Violence has plagued showings of “New Jack City” in suburban Boston, Brooklyn, N.Y., Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Nev., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sayreville, N.J., and Tukwila, Wash. In Brooklyn, where teenagers from rival housing projects fired more than 100 shots, killing one man and wounding a pregnant woman, a manager at the Duffield Twin likened the scene to “World War III.” In Los Angeles, a crowd of 1,500 who were turned away from the Mann Westwood Theatre opening night rioted, looting some 20 stores. Other skirmishes ranged from nonfatal stabbings and shootings - one over a girl, another over a leather 8-ball jacket - to fights that made headlines only because of the ties to the movie. In Omaha, Neb., a peaceful weekend run made the papers.
For critics who believe that violence on screen breeds violence off, the link seemed clear. Many civic groups, from the National Coalition on Television Violence (NCTV) to an alliance of black Houston ministers, argue that “New Jack City” promotes violence. According to psychiatrist Thomas Radecki, research director for NCTV, “It’s certainly playing a triggering role [in the violence at theaters]. This film is like throwing gasoline on a fire.”
But the connection between life and the movies is more complicated than that. Many of those involved hadn’t even seen the film. Some of the theaters, particularly in Brooklyn and Westwood Village, have histories of trouble. The filmmakers say their movie discourages violence, because the good guys win. In its shots of crack users, “New Jack City” chillingly apes Gothic horror movies: crack is a palpable evil, with a life of its own, and it ultimately destroys the hustlers the same way it does the community. As Van Peebles says, “The conclusion [is that] anybody who takes crack dies, anybody who deals crack dies.”
The real roots of the violence at theaters are economic. According to Warrington Hudlin, president of the Black Filmmaker Foundation and producer of “House Party,” a light teen comedy that nonetheless met with disturbances at theaters, “Each time these movies open up, by this new generation of black filmmakers, there’s a huge, huge demand. People are standing in line for hours, and then they’re told the theater’s out of tickets. You can’t frustrate people that way, particularly a segment of the population that has anger anyway.”
The repercussions may be devastating for the black film industry. Ten theaters have dropped the film, and Spike Lee says he has already heard that some theaters don’t want to show his upcoming “Jungle Fever” for fear of similar incidents. “There’s a perception that all black films are the same,” he said, “and that if you have black films showing at a theater, there’s going to be a disturbance. [The studios] won’t fund a film they think exhibitors are going to be afraid to show.” Sometimes the fear isn’t even prompted by violence at theaters. Two days before the 1988 opening of “Tougher Than Leather,” starring the rap act Run-D.M.C., two Long Island theaters canceled the film after violence at a rap concert. Van Peebles sees this guilt by association as racism. It doesn’t apply to, say, a fatal shooting at the opening of “The Godfather Part III” last Christmas. “If Francis Ford Coppola’s movie has a problem with three people getting shot, no one says to David Lynch, ‘You can’t make movies’.”
