What GangLand demonstrated about the British Media and the power of representation.
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Last night channel 5, showed the first part of a two part documentary called “Gangland: Turf wars”. The “ground breaking” documentary gave insight into the lives of London’s most notorious street gangs by showing their real life events. I use the words ground breaking in quotation as for a lot of Black and ethnic people in London, this documentary is old news for us. We already knew this was a reality in London. However In as much as it may have educated the public of how bad gang culture still is in 2016, this documentary displayed another issue that Black people have in Britain; our representation in the Media. Why do Black brits still see the same narrative within the media?
The main aim of a documentary is to inform and that’s exactly what GangLand did. The issue with this documentary isn’t that what was being said in the documentary was false, it’s that WE DON’T HAVE ANOTHER NARRATIVE BEING TOLD WITHIN THE BRITISH MEDIA. As Viola Davis said when she won her Emmy award “The thing that separates a woman of colour from anyone else is opportunity”. We need more Black people within the media to have these opportunities to change our narratives. What I found interesting about this documentary is that Channel 5 stated at the beginning of the documentary, that those in the gangs featured in this documentary only signed up to do this documentary if it was filmed & told by them. Making it seem as if this is a narrative that all Black people are proud to tell. This is a narrative that some Black people can relate to, not all. What I also found problematic about Gangland is the fact it didn’t show the progress that a lot of ex gang members have made and how they're using their experiences to help younger black men.
Documentaries like these are destructive to the Black diaspora as it makes us look one dimensional. If we’re only represented in one way , it makes it merely impossible for those in the British public to see us in another light. In addition to making us appear to being one dimensional, it also put us in a box. How can the Black youth aspire for anything greater when they’re only being represented in the media with the same narrative? This documentary also demonstrates how the Black diaspora are seen within society. Linking this back to Carnival, a weekend that celebrates Caribbean culture and resistance to racism in the 60’s. The British public are still able to find issues with a celebration that is ours. Which adds to seeing us as being seen as one dimensional. Why is carnival seen as violent when there’s only a few individuals compared to the mass that are committing crimes at Carnival? Why is it that festivals like Glastonbury aren’t seen as violent even though, theres a higher percentage of people, committing crimes and violence at Glastonbury than at Carnival. Documentaries like GangLand fit into this narrative that our society are teaching the British public about the Black diaspora.
In all honesty, the documentary didn’t anger or shock me but I can understand why it did to so many. You can say that I live in a bubble but I genuinely didn’t know gang culture in London was still that BAD in 2016. So it informed me that this is still a very large issue within London and within our community. Something that did cause irritation to me is that this documentary didn't deal with the Whys. “Why are Black youths involved in gangs?” “Why are so many Black and non Black families still living in poverty?”. It failed to acknowledge the decline and funding of youth clubs and lack of government action within these communities. But this is where we as the Black diaspora come in. As someone who wants to get into the media industry this has fuelled more motivation to change the narrative we see within the media. We as Black Brits need to stop expecting the mainstream media to tell our narratives the way we would like to and start creating narratives that are diverse and that are our own. This doesn’t mean that we can’t display narratives that are “negative” it just means we need to be the ones telling the story. We can’t continually look to the mainstream media to represent us. We forget how much power we as Black people hold within social media today. We’re the ones who make trending topics, we’re the one who make the memes we’re the ones who get our voices heard. So it’s time we use these platforms to start telling our stories. In as much as I have mixed reviews on GangLand, I look forward to the second part of GangLand and hopefully all the concerns and questions we have regarding GangLand will be answered.
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