notes on: Set It Off

MEDIUM: Film 

GENRE: Action/Crime Thriller

STUDIO: New Line Cinema 

DIRECTOR: F. Gary Gray

CAST: Jada Pinkett Smith, Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, Kimberly Elise, Blair Underwood, Dr. Dre

RELEASE YEAR: 1996

F. Gary Gray’s Set It Off is a hood classic and needs no introduction but I’ll set the stage. Set It Off is Gray’s second feature film and follow-up to the equally classic Friday. The film centers four black women- Frankie played by Vivica A. Fox, Stony played by Jada Pinkett Smith, Cleo played by Queen Latifah, and Tisean played by Kimberly Elise- up against the wind; namely the socioeconomic pressures of growing up in the LA projects as black women. Eventually these women tire of their circumstances and seek escape through a series of high profile bank robberies. What should be a simple high-octane 90s inner city action romp is instead a tender and heartbreaking meditation on black sisterhood, feminism, afropessimism, womanism, localized tragedy, captive maternals, capitalism, and the christological story. Agape meets escape. 

The film’s opening scene follows Frankie. She works at a bank and a man she knows from around the way named Darnell is robbing it. Darnell is unassuming at first but Frankie quickly realizes the danger when he threatens her with his loaded gun. Instead of following procedure (pull money clip from right hand drawer, signal with left hand) Frankie begs Darnell to change his mind- an important and lasting example of attempted solidarity. Darnell refutes Frankie’s solidarity and proceeds with the robbery, which turns into a bloody affair. This is the first time in the movie that a black woman is failed by a black man. The robbery is “successful” and Darnell along with his accomplice Lorenz make off with a lot of money. Frankie is questioned by the LAPD’s Detective Stroud and fired because she knew the robbers and didn’t follow the aforementioned procedure. A jaded and increasingly hysterical Frankie laments the bank owners for their disloyalty and even cites her own loyalty (counted 240,000 dollars by hand for them the day before). None of it matters, Frankie is out of a job despite being the victim of a harsh and traumatizing violent crime. On the way out she makes note of more unfulfilled solidarity, this time in the form of the black female police officer, Detective Waller (played by Ella Joyce), neglecting to “bother to ask if I was thirsty sister.” 

Frankie broke the procedure out of fear and empathy but also due to an assumed camaraderie between herself and those who came from a similar background. This failure of this assumed camaraderie is a driving force for her character throughout the remainder of the film. 

From there we are introduced to the rest of the central characters at Stevie's graduation party. Stevie (played by Chez Lamar Shepherd) is Stony’s little brother but essentially her son as well. They’re orphaned due to a car crash that occurred a few years earlier. The mood is light and everyone is costumed. Cleo and Tisean help Stony ruin her little brother’s groove with the ladies, Stevie is smart and handsome and capable. It’s a good time, she’s a good sister and a good mother- even if it was a role forced on her by circumstance. Immediately we’re shown the personalities and states of our characters: Cleo’s rambunctious, vociferous, and volatile. Stony’s responsible, gritty, and street smart. Tisean is timid, loyal, and a single mother. Frankie’s vengeful, mad at the world, and ready to do something about it. It is also here that we can see Stony’s rearing of Stevie was a communal effort. These women are there for her. 

Even at times of celebration there is cause for hesitation. Stevie appears to be stressed out and after some prodding from Stony, he reveals that he did not receive a scholarship from UCLA to become the “college boy” they were so proud of him for becoming. Stevie suggests just getting a job and sticking around the hood but Stony is quick to shut that idea down, stating that she’ll find a way to come up with the money. How Stony is to go about doing this isn't clear. She works a shitty nighttime janitor job for Luther’s Janitorial Service with an overbearing and disrespectful boss (Luther, played by Thomas Jefferson Byrd) along with Tisean, Cleo, and suddenly Frankie too. Essentially, the film has demonstrated that she and everyone she cares for are stuck in a loop of poverty and violence with no escape. Rather than engage in the self-destructive activities that often malign people in the same circumstances as them, they built a community and decided to be there for each other. They’re firm exemplars of  “captive maternals.” 

Joy James defines a captive maternal in In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love: Precarity, Power, Communities as such: 

an ungendered function that cares for children and elders to keep them stable and protected. Often its labor is used to stabilize the very structures that prey on Black lives and honor in schools, hospitals, jobs, and prisons. Generative powers stolen and repurposed by the state and capital for accumulation can also be stolen back for rebellions. 

