You Got Served

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about You Got Served's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of You Got Served completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 10 October 2004.

Overall comments and recommendations

You Got Served is primarily a dance movie, squarely directed at teenagers with an interest in the American urban hip-hop culture. As such, this audience would enjoy the soundtrack, dancing, fashion and street-talk used in the movie.

Adults however, would not find this quality viewing, and would possibly struggle with the culture-specific ‘lingo' used by the young cast-members. The contrived storyline serves merely to link the showcase dance sequences, which are good. While most of the actors are good dancers, their acting range is limited and not helped by a cliché-ridden script.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie You Got Served contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

The best hip-hop dance crews in South Central Los Angeles compete for money and respect at Mr Rad's warehouse. David and Elgin 's crew are consistently the best of the best. They are challenged by a crew of ‘rich kids', led by Wade, to compete for $10,000, of which each team must contribute $5000. David and El's crew take on the challenge, despite a shortage of funds. They decide to get the necessary money by borrowing from El's grandmother and engaging in some criminal activity, by acting as couriers for local gangster, Emerald.

El is also worried that his single mother has to work hard to support him and his sister, Liyah. Complicating matters is the burgeoning romance between Liyah and David, and the fact that another member of the crew is disgruntled.

It is discovered at the dance challenge that Wade's crew have stolen both El's disgruntled crew member and also their dance moves. Consequently, David and El lose the competition and money. They try to recoup the money by agreeing to do a ‘final' run for Emerald, but when David gets caught up on a date with Liyah and forgets about the job, El is left to courier the goods in his own. He is viciously attacked and robbed during the job.

El feels David betrayed him and a rift forms between them, resulting in the break-up of the crew. El is also threatened by Emerald to repay the cost of the lost goods. He sees the ‘Big Bounce' dance competition, with its prize of $50,000, as his opportunity to get the money he owes. He must now decide whether to put his differences with David aside, so that he can join forces again to compete against Wade's crew at the final challenge.

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There are some violence scenes in this movie:

• Opposing dance crews frequently jostle, shoulder and shove each other in competition.
• El is attacked and robbed by three assailants while making a delivery for Emerald. He is kicked and punched multiple times in the shadows and left semi-conscious. He reappears in hospital with an apparent broken leg.
• When El catches Liyah and David on a date (after his attack), he angrily hits out and pushes his sister.
• David then tries to defend her by getting into a brief fight with El. A bit of pushing and shoving follows.
• Emerald pays El a visit a home. El is roughly forced into Emerald's black van. In making threats of physical harm to El if he fails to repay what was lost in the robbery, Emerald grabs El by the back of the neck and then crushingly grips El's ‘bad' leg, causing him pain.
• On learning of a young friend's death, one of the dance crew members punches a wall and damages the plaster.

Material that may scare children

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

Children under 8 years may find the frequent yelling, jostling and posturing between the dance crews scary. The music is loud and the lyrics sound angry. In addition, they may find the following scenes disturbing:

• The crew briefly tease a younger child who wants to join them.
• Emerald is a large man, always dressed in black and surrounded by equally imposing and threatening men. His ‘office' is in a darkly lit bar and he drives a big black van. The soundtrack of the scenes in which he is involved also suggests menace.
• At one of the dance challenges, Mr Rad employs a member of the LAPD, who parades his gun in its holster.
• When El is beaten up, the assault takes place at night, in a poorly lit corridor of an apartment. His assailants are never clearly seen, nor are they ever caught. He is shown semi-conscious and bleeding from the mouth by the end of the scene. This scene in particular may frighten younger children.
• El getting angry and hitting out at his sister. She is not badly hurt, but appears a little frightened.
• El being roughly forced into Emerald's black van, where he is threatened both verbally and physically ( neck and leg gripped). El looks afraid.
• A younger child, who is looked after by a crew member, is reported to have been shot in a drive-by shooting. The crew later find out that he has in fact died.
• In training for the final competition, David and El are seen to be training at night, outside in a thunderstorm. This may appear scary to some children.

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Some of the above mentioned scenes could also disturb children over the age of eight.

Product placement

Product placement

Research shows that children, particularly children under the age of eight, are vulnerable to product placement in movies. Even if the child doesn't recall seeing a particular brand in the movie, they will choose that brand in preference to another, if they have just seen it used or displayed in a movie. This effect may be exacerbated if the product is highlighted as part of the story or if an actor or character they admire is seen to endorse or enjoy the product.

The following products were displayed or used in this movie:

• Adidas. All the teams in the ‘Big Bounce' competition wear Adidas uniforms
• Pepsi. On the judges' tables.
• Aquarina water. Also on the judges' table.

Sexual references

There were some low level sexual references in this film:

• During the dance scenes, there were some sexually suggestive dance moves and crutch grabbing.
• El is asked by his grandmother if he is having sex.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is no explicit sexual activity or nudity, although one of the dancers, Lil' Kim, wears the bare minimum of clothing.

Use of substances

There is no explicit use of drugs or alcohol. However, the ‘goods' that David and El courier for Emerald may be drugs and the lyrics to the song playing over the scene in which El is assaulted, refer to drugs.

Coarse language

There was some low level use of coarse language in this film.

• The crew jokingly referred to each other as ‘niggers' and ‘knucklehead' and refer to an opposing crew member as a ‘badass'.
• ‘Hell no!' is used jokingly in another scene.
• El angrily tells his sister to ‘Shut up' and ‘to stop acting like a ho' when he discovers she is still going out with his now estranged best friend.
• El's grandmother tells him to ‘sit on your ass' when she is about to give him a life-lesson.
• When one of the team's lose at the end, they refer to the result as ‘bullshit'. To which the response was ‘you suckers got served!'.

The movie's message

The take home message from the movie is that friendship and loyalty to family and friends are more important than money and winning.

Values parents may wish to encourage include:

• Play fair and show respect to all.
• Winning isn't everything and it is important to be a good loser.
• Never give up; surviving adversity can make you stronger.
• The motto of the crew was ‘no cursing, no hustling'.
• Frequent reminders not to fight and also, never to hit women.
• Equal gender roles – dance crews were a mix of girls and boys.
• Forgiveness.

The following content could be used by parents to discuss with their children what their own family's values are, and what the real life consequences can be of some actions and attitudes:

• Violence as a way to solve conflict.
• Being poor losers.
• Involvement in criminal activity as a means to address problems.
• Name-calling.
• Holding a grudge.