ABSTRACT
Chapter 7 explores the cinematic spatialization of cities according to race and ethnicity, particularly in the ghetto film. Ghetto film shares with other subcultural practices the recycling of culture. Throughout the twentieth century and in the beginning of the twenty-first century, two opposing trends have defined the cinematic representation of ghettos, barrios, and ethnic enclaves: social realism, on the one hand, and hyperbolic representation, on the other. The historical overview begins with postwar Italian neorealism to explain how realism lends itself to the depiction of poverty. In contrast, Blaxploitation, an American genre of the 1970s, presented hyperbolic Black masculinity in urban settings. Simultaneously, the filmmakers of the L.A. Rebellion made films that aestheticized and politicized black-and-white realist portrayals of African American life in Los Angeles. The 1980s saw a sudden output of the ghetto film, which centered on young, African American males. Narratively, these films denounced violence, while they visually fetishized deadly gun fights. This formula shaped the international ghetto film, which circulated globally in the twenty-first century.
