July 08, 2005 @ 11:45 am

Business: A Look Inside the Street Brawls and Ghetto Fights DVDs

by: Alyssa Rashbaum

In your neighborhood or just across the train tracks, there is a fistfight, a screaming match or maybe even a gunfight taking place right now. It’s an everyday reality and it’s there whether you choose to watch or take part in it or not. But if someone offered you the opportunity to observe these brawls from the safe comfort of your sofa, and couched the violent nature of the footage by marketing it for its entertainment value, would you buy it? Would you watch it? If you said yes, you would be among the steadily growing audience consuming a burgeoning genre of violent, “reality” DVDs. The type of footage itself is nothing new – DVDs depicting street fights have been around for years - but their increasing visibility is; these once underground or street DVDs are floating into the mainstream, being sold in record stores and online. At the head of the game are the unmercifully violent and highly controversial series, Ghetto Fights and Wildest Street Brawls. The series are marketed as delivering “the horrors of the streets, showcasing pimp beatings, gang warfare, backyard brawls and female slug-outs caught on tape,” and since their inception, the producers have been fending off rabid critics who cite the DVDs for condoning racism and promoting violence, and frequent death threats. Still, they maintain that these DVDs are not encouraging violence but simply mirroring reality, since the footage is raw and none of the fights are staged. “This is what’s really going on,” said Brian Schafton of the RBC Consulting firm that distributes Ghetto Fights. “Do you want to ignore it or do you want to find out what’s real? You can’t turn your head to what’s going on in society.” “I’m pretty sure those fights are exciting for people to watch, but we don’t do that,” said International P, creator of Fight Klub and the Fight Klub DVD series that features fierce battle rap competitions. “You have Fight Klub so if cats want to beef, they don’t [have to] bring it to blows, they got the battles.” “We’re just showing what’s happening on the streets every single day,” said Rob (whose last name is being withheld due to the aforementioned death threats), a producer of Ghetto Fights. “WE NEVER ANCITIPATED HAVING TO CARRY LOADED NINES TO MEETINGS.” Reality or not, is it necessary to film this brutal part of daily life and package it as entertainment? Not everyone thinks so and the producers of “Ghetto Fights” are well aware of that, having received so many death threats that they have had to carry guns to their meetings and use an x-ray machine to scan all packages. “With all the anger and hatred in the world, promoting poison to our young America is wrong,” read a letter of disdain from one woman who was embarrassed at the way the Ghetto Fights series was advertised and the way the creators “make money off black people for making them look like animals that need to be in cages.” In April, the Fox News show Hannity & Colmes joined the fray. Ghetto Fights consultant, Ben (who prefers to have his last name withheld due to death threats), was interviewed on the show where he defended the DVDs as he and the series underwent vicious criticism from the hosts. “You’re making money off just the misery and the decay of society,” Sean Hannity said to Ben, to which Alan Colmes later added, “I’d like to know, when you talk about beating people unconscious, and stomping on people, and kicking them, how exactly is that entertainment?” “It is entertainment for some people,” Ben responded. “And there is a demand for it. And [we] just supply [for] that demand.” The interview, which was given the dubious honor of being one of the top 10 most controversial shows in the Hannity & Colmes program, motivated Rev. Al Sharpton to attend the show the following day and voice his disapproval. “[The series] glorifies and gives kids who are influenced by this [the impression] that this is our life. This is natural,” he said. “To have something as despicable and violent as this projected as what goes on in our communities or any communities, is something everybody should boycott.” “THIS IS WITHOUT A DOUBT FOR PROFIT” But people are all but boycotting these DVDs and similar street DVDs. In fact, the sales of the three Wildest Street Brawls and both Ghetto Fights DVDs have reached close to the 500,000 mark, according to Schafton. And that number is steadily growing, which Schafton says is a good indication that the series is about to explode. “These DVDs have been around for almost four years and if you looked at how the sales have been over the four years, it’s incredibly consistent,” said Schafton. “I’ve been a part of some things that started small and ended up huge and this is how they worked.” When Rob and his fellow producers started the Ghetto Fights series, their number one goal was to cash in on the reality TV/DVD craze. What started as something small, with just a few units sold, has become an extremely lucrative business for those former armchair entrepreneurs. Their celebrity fan base – including Method Man, who is quoted on the cover of Ghetto Fights 2 saying “I watch Ghetto Brawls while driving,” along with G-Unit, Black Rob, Funkmaster Flex and Lil Jon who used Ghetto Brawl footage in his re-mix video for “Real Nigga Role Call” – hasn’t hurt sales either. The DVDs tend to retail for about $15 in stores, though the suggested retail price is $19.99. No matter, even after all the production costs are tallied - chop off $1 to make the DVD, $2.50 for distribution, and about $1 to the distribution company – the producers and creators still stand to make a hefty profit. “When we’re selling a hundred thousand copies,” said Schafton, “we can make $300,000-$500,000 off that DVD. This is without a doubt for profit. We’re not doing this for philanthropic purposes.” The Ghetto Fights team and the makers of similar DVDs would probably be hard-pressed to find anyone who was under impression that these DVDs were created for the good of society, but they have inadvertently helped capture a few criminals. Those shown brandishing guns and marijuana stashes are often targeted by police who have made several arrests based on the DVD series. In Baltimore, police responded to a street DVD called Stop Snitching which featured drug dealers warning people against reporting crimes to police, by releasing their own DVD called Keep Talking, mocking the makers of Snitch for helping them capture criminals. “THE FIGHTS KEEP HAPPENING WHETHER THERE’S FIGHT DVDS OUT THERE OR NOT” DVDs like Fight Klub offer an alternative to the viewer wanting a taste of a violent brawl, by providing a forum for amateur MCs to take their anger to the table and pit their wits against another contender in a battle of words, without worrying about a physical fight erupting. “This is the only spot where you can come and there’s no politics,” said International P. “If you nice, you can get on that table and do your thing. The streets know this. They ain’t gonna come in here and have a fight and fuck it up.” By contrast, one of the most frequent criticisms lobbed at the makers of violent “reality” DVDs is that they encourage more violence. Both Rob and Schafton feel that their DVD series is just offering a slice of reality that can be watched from a safe distance away from the real brutality. Whether it tugs at your heartstrings and makes you want to get up and do your part to end the violence, or if you watch it with some friends and have a hearty chuckle - it's your business. “Do you think news stations showing the war every day are encouraging violence in what they show every day,” asks Rob. “The news stations are pretty much doing the same thing we are but they have a better avenue to get away with it because they’re news stations…. People have been fighting for thousands of years and I don’t think it’s ever going to stop whether our DVDs are out there or not. We’re just showing what’s happening on the streets every single day.” Tell us what you think, CLICK HERE TO COMMENT.

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