As I watched the film, I got the feeling that Toback meant to use hip-hop (rappers) to represent "Black" culture, and upper-middle class white teens, their families, and various other adults to represent "White" culture. I have two problems with this:

#1) There is an imbalance of cinematic representation: on the Black side, we see rappers, two athletes, and just one Black female (Kidada Jones). On the White side, we see teens, their parents (including a District Attorney), a police officer (Ben Stiller), an anthropological student (Claudia Schiffer), studio owners, lawyers, a teacher (Jared Leto), and two documentary filmmakers (Brooke Shields and Robert Downey Jr.). Put concisely, I feel Toback's assertion that Black people as a whole can be defined by solely "hip-hop" culture is just plain silly, and incredibly stereotypical.

#2) Hip-hop, while it has roots in African-American tradition, is no longer the "Black" artform or culture that it once was. Like Jazz and Rock'n'Roll music before it, people of all races (Def Jam Germany anyone?) are currently participating and excelling in their study, appreciation, and performance of hip-hop. A more accurate description of hip-hop music now would be to call it a "youth culture" music.

The fact that some White youths tend to look outside their "culture" for a sense of identity is nothing new, and is definitely not limited to just "hip-hop" culture. Sociologically speaking, some segments of White culture have always been fascinated with the idea of appropriating aspects of foreign cultures (both domestic and international) for their own uses - from Madonna's late '90s fascination with Eastern religions, to Paul Simon's Graceland album. Really, this is nothing new. I think the conflicts (and shocking sex scenes) in this film will only help to crystallize racial divisions in our society. There are no solutions proposed, let alone explored.

The only redeeming performance in this whole film was Robert Downey Jr -- he never seemed to take himself too seriously, and this worked brilliantly well considering the pathetic context of this film.

C.H.R.