James also states that captive maternals are “central to the reproduction of the world. Without this form of caretaking, without this form of sacrifice, without this kind of glue to social order- which is tied to the economic order and the political order, and the very notion of what is familial and the familiar in the world- we see that things do not function” (page 118). From here, we can recall the people in our own lives that were forced by circumstance into motherlike roles and how important they are to any continued success we may have. Stony and Tisean are captive maternals in the most literal sense but even Cleo and Frankie assume responsibility for Stevie and Jajuan (Tisean’s son) as well as for each other. 

Stony resolves to call Nate Andrews, a wealthier man in the neighborhood who’s sweet on her, and ask him for a job. He only wants one thing in return and refuses to give Stony an advance on her first check unless she has sex with him. Nate Andrews demonstrates a similar lack of solidarity that Darnell showed to Frankie and the entire exchange is unsavory. Stony relents with her brother’s education in mind and sells her body with no pleasure, tearfully. She couldn’t scrub hard enough in the shower. To make matters worse, Stevie was lying about getting into UCLA and the money was no help. He storms out of the house after he gets into a big fight with his sister. Stevie’s asylum is Lorenz’s apartment in the Acorn housing projects. 

We immediately recognize Lorenz as a rambunctious, violent, reckless, knucklehead. He has “AP” cut into the back of his head, something that made him easy to identify in the bank robbery footage. Stevie seems quite taken with Lorenz though, uneasy in his presence and seeking his approval. This dynamic makes it easy for Lorenz to pressure Stevie into getting the same haircut. The visit was friendly enough however, Stevie even leaves with a congratulatory bottle of champagne. However, unbeknownst to Stevie, the police have the apartment staked out and they surround him upon departure. Stevie needs to take the champagne from his inside jacket pocket in order to lie down flat on his stomach as they’re demanding but the pigs (police, twelve, five-oh) mistake the bottle for a weapon and open fire, killing him. Innocent, eighteen, and unarmed. 

Unarmed Black Americans are no stranger to police violence. Many Black victims of police brutality and state incompetence have been murdered by “accident” before and after the release of the film. Eleanor Bumpurs, 66-year old disabled Black woman, was shot and killed by the NYPD in 1984 while they were trying to evict her from her home. Amadou Diallo, 23-year old Guinean student, was fired upon 41 times (hit 19  times) by four NYPD officers in 1999 while reaching for his wallet. Tamir Rice, a 12-year old boy, was shot and killed by a Cleveland police officer within seconds of arriving on the scene while playing in the park in 2014. Breonna Taylor, 26-year old woman, shot and killed in her sleep after Louisville Metro Police Officers forced entry into her home and opened fire in 2020. In 1992, the city of Los Angeles burned in a series of riots after a gang of police officers got off for viciously beating Rodney King on video.  

I invoke these real life tragedies to illustrate the familiarity of the struggle and pain felt by Stony as she arrived and saw her brother’s hot blood and cold corpse lie shiftless among the glass bottle shards. This movie was made in the wake of ongoing tragedy and it is important to recognize that because Stevie’s death marked a severance of responsibility for Stevie. Nothing mattered anymore but the means of her escape from a similar fate, which seemed not just likely but promised. 

Tisean, the other mother in the group, also deals with the loss of her son. She cannot afford a sitter and is forced to take him to work with her but she is negligent and ingests some cleaning products. They rush him to the emergency room and manage to save his life but child protective services steps in and takes custody of Jajuan until she can secure a better financial situation. This is the final domino to drop and lays out the desires and motivations of the main characters out plainly. Frankie is angry and wants revenge on the banking industry, feeling as though her hard work and loyalty has gone unrewarded. Stony wants to escape her life and needs money to do so. Tisean needs more money to retain custody of her son. And Cleo is a thrill-seeker, angry about her lack of funds. 

They stake out several banks but at the biggest one, Stony meets Keith (played by Blair Underwood). He’s immediately infatuated with her and insists on getting her number, she declines but she takes his. He’s a debonair, well-off Black man and about as far from Stony’s lifestyle that she can imagine. Keith represents an alternate avenue of escape for Stony, one without personal agency. He is also the first positive example of Black male solidarity to appear in the movie. 

