SET IT OFF RESPONSE
According to Ebert, poverty and racism are approved rationales in film for committing crimes against an uncaring capitalist system, and indirectly the state. 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." (Springer 181)
This film bothered me because it seemed that there wasn't much rationale in the women's decisions. I can understand being angry for a white man insisting on Frankie's involvement in the first bank robery in the film causing her to loose her job and also for that same man killing Stonie's brother, but their were so many more options that the girls didn't even consider. When Stonie sold her body for her brother's college education, she could have kept the money she unfortunately, rightfully deserved, and helped Tisean with the money to prove herself to Social services. I think this film just overemphasized the stereotype of the saphire and how the need for money brings out the beast within. The anger towards society, the state that has done wrong to them, leads the girls to inevitably rob a bank. I felt that Tisean was the most innocent up until she shot the man who caused her baby to be taken away. It all seems too cliche. None of the women seemed to think about the effects their actions would have on others in their lives, such as Tisean's child. To me this is just a typical hollywood gangsta movie, women replacing men, attacking the state they felt attacked them.