Lords of Dogtown

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about Lords of Dogtown's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Lords of Dogtown completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 16 August 05.

Overall comments and recommendations

Lords of Dogtown provides a snapshot into the skateboarding culture of the mid-to late 1970s. The film specifically targets adolescent males, but may also appeal to those with an interest in this era. For those not interested in the culture, the story is too thin to keep the viewer’s attention, and the same can be said for the acting ability of the stars, the one exception being Heath Ledger.

Parents should be aware that the adolescent ‘heroes’ in the movie, indulge in some reckless acts while skateboarding that could appeal to susceptible children and adolescents, the real life consequences of which could be very serious.

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 Lords of Dogtown contains the following information:

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

A synopsis of the story

Stacy Peralta (John Robinson), Tony Alva (Victor Vargas), Jay Adams (Emile Hirsch) and Sid Gianetti (Michael Angarano) are four teenagers growing up in Dogtown (made up of Venice, Ocean Park and south Santa Monica, California) during the mid 1970s. The four teenagers spend their days surfing the closed down Pacific Ocean Park Pier, skateboarding and hanging out at the Zephyr Surf Shop run by their surfer mentor Skip Engblom (Heath Ledger). It is there that they first become aware of urethane skateboard wheels which change the face of skateboarding and give birth to a new pop culture.

Skip quickly recognises the potential to make money and organises the boys into a skate team called the Z-Boys. Coincidentally, a timely drought forcing the emptying of a number of local swimming pools provide the boys with a perfect arena to practice their gravity defying manoeuvres. As a consequence the four boys, along with numerous other locals spend much of their time breaking into backyards to practice skating in emptied out swimming pools. Before long Skip enters his Z-Boys skate team in a local skating competition resulting in the four boys becoming virtual overnight skateboard superstars.

The sudden rise to fame creates its own problems for the Z-Boys and they each deal with it in very different ways.

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.

The film contains a number of violent scenes, much of which is the result of senseless or hot headed behaviour, including:

• teenage gang assaults
  
• adults abusing or being violent towards teenagers
  
• mass brawls
  
• verbal abuse from parents
  
• Jay punches an official in the face when the official disqualifies him from a competition
  
• Skip comes to blows with a restaurant owner over The Z-Boys behaviour in the restaurant
  
• a skateboard competitor punches Tony in the face, knocking him unconscious and causing serious damage to his eye, requiring several operations.
  
• an adult punches Jay in the face and then repeatedly kicks him in the stomach while he is lying on the ground.
  
• Jay picks up a skateboard and strikes his attacker across the head, knocking him unconscious
  
• a mass brawl is shown, starting with a man being thrown through a pub front window as the four boys are walking past. The rest of the hotel’s patrons climb through the window and a street brawl erupts with the four boys enthusiastically joining in. The Punk band playing in the bar moves over to the broken window and continue playing as if the street brawl inspired them. This scene, and some others, imply that violence is “cool”, important to one’s image or socially justified.
  
• a group of teenagers with shaved heads jump out of their car and grab Stacy with the intention of assaulting him
  
• Tony’s father abuses Tony, thinking he has been smoking drugs in his bedroom. He threatens to shove a cigar down Tony’s throat.

Material that may scare children

Under eight

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.

Younger children could be disturbed by the realistic manner of the violence depicted throughout the film, specifically scenes containing more brutal violence, images of aggressive/violent adults and parental verbal abuse.

Aged eight to thirteen

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.

Some children between the ages of eight and thirteen years could also be disturbed by the realistic manner of the violence and the parental verbal abuse depicted throughout the film.

Over the age of thirteen

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 children between the ages of thirteen and fifteen of age may be able to see this movie with parental guidance, depending on parents’ assessment of the film’s content and their teenager’s ability to cope with the film’s content.

