Set It Off
My quote is from Waiting to Set It Off by Kimberley Springer. It can be found on pages 181-2 of her essay, or 193-4 in the course packet.
"By robbing banks and, most importantly, getting away with it, the four women of "Set It Off" engage in a form of revolutionary expropriation: they steal what has already been stolen. Frankie uses this logic in trying to convince the other women, "Look, we're just taking away from the System that's fucking us all anyway, you know?""
I remember this quote from the movie as it was the beginning of the main plot. With this arguement, Frankie wins her debate and the planning for the robberies begins. By "stealing what has already been stolen," they justify what they are doing as right and even that they deserve what they will be getting. This thought kind of explains their role within society. By having willingness to commit such illegal and dangerous crimes, they are, in a way, saying that they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. They portray themselves as lower class or the working poor and are to the point that they would do anything to change that. Earlier in the movie even, anything really did mean anything when Stony sells herself in order to help her brother. As a female, she takes advantage of what she has been given and sacrifices herself to improve her brother's life which would hopefully lead to an improvement in her life in the future. Again, this quote is an important part to not only the plot of the movie on the surface, but also can represent the minority and feminst issues being represented. It supports the idea that these women are desperate to improve their lives and have lost the hope of doing it any other way.