The Hate U Give (2018)
Review of The Hate U Give (2018), directed by George Tillman Jr.
The first time I had heard of this story was when the original novel, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, dropped and became a bestseller on the Young Adult market for fifty weeks. That was impressive for a debut author, especially when she had written the original premise of this story, based on the shooting of Oscar Grant in 2009, back when she was in college. The book was released in 2017 and was greenlit for a movie adaption, which came a year later in October of 2018.
I held off on watching the movie version of this for years because I felt like I knew the content. I want to include this disclaimer here that I am not Black, but I was born and raised as a mixed kid in Baltimore.
I had friends who were from the projects of Baltimore, who were Black, and while I can never understand their struggle, I found myself wanting to educate myself more about the issues surrounding the city I was born in and why it has become a place of racial inequality.
When the death of Freddie Gray occurred, it was no surprise what happened before, during, and after, which was the saddest part of it all. And so I avoided this movie for a while because it was going to be a hard watch. Spoiler: I did cry while watching this. Anyways, now that I’ve been rambling for a bit, let’s dive into this review.
Starr’s life completely changes when her childhood friend is shot and killed by a white cop right in front of her—he had done nothing wrong.
Our main protagonist in The Hate U Give, Starr Carter, is no stranger to the concept of code-switching. Having grown up in the predominantly Black neighborhood, which many would probably dub ghetto due to its presence of gangs (and the obvious racial component to that statement) and lack of social mobility, her mother decides to send her brothers and Starr to a private school that’s pretty much white.
At home Starr is more herself, but while at school she seems to have a completely different personality, one that adapts to the people she’s surrounded by. She’s pretending to be like the people around her, trying not to seem like a stereotypical Black girl, and thus she hangs around Maya and Hailey (who turns out to be a racist). She’s even dating a white boy who looks like he plays lacrosse.
Starr’s mother wants to move out of the neighborhood they live in because of the issues plaguing it, but Starr’s father, a former gang member who was in jail for taking the blame of the local gang leader, wants to stay and has a strong belief that something will change. But something does change initially, and it’s not for the better. Starr, while at a local party, meets her childhood friend Khalil and they hit it up and reconnect as buddies.
Khalil and Starr then leave the party together after a gunshot goes off, but as they’re driving home, a white cop stops the car. Khalil is resistant to what the cop is saying, beginning to agitate the guy, and he demands that Khalil step out of the car, hands behind his back, and not move. Khalil disobeys this simple command and reaches for his hairbrush, giving Starr a lazy smile, but this is a fatal mistake. The cop thinks that he’s reaching for a gun and shoots him, ultimately killing Khalil right in front of Starr.
This leads the community to try and get justice for Khalil’s unlawful death, and, right after his funeral, there’s a march. The activist fighting for Khalil’s case wants Starr to speak out, but this is where her worlds begin to collide. Her mother doesn’t want her to, and Starr is worried that if she speaks out, she would be ostracized at school and in her life.
But as she sees her classmates skipping class in the name of BLM and doing nothing about it, she becomes enraged, choosing to go on television anonymously and discuss how Khalil only delivered drugs because he needed the money, thus putting her family in the crosshairs of the local gang because people have figured out it’s her.
There’s a lot going on in this movie that is nuanced, such as the everyday impacts of racism on a non-white individual. The fact that Starr even has to switch back and forth in her daily life between two different identities is a pretty normal thing; when some non-white individuals, especially Black people, have had to deal with white people, they put on a completely different demeanor in order to seem non-aggressive or non-threatening. It’s a way of blending into certain societies, but it really is exhausting and takes a mental toll on people.
The media also hones in on the fact that Khalil was a delivery boy for the local gang and for drugs, thus putting up this front that in a way his death was justified. That he was just another Black boy on the streets lost to drugs. I think it’s powerful that Starr stands up for him and shows how he truly was to others, as well as his situation, because it shows us how quickly we tend to condemn and judge others, especially with regards to racial stereotyping.
I think this is a really powerful movie that has the power to tap into both white and Black audiences, but I’m not sure if it holds up to the test of time. I think what I wanted from the movie itself was more uniqueness from the narrative; we have the story of Starr, who embodies a very specific experience in a very specific moment of time, but I felt like I was just unsatisfied with what was depicted on the screen. It’s a moving, powerful story. I will reiterate that. But I think that something is just missing in the way that the story is told.
Perhaps what I’m trying to hone in on here is that after June of 2020, it has become a story that is all-too-familiar now. While it’s easier for people to connect with movies than real-life, I’m not sure if the audience who would learn something from these kinds of movies are the ones going to see this movie at all. It still has major value in being produced, but it’s not going to suddenly change someone’s mind.
Overall Thoughts
The movie does a good job of humanizing the situations that have become too familiar in American culture. I’m not too sure about some of the casting, as we feature some YouTubers here in this movie (like I think the character of Hailey could’ve been done better, sorry but was not a fan of Carpenter’s job).
But as I mentioned before, this movie just doesn’t hit the right spots for me. Maybe it was too mainstream and sterile at the end of the day—even the big climax when Starr reveals herself as the witness is very anti-climatic.
I imagine the book is better at delving into certain aspects of the situation, especially because the characters in the movie don’t feel very fleshed out. Like the boyfriend just kind of exists and is like “alright, cool, you’re actually a different personality. Love u anyways babe!” Things just felt glossed over at the end of the day, so I wanted more nuance from the film itself.
