Word: cubes
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Cube’s films, by and large, have embraced mainstream values while reinforcing the white-washed American master narrative. In “Barbershop,” for example, Cube plays the role of the titular shop’s owner. Throughout the movie, he assists his local police department in the capture of two petty criminals, thwarts a neighborhood loan shark, and forsakes his “childish” dream of building a home recording studio so that he can focus on keeping the barbershop solvent...
...ironic that Cube, who coined the phrase “fuck the police,” should play a law enforcement stoolie. Worse, his character echoes the worst tendencies of the bourgeois ethos: he abandons his creative endeavors to become more fiscally successful. “Barbershop” is a complete repudiation of everything that Cube stood for as a musician. When did the self-described “nigga you love to hate” become so thoroughly inoffensive...
...runaway popularity of the “gangsta rap” aesthetic in the 1990s conferred star status on Cube and enabled him to make the transition from recording studios in South Central to film studios in Hollywood. His first major role was in Singleton’s “Boyz,” and the commercial and critical success of that film proved that Cube was a bankable actor. Perhaps seeking to capitalize upon his initial success, Cube’s more recent projects have been increasingly mainstream (read: spineless...
...result is that Cube is now “safe” enough to stand in for Forrest Gump. I suppose his cinematic development is indicative of a certain type of progress: who could have imagined that a poor black kid from the wrong side of the tracks would make it so big? But this progress comes with a terrible price...
...that Cube is the living embodiment of the American dream, who will remind us of the American nightmare...