The second example is Black Sam (played by Dr.Dre). Dre’s portrayal is pretty wooden but he’s a roughneck hood nigga with a soft spot for Cleo, who talks him into loaning them the weapons necessary to pull off a bank robbery. It isn't completely altruistic, they promise him a cut of the loot.

Cleo appears to be a professional even on the first bank robbery. They steal a getaway car and Cleo disposes of the music selection, beginning a fun if not childish and dangerous tradition. They wear wigs and sunglasses to disguise their appearance and it goes without a hitch. Well, almost. Tisean gets cold feet and abandons them at the last second. They steal 12,000 dollars and split it four ways despite reservations (mainly from Cleo) about Tisean going awol. Giving Tisean the money despite her not partaking in the robbery is a display of Black sisterhood and further displaying the understanding that comes from shared experience. 

The money secured from the first robbery was not enough for them to really change their lives. Stony goes on a date with Keith and upon seeing his apartment, she outright divulges that she feels trapped. She sort of begins a double life or a dual identity. Stony is provided temporary exposure to escape while with Keith and he wants her to join him for good but she doesn’t truly consider him as an option. Even without Stevie, she has an obligation to Cleo, Tisean, and Frankie. The new influx of money and the dangers of being caught also challenge their allegiances and threaten to fracture their connection. Stony and Cleo argue and point weapons at each other and curse each other out but it’s all love. 

The conflict between the two is not just about money, it’s a battle between two opposing dispositions. Stony’s entire being is dedicated to escaping the life she’s been given in the projects while Cleo does not know escape at all. She doesn't know any future and doesn’t care. As she says, “I’m just trying to make it through today.” This defeatist and pessimistic outlook is rooted in her experience of immense loss. Her erasure as a Black homosexual femme living in the hood is out of her control and she understands that there is no way to escape what is coming for her. Joy James defines afropessimism as follows: 

lens of interpretation that accounts for civil society’s dependence on anti-black violence: a regime of violence that positions Black people as internal enemies of civil society, and which cannot be analogized with the regimes of violence that discipline non-Black workers, women, natives, queers, immigrants, etc. Afropessimism argues that the Black (or slave) is an unspoken and/or unthought sentience for whom the transformative powers of discursive capacity are foreclosed from the beginning. 

I’d be lying if I were to say I thought Cleo’s character is familiar with this term but she lives it in her everyday actions. She oscillates between hedonistic and nihilistic actions with a real madness but she’s arguably the most caring and tender of the group as well. Cleo is a woman without a future and is painted against Stony, a woman who wants one so damned bad.

Futures aren’t cheap, so they rob another bank, this time they get a lot more even if things do not go as smoothly. Cleo needs to steal an additional getaway car after some mess with the first one. Tisean doesn’t bail this time around, she even has a pretty cool crowd control moment from the ground. Oh yeah, they drive through a wall on the way out before stealing 300,000 dollars- 75,000 a piece. They formulate a plan to skip town because things are getting hot for them. LAPD, namely Detective Stroud, suspects them being urged to leave them alone (he’s partially responsible for Stevie’s murder). They hide the money in the ventilation shafts of the building they clean for Luther’s Janitorial service to be picked up at a later date. 

Stony continues her temporary escapes with Keith, who invites her for a night out at a swanky banker event. She shows up in an ugly outfit that isn't right for the occasion because she doesn’t have any fancy evening gowns. Keith takes her and buys her a really nice black evening gown. At the party she mingles with the white people and gets a taste of traditional white femininity, not captive. She is able to be delicate and be tended to and unwind and relax and just be taking care of. She’s Stony, tough as stone (lol) and nails and Keith makes her butter. It’s nice to see, but Stony knows it is temporary. “I feel free now,” she says, “But it’s not my life. I’m just borrowing pieces of yours.” They go home after the event and have hot oily soul-shaking sex as Deborah Cox’s  “What’s It Gonna Be” plays. In the morning, Stony tearfully returns to her real life with her new black dress in hand. Her life from the night before with Keith will never be forever and she knew that to be true, even if he didn’t. 

