8 Mile - is its portrayal of Detroit accurate or manipulated?

[Hceux]

Last night I watched 8 Mile for the first time. I was surprised to find myself to like the overall aspect of the movie.

While I was watching 8 Mile, I couldn't help thinking if the movie's portrayal of Detroit is accurate or manipulated. All scenes of the urban landscape were of abandoned buildings, boarded-up buildings, crumbling buildings, very little green grass or tree coverage, old rusted out automobiles, and bleak and somewhat doomed atmosphere. Is this what most of Detroit is made of? Or is it like that at the edge of the city limits of Detroit as I've heard that the 8 Mile road is the boundary between the city limits of Detroit and the suburbs?

Also, are people as depicted in the 8 Mile really like that? Relentlessly putting down on each other in conversations or in 'rap battles'. Not seeing a way out of life or misery, except for Jimmy Smith Jr/B-Rabbit (aka Eminem). Lack of respect or dignity for most other people.

[btrage]

Having attended school in Detroit, worked in Detroit, and generally spent a lot of time in the city proper, I'd like to think I can speak rationally about the city. Note however that I wasn't born in or have never lived in the city.

First...I highly doubt that any movie can accurately portray the true sense of a city, unless of course it's a documentary.

Second...the movie was supposed to make the audience feel the struggle of someone trying to "make it". Hence, the filmakers needed to provide a backdrop of someone struggling agains all odds (Remember, films are a form of art)

Third...much like many older, industrial cities, Detroit does have its share of blight. IMO, I believe Detroit is worse off that many other cities in this department. However, the entire city does not appear that way. Remember, the movie was set in the mid 90's, a time when the city was just starting to feel some sort of a revival. Since that time, the city has become much more "green", although it has a ways to go.

Fourth...I highly doubt people in Detroit disrepect one another more than peoples of another city. In fact, in my time working and attending school in Detroit, city residents were always kind, respectrul, and generous. If you are not familiar with hip hop culture, then you will never understand the way in which the characters interact. It has nothing to do with "disrespect" and nothing to do with the city itself. "Battling" is a staple of the hip hop culture and does not represent any one city.

Overall, I think the movie did an accurate job of depicting the circumstances that one person found himself in. The director wanted the audience to feel the despair that the main character felt. Hence, the "bleak" landscape.

I'd love to hear from some others familar with the city.

[jordanb]

I thought 8 Mile was a great movie too. I didn't think downtown felt very bad when I was in Detroit, but the surrounding neighborhoods really are that desolate. So I suppose the answer is that no, they really didn't make it look worse than it is, except for using the muted, overcast, wintery atmosphere.

As far as the question about people like that.. I'm sure there are. I'm sure there are slutty tramps like the girl he's with, gang bangers like the guys who beat him up, etc. The rap battles are appearently very accurate as well. If you watch the DVD, they actually film Eminem facing off with some of the extras in the special features. It's incredible the command of the language you have to have to do that. I didn't really get the idea that there was no lack of respect or care for others, though. What about the scene when they're trying to save the kid who shot himself? Or the fatherly character who's trying to get Rabbit to apply himself?

I have no doubt that the feeling of hoplessness in the movie is common among young people who are in situations like the one in the movie.

Finally, 8 Mile is the boundary between Detroit and the northern suburbs. I've never been up there myself but I understand that it is pretty decayed. The suburban area north of it is very poor, but mostly white, mostly in trailer parks. South of it is very poor and black, thus the distinction of 8 Mile as a color barrier.

[DetroitPlanner]

The movie is fairly accurate in portraying certain socio-economic strata of the movie. I was shocked by the fact that there was little to any conflict between rich and poor/ the haves and the have nots. This is what 8 Mile Road represents to those that live here.

Having lived in Detroit my whole life I can assure you that people here are very friendly. You have to remember there is a competition going on in that scene. They are using words much like a fighter uses his fists to overthrow the other. No one will come up to you on the street and challenge you to a rap battle. It is a metaphor for the fight to make one's self better, to grab the brass ring and pull yourself out of poverty.

The most inaccurate part of the film were the scenes St. Andrew's/the Shelter. The place was pretty much built as a sound stage at the end of the street I work on. Every day they woult throw around trash when they filmed there and spray it all down with tons of water. The place actually exists. I wondered why they never used it, I suppose the outside shots were better at the end of Griswold than on mid-block Congress.

[pete-rock]

Finally, 8 Mile is the boundary between Detroit and the northern suburbs. I've never been up there myself but I understand that it is pretty decayed. The suburban area north of it is very poor, but mostly white, mostly in trailer parks. South of it is very poor and black, thus the distinction of 8 Mile as a color barrier.

I spent my childhood a half-mile south of Eight Mile Rd., but I moved away in the early '80s. I visit Detroit often and I drove long stretches of Eight Mile this past spring.

As a kid the Eight Mile boundary west of Woodward Ave. was stark, but it was almost purely racial difference. I could ride my bike northward into Ferndale, Royal Oak or Southfield and feel a little out of place, but there wasn't a lot of economic difference. East of Woodward Ave. the blacks living south were poorer, and there are more trailer parks and trailer-like areas just north of Eight Mile in Warren and East Detroit (now Eastpointe). Also, on the east side the boundary is a little wider than just the street. There's lots of manufacturing with deep lots on the north side of Eight Mile, so the residential in places begins nearly a half-mile away from the street.

