Video : History of Graffiti in Los Angeles
Aside from the racial dynamics, which may in part have something to do with the filmmaker’s own interpretation of the history of LA graffiti, what was really interesting was the lady from Totally Against Graffiti‘s plan to use branding and consumer culture – two things graffiti tries to subvert – to fight against graffiti in general.
Rather than possibly teaching these young children about the civic responsibility and respect arguments that graffiti opponents often refer to, TAG’s plan is just to further indoctrinate young children into consumerism and identification with a transnational corporation rather than developing an appreciation for their city in order to fight what they see as a crime.
Also of note is the fact that the three corporations she named as partners: Blockbuster Video, Little Caesar’s and Nestle really do very little if anything, to curb the obesity and media obsession that many American youth today suffer from:
“But what they don‘t know about us is that we‘re deeply superficial“
“The people that graffiti, that think they have the right to put their name anywhere they choose that‘s basically anarchy. I‘ll do whatever I want, whenever I want, wherever I want, ‘ cause I just feel like it and the heck with you. They have no rules, they even resent being told there are rules. They‘ re waging a war against that part of our society which is civilized… when somebody calls graffiti writers ‘ artists‘ I donno what they‘ re talking about to me they‘ re criminals
“It‘s amazing how fast a neighborhood can go from a working class neighborhood that has values and ethics, how fast it can become a slum. If people don‘t fight against the graffiti. If you leave it up it‘s a sign of surrender and it spreads from one side of the street to the other. It‘s their way of telling the residents of the community ‘you don‘t own this block, we do‘
“Because graffiti involves the ego, and adventure, excitement, and personalization and social networking, graffiti writers really get addicted to doing graffiti. Well, because graffiti has all that people who hate graffiti get addicted to all that. There’s the ego, there’s the faith, there’s the ‘how much can we stop’? ‘who can we get’? it’s really an obsession with each other because the obsession with graffiti“
“Every time you see graffiti you‘re gonna find garbage and other stuff, even if it‘s a really good neighborhood“
“People from negative stimuli cultures that do not understand the positives, if provided with a sufficient negative stimulus will stop their negative behavior“
Bomb It: Film Explaining Graffiti Culture in Los Angeles [Digg]