Even with their less than legal and nice behavior at some points, I can't help but root for them. When they went to attack the rival gang (who didn't do anything wrong this time) I was rooting for No M.O's balloons to find their mark, and when one of the Ghost Town guys shoots at them with a shotgun I feared one of them would be hit. I laughed when they were rolling through a nice neighborhood smashing cars indiscriminately. Maybe the reason I like these characters so much is because of how outrageous some of their actions are, like killing a paramedic for not reviving a fish, or maybe it's because of how human they are. When Physco Loco is in Gunnar's bathroom crying hysterically I saw a side of him I haven't ever seen before, normally the calm and calculated leader, his actions seem more like the Gunnar we saw fresh out of the car from Santa Monica. So far it seems to me that Paul Beatty does such a successful job showing people like us who live in a largely protected small town (compared to LA) what it was like to grow up an African-American male in the inner city in large part due to this humor and compassion that he brings out in seemingly hardened main characters.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Rooting for Bangers
In almost every other book I've read I've known who to root against, or at least not to really pull for. In a lot of these books I find myself rooting against gang members, as in these books they normally terrorize the main characters or kill innocent people. But in White Boy Shuffle that's who Gunnar is turning into, and certainly who Psycho Loco is. He is introduced to us as the leader of the Gun Totin' Hooligans, and as being, "home on parole for killing a paramedic who refused to give his piranha Esta Lleno mouth-to-mouth resuscitation" (Beatty 84). Later we hear that a big part of Gunnar's favors to Psycho Loco consists of "My backyard became a burial ground for missing evidence; warm guns and blood-rusted knives" (Beatty 97). In real life Psycho Loco, or Gunnar, is not the kind of random stranger I would walk up to and start talking to on the street.
Even with their less than legal and nice behavior at some points, I can't help but root for them. When they went to attack the rival gang (who didn't do anything wrong this time) I was rooting for No M.O's balloons to find their mark, and when one of the Ghost Town guys shoots at them with a shotgun I feared one of them would be hit. I laughed when they were rolling through a nice neighborhood smashing cars indiscriminately. Maybe the reason I like these characters so much is because of how outrageous some of their actions are, like killing a paramedic for not reviving a fish, or maybe it's because of how human they are. When Physco Loco is in Gunnar's bathroom crying hysterically I saw a side of him I haven't ever seen before, normally the calm and calculated leader, his actions seem more like the Gunnar we saw fresh out of the car from Santa Monica. So far it seems to me that Paul Beatty does such a successful job showing people like us who live in a largely protected small town (compared to LA) what it was like to grow up an African-American male in the inner city in large part due to this humor and compassion that he brings out in seemingly hardened main characters.
Even with their less than legal and nice behavior at some points, I can't help but root for them. When they went to attack the rival gang (who didn't do anything wrong this time) I was rooting for No M.O's balloons to find their mark, and when one of the Ghost Town guys shoots at them with a shotgun I feared one of them would be hit. I laughed when they were rolling through a nice neighborhood smashing cars indiscriminately. Maybe the reason I like these characters so much is because of how outrageous some of their actions are, like killing a paramedic for not reviving a fish, or maybe it's because of how human they are. When Physco Loco is in Gunnar's bathroom crying hysterically I saw a side of him I haven't ever seen before, normally the calm and calculated leader, his actions seem more like the Gunnar we saw fresh out of the car from Santa Monica. So far it seems to me that Paul Beatty does such a successful job showing people like us who live in a largely protected small town (compared to LA) what it was like to grow up an African-American male in the inner city in large part due to this humor and compassion that he brings out in seemingly hardened main characters.
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I definitely agree with the points you raise here. When I lived in New York, I was friends with a huge mix of people, including a few of whom had older brothers that were gang members. I was always deathly afraid of them and my mother never allowed me to visit their houses, even though I was friends with their younger sisters. Reading this I see the human side of Psycho Loco and other people I might have otherwise just stereotyped and avoided. It got me to thinking about my past, and made me realize that people will always hide their most vulnerable side from others. There's something loveable about everyone, we just have to learn to break down the walls.
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