THUG MENTALITY
THE HATE U GIVE I George Tillman Jr.’s teen tale tackles racism and police brutality head on…
Inever really set out to make a YA book,” says director George Tillman Jr. He’s talking about The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas’ best-selling 2017 novel about a young teenager named Starr Carter. “You never see many African-American women’s stories told on film so I was really excited about that,” Tillman Jr. continues. “I really liked it that she was a 16-year-old girl who was dealing with adult issues.”
Indeed, for a film that starts out looking like just another high-school coming-of-age movie, The Hate U Give embraces wide-ranging social issues, from police brutality to interracial relationships and inner-city life. “The book dove into all these things in a way that was not holding anything back but at the same time was very accessible,” the director adds. “Those are the things that excited me. I feel like I had a lot of layers and subtext to deal with.”
With its provocative title taken from rapper Tupac Shakur’s so-called ‘Thug Life’ acronym (meaning ‘The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody’), Thomas was inspired to write the book after the recent deaths of several young African-Americans at the hands of police, including Oscar Grant, whose life and killing were documented in Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station.
In The Hate U Give, Starr (Amandla Stenberg) witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood friend Khalil (Algee Smith) after their car is pulled over by a cop. Does she speak out and go public? It’s one of the many dilemmas she faces in a film that also tackles white privilege and the appropriation of AfricanAmerican culture. While Tillman Jr. has explored issues of race in his films before – notably in period naval bio Men Of Honour – he estimates this is the most angry work of his career to date.
“It was all instinctively coming from the heart,” he says. “Along with all the actors… we all tried to be very authentic. I felt like this is one of my most authentic films. Not caring what anybody thinks. Not caring what is said or could be said. I just told a very honest story. People can appreciate being authentic. Authenticity breeds universality. That’s how I felt.”
While the film is fleshed out with some fine adult performers (rapper/ actor Common and Anthony Mackie among them), all the plaudits will go to rising star Stenberg, who has already got her YA movie out of the way with this summer’s The Darkest Minds.
“I think this is the beginning from where her work is going to completely change and I think we’ll see a lot of great things from her,” says Tillman Jr. “I think this is a defining film.” In more ways than one, you might say.