Sexual references

Lords of Dogtown contains a number of explicit sexual references. The references are made predominantly by adolescent male and female characters during social interaction, including:

• a girl of about fifteen years of age approaches Tony and says, in reference to Tony’s skateboarding performance “You blew me away”. Tony’s response is “What—you want to blow me” with the girl responding with “Maybe”
  
• Skip hands Stacy a Zephyr T-shirt and says, “That T-shirt will get you more titty than you ever dreamed of”
  
• Tony states “I want to have more than one girl every night, I want to have two girls every night”.

Nudity and sexual activity

Lords of Dogtown contains a number of scenes implying sexual activity between adolescents, generally implying that female adolescents are more sexually outgoing than their male counterparts. Scenes included:

• a fifteen-year old girl sits on top of a naive Sid, who is lying on a couch. She acts in a very sensuous and seductive manner towards him, removing her top to expose just her bra, covering very large breasts. Sid becomes so excited that he falls off the couch.
  
• an adolescent girl straddles Tony who is sitting in a chair. The pair passionately grind their hips together while rocking backwards and forwards. The girl is wearing a bikini, while Tony’s torso is naked.
  
• Tony, who shares a bedroom with his sister, has a girl in his bed while his sister has a boy in her bed. All four are in their underwear and romping around under the blankets. Tony’s father arrives home and Tony’s partner hides in the closet, while his sister’s partner jumps out of the window. After the father leaves the bedroom, the two couples resume their activities.
  
• there are a number of scenes with scantily dressed adolescent girls lying in a seductive manner around empty swimming pools while the boys skate inside the pool.
  
• Jay’s mother is lying in bed with her boyfriend. A sheet covers her torso, but her legs, thighs and shoulder are exposed; in a sensual manner.
  
• Tony’s sponsor pulls up in front of Tony’s house in a limousine, and a number of women resembling prostitutes, wearing short dresses that reveal lots of cleavage, stumble out of the car as if intoxicated. The sponsor invites Tony into the car, but Tony refuses.

Use of substances

Lords of Dogtown depicts the consumption of alcohol, cannabis and tobacco, and reference is made to cocaine. Some such scenes are:

• Skip is portrayed as a heavy drinker who always has a bottle of spirits in one hand and a cigarette in the other. As a result of his alcoholism Skip becomes self-destructive, eventually losing all the members of his Zephyr skating team and then his business. During one scene when Skip is extremely intoxicated, he smashes furniture and throws surfboards off the roof of his surf shop.
  
• Jay’s mother’s boyfriend leaves the house with a clear plastic garbage bag full of cannabis. While it is not explicitly stated, the behaviour of Jay’s mother throughout the film provides the viewer with the impression that she is constantly under the influence of either cannabis or alcohol, or permanently affected by prior long term substance abuse.
  
• Sid is shown smoking cannabis (referred to as a herb), and Sid claims it has been prescribed by his doctor for his cancer. Sid offers a cannabis cigarette to Jay who smokes it. Neither boy shows any obvious signs of being intoxicated by the cannabis.
  
• Sid makes reference to cocaine usage by labelling two men as “cokehead freaks”.

Coarse language

Medium level coarse language and some verbal putdowns were scattered throughout the film. The language is used in a manner and context relevant to the cultural groups portrayed by the film. Examples include:

• shit
  
• screwed up
  
• your ass
  
• son of a bitch
  
• fricking
  
• arsehole
  
• shit me
  
• get off your arse
  
• balls
  
• dickhead
  
• shit hole.

• little grommets don’t screw up
  
• little maggot
  
• you guys look bad as shit
  
• can’t your dirty ass even read
  
• a shit local.

The movie's message

The film contains no specific take home message, but rather deals with the manner in which four adolescent boys cope with fast rising fame, pop culture, rivalry, family problems, sexual encounters, setbacks and death. Parents may wish to discuss the different ways in which each of the four boys cope with their rising stardom, highlighting the level headedness of Stacy Peralta and his ability to stay focussed and achieve his goals.

Parents may also wish to discuss the dangers that street violence can present to adolescent males and the possible long term consequences associated with it. Non-violent alternatives to resolving, or avoiding conflict could be explored. Parents could also take the opportunity to discuss the real life consequences of the reckless life-endangering behaviour of the adolescents depicted in the film.