They Cloned Tyrone

 

About a month ago I watched "They Cloned Tyrone" on Netflix and I can honestly say that this is a great film. There are a lot of themes in this film which I would like to delve into. The main character in the film is Fountaine, he is a drug dealer who lives in the hood called Glen in America. He lives with his mother and his day-to-day life is pretty much the same routine, he gets up, goes to the liquor store, buys a scratch card, gives some alcohol to a homeless man and exercises. One of his clients is a pimp named Slick Charles who has a prostitute named Yo-Yo. One night Fountaine gets shot and killed by a rival drug dealer and Slick Charles and Yo-yo witness it. The next day we see Fountaine wake up, and do his daily routine as if nothing had happened. The crazy thing is that he has no injuries and no recollection of the previous night's events. It's apparent that something strange is going on and during the film, the trio go on a quest to investigate this and make some very interesting discoveries.

One of the discoveries is an underground laboratory full of white scientists who are surveilling and studying the black residents of Glen and their behaviours. This is not too far off what happens in real life. In history when European explorers would go to Africa, they would study the native people and their behaviours. Part of the reason they did this was to colonise their lands and to control the people. In modern times spending behaviours of black people are monitored for marketing reasons so big brands can make money. Western powers also watch what is going on in Africa so that they can continue to rob Africa of its resources and will take action against any threats. The whole notion of monitoring black people is for control. 

Another discovery made by the trio is a powder which is used in products primarily consumed by black people. One example is fried chicken, in the film the chicken is addictive and those who eat it laugh uncontrollably.  I believe this is an analogy of what happens in real life. When I visited America a couple of months ago, the food tasted a lot better than the food in the UK and was somewhat addictive. However, when I looked at the ingredients list there was always a very high sugar content and it included a number of ingredients I had never heard of. Many ingredients in the food in the USA are banned in Europe and other places. These ingredients have negative side effects and are not good for the body. You could argue that the food is basically a form of poison to make people sick which in turn makes a lot of money for Big Pharma as you have to pay for Healthcare in the USA.

Another area is music. There is a club scene where music is played to control the crowd. In another scene in the lab they play rap music about violence in a pod with two black men who are fighting. Once the scientists change it to mellow music about hugs, the men then stop fighting and hug each other. It exemplifies how music can control human behaviour. To a degree this is true. A lot of rap music that is pushed is violent and degenerate which promotes negative behaviours. Lord knows the amount of rap songs there are about killing 'niggas', taking drugs and degrading women. There are men who have been murdered due to rap music (particularly drill). Female rap is hypersexualised, the majority of female rappers just rap about sex and their vaginas, there is hardly any real substance in their music. Recently I heard a song with the following lyrics "My pussy pink, my bootyhole brown" which is from the song Poundtown by Sexyy Redd. Degenerate music like this gets pushed to the forefront. Even the City girls who promote using and scamming men for money actually became a popular culture among young women. As much as some may disagree I believe music does have some influence over people's behaviour.

The main theme in this film is cloning. The trio find clones in the underground lab. To keep the hood the way it is, the scientists clone people who are not good for the community. Fountaine (who is a clone of the original scientist) and Slick Rick find their clones, due to one being a drug dealer and the other being a pimp. The scientists do not clone Doctors, lawyers or successful people from the hood that will benefit the hood, instead, they clone those who are rather regressive. I believe this is done on purpose to keep the black residents of Glen stagnant and controlled. In the end we meet Tyrone, who is a stereotypical black man from the hood who is also a clone of Fontaine. In American history, there have been instances when white Americans have been involved in practices to "keep black people in their place". One of these is redlining where those living in black neighbourhoods were denied access to loans, mortgages and insurance, thus preventing them from progressing financially, thus keeping their neighbourhoods poor.

There is a lot more to the film I didn't discuss but the above points are my main takeaways from watching the film. I believe the film was a creative way to show the things that go on in society.