Fruitvale Station: Genre, Representation & Narrative

Fruitvale Station is a True Story based movie released in 2013 regarding the life of 22 year old Oscar Grant  Oscar Grant, a black Californian who wakes up on New Year's Eve 2008 and resolves to become a better person, but as he celebrates the New Year him and the community are faced with a terrible shock. The narrative structure of the movie is Non Linear and is told all the way through Oscars eyes up until his death, in which there is an omniscient narrative as we are able to see how everyone is effected by the loss of his life. In the beginning of the movie there is an audio flashback pertaining a conversation between him and his girlfriend which allows the audience to get a picture of this all american and quite happy family, this then juxtaposes with the following clip of the real footage from when Oscar Grant was murdered by an officer. To me the narrative was effective because it gave the audience a background to the life of Oscar and allowed us as the audience to connect emotionally with the character also which made the ending much more effective and presumably brought up the ratings of this movie also. 

There was a large amount of coverage when it came to representation within this movie, the most obvious being the representation of black young males, the stereotype of them living a life relating to gang life (money, drugs and violence) did in fact get Oscar Grant killed although his life did not necessarily relate to it as much the police still assumed it did because of this stereotype (which has not been tarnished or changed since the death of Oscar Grant). Not only did it present this stereotype but it also showed the representation of working class Americans who typically have jobs relating to working in retail and earning minimum wage or making 'ends meat' and baring in mind their kids and striving to make a better life for them. The police were represented as being brutal and racist when it came to the end of the movie when they pulled Oscar and his friends off of the train simply because they thought it was him causing the trouble because of the colour of their skin, the police were forceful and did not respect any of their rights and had no legal right to obtain them, especially to handcuff them, so when one of the officers shot Oscar, whilst he was already on the ground and just refusing to roll over it was a serious offense, one that should not of been taking as lightly as it did in court. 
The genre of this movie was a Biography/ Drama, as it was based on a true story it went through the life of Oscar being told through Oscar himself (played by Michael B Jordan) up until his last moments, it was a Drama also because there was a lot of tense scenes and conflict that happened within the movie such as his encounter with his manager when pleading for his job and his fight with an enemy whilst at prison. 

I enjoyed this movie because I think it gave a real life perspective on what happened and what still is currently happening in America, it also shows the struggle black men in particular face when regarding police brutality in America and that it is not something they can just get away with, the movie acts as a voice in the dark for a lot of black males in America feeling as though they could be arrested at any point for simply being a black man in America and although the movie did not end as happily as you'd assume it still helps in getting the message across to millions of people around the world which I found greatly comforting.