American Gangsters

Sitting in class, reading the factual text "Gangland, USA" about the extensiveness of gangs in the US, one thing made me think. The Medias way of portraying gangsters and their life is in fact quite special. From being a group with a bad reputation and violent members, the gangsters in the US have become extremely popular. If you turn on MTV at any time during the day you will in most cases, within the time lap of about 10 minutes, see a music video portraying the glamorous life of a gangster. And sure, this affects youth.

There is no secret that many children in the US, and other places in the world for that matter, don’t have the life they deserve. They are living with problems at home, have the wrong friends, the school system is failing them. These children are left to fight their own battle and become open for new ways of living. The solution for many is turning to drugs and gangs. Here they find a family who cares and have their backs. The fact that it’s illegal and dangerous I don't really think matters to these young people. Many of them have been neglected since they were born and don't really know any other way of making a life for themselves.

So in what way do the media help encourage young people to get involved with this type of lifestyle? Well, as mentioned, music videos are an important factor. We all know that mixing sound and image is one of the strongest ways of convincing. For children, finding themselves to be quite easy influenced, the media has a lot of control. The way of talking, dressing, walking and so on in music videos is being picked up by the young children and they are taking it out on the streets in their hometowns. The superstars on MTV maybe with this, helping to increase the ratio of gangsters in the US. They make it look great to live the gangster lifestyle with fast cars, beautiful women and a lot of "bling". But it's important to remember that not all famous people help sell the gangster lifestyle to kids. In the video clip below you see a clip from the group "The Game"s single "House of Pain. Here we get to see a different side of the gangster life that show the true colors of being a gangster.