Today, there's blight on both sides of the street, but that may have more to do with the structure and function of the road and less with socio-economic differences. At any rate, Eight Mile doesn't seem to be the hard edge it once was. West of Woodward, tons of blacks live north of Eight Mile in Southfield and Oak Park. Ferndale has become something of a gay enclave. And east of Woodward, Warren and Eastpointe appear to be becoming more diverse as well.

[michaelskis]

I think that Detroit Planner said it well.

I don't make it over to that side of the state all that much but I can tell you that allot of the movie was filmed in the 8 mile area. In addition, the city was the top of the most dangerous cities list for years and years, but now it has 'slipped' to second. So if someone come up to you, they are way more likely to beat the crap out of you than they are to start making your momma jokes in a rhyming fashion.

The center city area is just about the opposite from what was shown in the movie. It has beautiful architecture, and even though there are a lot of vacant buildings, there is also a noticeable excitement or redevelopment in the air. A lot of young professionals are moving back into the city, buying homes, and taking back the neighborhoods. Click here for an article on a neighborhood by the Old Tigers Stadium

[DetroitPlanner]

yo momma so lazy that Stan thinks she's lazy!

My name is D and I'm a planner...
you'll hear it on your police scanner
I'm a thug can't you see?
haning with my homies in the A. I. C. P.!

pretty scary ain't I?

[Dan]

First off, I didn't see 8 Mile.

That being said, when I visited Detroit a few months, I was shocked at the very sharp transition when crossing the city line. I can't even call it a transition, but instead a dramatic and sudden change.

On Jefferson Avenue, which follows the shoreline of the Setroit and Lake St. Clair, the Detroit side is lined with a collection of bright yellow party stores, check cashing stores, and once elegant but now abandoned walk-up apartment buildings, interspersed with some very elegant, still well-maintained high rise apartment buildings admist the ruins. The last blocks in Detroit are lined with the usual party stores and derelict buildings. The first block in Grosse Point screamed "old money suburb" - foo-foo carriage trade retail, Ye Olde New Englande Village-style commercial architecture, Episcopal churches, and older high-end homes. Imagine Winnetka, Illinois next to Chicago's Austin neighborhood, or Beverly Hills next to Compton, and you'll get the idea - the change was that sharp.

Along Eight Mile, the change wasn't that dramatic, but you KNEW when you crossed south that you were in Detroit, no mistaking for it. North of Eight Mile, there were fewer party stores (and they weren't painted bright yellow or orange), no vacant lots, no evidence of hard urban blight. You didn't have the foo-foo shops of the Pointes, but it certainly wasn't ghetto; instead it was more of a typical 1950s-1960s inner ring suburbia feel. Some areas looked a bit worse for the wear, but not blighted; just a bit dog-eared. Cross south of Eight Mile on Woodward, and although there are some decent neighborhoods in the area, there's signs urban prairie, a more ghetto-like built environment, abandoned buildings, ailanthus altissima, lots of litter, and so on. Even the area surrounding Boston-Edison was rough.

Unlike Grosse Pointe, where you're traveling from a low-income black community to a very high-income white village, the demographic disparity of areas north and south of Eight Mile is a bit lower. South of Eight Mile, it's lower income to lower-middle incoem African American. North, it ranges from working-middle class white in Warren to middle/upper middle income African-American in Southfield. From what I understand, the African-American population north of Eight Mile is growing, but it's predominantly middle-to-upper middle class; there are relatively few lower income blacks north of Detroit proper.. I've heard about middle-class, racially integrated enclaves south of Eight Mile, but the surrounding retail areas are supposedly still classic Detroit ghetto; the party stores and whatnot.

[Hceux]

...party stores...
...foo-foo shops of the Pointes...
...ailanthus altissima...

Dan, I think I need some translation.

Party stores as in stores that sell party stuff like baloons, confetti, etc?

Foo-foo shops? Are they the ridiculous high-end boutique shops?

I'm totally lost with "ailanthus altissima".

[pete-rock]

Dan, I think I need some translation.

Party stores as in stores that sell party stuff like baloons, confetti, etc?

Party stores in Detroit are a combination convenience/liquor stores, and you can find them on just about every other corner in bad neighborhoods. They usually have awful food that's been on the shelves too long and cost way too much, bullet-proof glass between the shopper and cash register... They're typically not very nice.

Foo-foo shops? Are they the ridiculous high-end boutique shops?

You got it.

I'm totally lost with "ailanthus altissima".

Dan will have to answer for this one.

[BKM]

ailanthus is the "Tree that Grew in Brooklyn."

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/c...altissima.html

Given its preference for siturbed sites, Tree of Heaven is considered the common "ghetto treet."

[DetroitPlanner]

Are them alley trees / stink trees?

[boiker]

ailanthus is the "Tree that Grew in Brooklyn."

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/c...altissima.html

Given its preference for siturbed sites, Tree of Heaven is considered the common "ghetto treet."

Ya.. because they are exceptionally tenacious and weedy. They're awful and a pain to get rid of. I've got a couple on my property that I mow over, dig out, chop, etc. they always grow back.. and I don't want to use roundup and kill a 3 ft section of lawn or my ivy.

[Hceux]

Thanks pete_rock and BKM for translating Danspeak for me.