned, the film stresses that they life usual lives in this sense, and that there is a factor of a constant need for money that may make them practice sassy way of behavior, like in the case of Stonie. The mentioned need may also explain the criminal perception of the Black people, and the four main characters of the film become criminals, and this activity demands from them considerable efforts, both from physical and emotional perspective.

This fact means that the problem is not with the Black people, but with the social life system which is unable to provide some people with the necessary things, such as job and accommodation. The African Americans treat music, hip hop in particular, with a special approach which may be explained by the fact that this is, probably, the only possible way of self-expression and it plays “…a crucial role in creation, re-negotiation…of the authenticity…” of these people.