How Straight Outta Compton’s Director Is Purposefully Ignoring Violence Against Women

Dee Barnes has written an article for Gawker titled Here’s What’s Missing From Straight Outta Compton: Me and the Other Women Dr. Dre Beat Up. Here’s an excerpt…

That’s right. F. Gary Gray, the man whose film made $60 million last weekend as it erased my attack from history, was also behind the camera to film the moment that launched that very attack.

He was my cameraman for Pump It Up!  You may have noticed that Gary has been reluctant to address N.W.A.’s misogyny and Dre’s attack on me in interviews.  I think a huge reason that Gary doesn’t want to address it is because then he’d have to explain his part in history.  He’s obviously uncomfortable for a reason.

Gary was the one holding the camera during that fateful interview with Ice Cube, which was filmed on the set of Boyz N the Hood. I was there to interview the rapper Yo Yo.  Cube was in a great mood, even though he was about to shoot and he was getting into character.<!–/*
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// ]]>Cube went into a trailer to talk to Gary and Pump It Up! producer Jeff Shore.  I saw as he exited that Cube’s mood had changed. Either they told him something or showed him the N.W.A footage we had shot a few weeks earlier.  What ended up airing was squeaky clean compared to the raw footage.  N.W.A were chewing Cube up and spitting him out.  I was trying to do a serious interview and they were just clowning—talking shit, cursing.  It was crazy.

Right after we shot a now-angry Cube and they shouted, “Cut!” one of the producers said, “We’re going to put that in.”  I said, “Hell no.”  I wasn’t even thinking about being attacked at the time, I was just afraid that they were going to shoot each other.  I didn’t want to be part of that.

“This is no laughing matter,” I tried telling them.  “This is no joke.  These guys take this stuff seriously.”  I was told by executives that I was being emotional.  That’s because I’m a woman.  They would have never told a man that.  They would have taken him seriously and listened.

It was that interview that was the supposed cause of Dre’s attack on me, as many of his groupmates attested.  My life changed that night.  I suffer from horrific migraines that started only after the attack. I  love Dre’s song “Keep Their Heads Ringin”—it has a particularly deep meaning to me.  When I get migraines, my head does ring and it hurts, exactly in the same spot every time where he smashed my head against the wall.  People have accused me of holding onto the past; I’m not holding onto the past.  I have a souvenir that I never wanted.  The past holds onto me.

+‘Straight Outta Compton’ Almost Beats ‘Ant-Man’, $56 Million Opening Weekend

People ask me, “How come you’re not on TV anymore?” and “How come you’re not back on television?”  It’s not like I haven’t tried.  I was blacklisted.  Nobody wants to work with me.  They don’t want to affect their relationship with Dre.  I’ve been told directly and indirectly, “I can’t work with you.”  I auditioned for the part that eventually went to Kimberly Elise in Set It Off.  Gary was the director.  This was long after Pump it Up!, and I nailed the audition.

Gary came out and said, “I can’t give you the part.” I asked him why, and he said, “‘Cause I’m casting Dre as Black Sam.” My heart didn’t sink, I didn’t get emotional; I was just numb.

The post How Straight Outta Compton’s Director Is Purposefully Ignoring Violence Against Women appeared first on Digital Music News.

Source: Industry News