Institute History
Description
WHITEBOYZ takes place in Holyoke, Iowa in the early 1990’s. The story follows a group of white teenagers that have inherited unemployment and welfare after numerous factory closings throughout the Midwest. Through the main character Flip, the film explores young white feelings of inadequacy and invalidation, and the reasons for white worship and appropriation of “black” culture, the white poor, violence and poverty in American society.
Flip and his crew embrace the culture that they see in rap videos and hear on the “gangsta rap” albums from America’s cities. They embody what they think is “black” culture, and ultimately embrace the tenet of American culture – violence. The adults in town blame blacks for importing their “negative” culture to Holyoke, failing to realize that this predominately white town is suffering from what poor communities in the inner cities suffer from – poverty.