Skateboarders vs. Hollywood
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Skaters have always had a tumultuous relationship with
Hollywood and the way they have been portrayed in the movies. As a
subculture, skaters by nature have always shyed away from anything
as large and grandiose as Hollywood, but the few who have dared to
brave the bright lights of the marquee have generally gotten their
asses burned. A large part of this is due to the fact that Hollywood has always been an arrogant beast that generally does not care to portray anything other than stereotypes. Add in that no skater has ever been in a position to ensure that things are kept “real”, and you have a recipe for skaters to always look like burnt out surfers and horribly chopped up tricks on the silver screen. This is not to say that every time skaters have heard of a movie being made about them, they pray that it will be done right and at least show them or the skating in the right light. For some reason it just has never fallen into place and the culture at this point has just given up hope and adopted a cynical attitude towards anything to do with Hollywood and skateboarding. Hollywood’s first largely notable attempt was Thrashin’ in 1986. The movie was about two rival skate “gangs”, one from the valley know as the Ramp Locals and the other from Venice Beach know as the Daggers. While there are many notable faces from skateboarding at the time, the movie’s biggest missteps were including a skate joust and culminating in a 20 mile downhill race for a corporate sponsor. At the time the most prominent form of skating was vert and pool which was barely even addressed in the movie. Next up was Gleaming the Cube. The title was a term that Hollywood thought skaters used to describe skating to the layman but was actually never used by a single skater. In the movie Christian Slater is depicted skating street, vert and freestyle at various points. The first problem being that each stunt skater is a different stance (goofy or regular) in each skate scene. At the end of the movie the whole Bones Brigade makes an appearance as Christian Slater does an early grab air off a jump ramp that is edited to look as if he launches across a fifty foot stretch of highway and lands on the bad guy to knock him out. The air is another oversight by the moviemakers because it is just purely not possible and looked amazingly corny. The most recent attempt by Hollywood to cash in on skateboarding was 2005’s The Grind. Whoever did this researched some of the fundamentals of skating but that was all they felt justified to do for this mess of a movie. I will only give a short numbered list of the major crimes against humanity this movie commited as any skater could write a novel about it. 1. In the opening skate sequence the stunt skaters is regular foot and the actor is goofy. 2. The “bad guy” skaters look like a late 90’s rap group in XXL matching sweat suits. 3. When the pro Jimmy Wilson tells Eric the main character that if just keeps up his skating he will get sponsored, Eric goes off and starts his own skate team called “Super Duper”, nothing more need be said… 4. The final big vert trick is chopped and edited from many different tricks. It looks like a frontside 360 halfcab heelflip indy but could be anything from a mctwist to a kickflip indy. So over time a few of these titles have become novel classics to skaters for nostalgia reasons but never before has Hollywood gone to the depths to really make a movie that is entertaining and actually manages to not play skaters out. Times have changed… |
Here are a few clips from the movies above:
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