This movie totally does not glorify the cocaine lifestyle like so many people say. The whole thing about the movie is Priest is trying to get out of the lifestyle he's been pushed into by his social situation, even though he has all the material posessions he could want. (8 track stero, color tv in every room...)
I think people who think otherwise are missing the point.
I think the controversy surrounding this movie wasn't so much that it glorified cocaine, rather it glorified, or maybe even tried to justify, the selling of cocaine.
Throughout the movie, it is insinuated that Priest is justified in being a dope dealer, because as a black man in an urban environment, it is the only way he can be successful. (As Eddie said in the movie, "It's the only game 'The Man' left for us to play.") Also, during the scene in the park with his girlfriend, Preist tells her that he sells coke because there's nothing else he can do, other than "work day in and day out for chump change." The movie does send out a somewhat morally dubious message that the only way a black man from the hood can make it is only if he hustles, which of course isn't true.
I remember when this movie came out. I was about 11 and was growing up in Washington, D.C. There was a movement at that time to have this movie banned because of its premise, and many felt it glorified drugs and the hustling life. Interesting enough, the movement was spearheaded by none other than Marion Barry, who was serving at the time as president of the D.C. Board of Education.
Where's all the indignation of the corrupt cops filling the streets with dope, they were profiting as well and they were accepted by the main stream, they had plenty of other options...hypocrisy knows no bounds!
share"many of the characters in the film try to talk Priest out of continuing his lifestyle"
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Like who? Eddie thought Priest was crazy for wanting to "get out of the life," Cynthia (his white girlfriend) didn't want him to stop selling coke, and the corrupt cops certainly didn't want him to stop either.
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I was in high school when the film was first released, and there was quite a hoo-ra about the subject matter. I think Ebony magazine published a forum in which a few intellectuals of the time debated the movie. Blaxploitation flicks caused real dissension among many blacks. On the one hand, blacks were finally getting a toehold in the movie industry (though not many through the directing/screenwriting ranks), on the other hand many black-oriented films were chided for their violence, exploitation of females, and constant themes of "get the Man."
"We're fighting for this woman's honor, which is more than she ever did."
There had always been a black film industry. In the 70s whites caught up with what they'd been missing!
Nobody was forced to buy cocaine. I wouldn't!
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