Concurrently to Stony’s escape, the others realize the hidden money had disappeared. They put two and two together and come to the conclusion that Luther stole it. After consulting Black Sam, they find him at a motel with a hooker: drugs and jewelry and new car keys on the nightstand. Cleo beats Luther and demands he tell her where their money is but he plays stupid. Cleo loses her focus and Luther gets the drop on her, pulling a gun from underneath his pillow. His gun is trained on Cleo but he forgets Tisean, who shoots and kills him, to her own astonishment. Tisean is simply protecting her sister but she drops the weapon and is almost as hysterical as the prostitute, who Cleo blackmails into silence (takes her ID card with her address on it). Cleo’s picked up by Detective Stroud the following day while walking around with her girlfriend Ursula (quiet sexy shawty, played by Samantha MacLachlan) and put in a lineup of suspects for the prostitute. The hooker remembers Cleo’s threat and does not divulge any information to the police but even still, Stony is incredulous back at the apartment as they give her the rundown. “You said we weren’t going to hurt anybody Frankie!” she cries. 

When Cleo gets back to her apartment, she displays the same toughness and urgency we’ve come to expect from her. She makes it clear that the two things they need to do is rob a third bank and “get the fuck outta here.” They make plans to rob the bank Keith works for and when Stony voices hesitation, Cleo challenges her and questions her solidarity and if she’d play them “over that buppie at the bank.” Stony, once again, chooses her obligations over her personal freedom and happiness. 

In what’s possibly the funniest scene in the movie, they dine and dash before the third bank robbery, realizing that they didn’t have enough to pay the check. Why miss heaven by two inches? 

They go through the usual motions: stolen getaway car, discarded music, disguises. But Stony calls Keith to tell him to leave the bank and their timing couldn’t have been worse. Detective Stroud and Detective Waller are showing tapes of their previous robberies to the staff. Keith does leave though, suspicious of Stony but deciding to trust her. The detectives leave too but they return after the robbery is called in on the radio. They stop our heroes just as they are about to leave. They see through the disguises and call them by their names, imploring them to surrender at gunpoint. It’s a standoff and our heroes do almost surrender but when the bank security guard shoots Tisean the moment she lowers her weapon. It’s a completely jarring moment and Stony and Cleo shift into survival mode. They carry Tisean to the getaway car and try to rush to a hospital but they’re not quick enough. 

Tisean dies in Stony’s arms in the backseat while Frankie and Cleo try to secure the new car, the first of a series of heartbreaking deaths. Tisean is saying “I’m okay, I’m okay” over and over again and when she stops speaking it’s like a heavy rock gets stacked on your chest. She was the innocent one, the kind-hearted one, the shy one, the one who was about to get custody of her back. I remember crying profusely even as a child (too young to be watching the movie) during this scene. The acting from everyone involved in the scene is superb, they all convey resignation and pain to the highest degree. I can’t say enough. 

The rest of the movie is very difficult for me and probably many other Black people. It’s painful, heartfelt, and well-made but no fun at all. I feel as though “trauma porn” is an overused term but perhaps it is a correct descriptor of what we’re given in the final act. At the same time, perhaps it ends on an optimistic note, if not a tad unrealistic. 

There is a high-speed car chase and they realize they cannot make it together. They’re trapped in a tunnel and Cleo hatches a plan to split up. She promises that they’ll meet up down the road and for them to just hold onto the money. Cleo knows this to be untrue, Stony and Frankie do as well. They embrace, tears aplenty, and disperse never to see each other again. Stony and Frankie are on foot. Cleo lights a cigarette and drives her car into a police barricade. She projects macho bravado, confidence, peace, pain, and resolute focus. She knows she has no tomorrow. And then she makes the ultimate christological sacrifice. “Up Against The Wind” plays, the perfect encapsulation of everything she’d been through up until that point. She dies indignant. This is arguably the most iconic scene of the movie and for good reason. Despite the tragedy of their deaths happening in such close succession, both losses of Cleo and Tisean resonate emotionally. 

Stony finds her way onto a tourist bus on its way to Mexico but Frankie gets caught by the same cops that murdered two of her best friends and showed no remorse as she was robbed at the beginning of the film. Detective Stroud is determined to avoid any further loss of life as the “good cop” (oh brother) but Frankie doesn’t want to hear any of that shit. She chooses death over captivity and is gunned down trying to run away after pressing her gun against Detective Stroud’s neck. Her final words were a callback to Stroud’s strict insistence on her following “procedure” during a bank robbery. Stroud sees Stony on the tourist bus but remains tight-lipped. I’m uncertain if the movie thinks we’re supposed to applaud him for that, he’d just orchestrated the murder of literally everyone she cares about. 

Stony cuts her hair in a Mexican hotel and thinks about the lost times with her sisters. She cries, it’s a mixture of happy tears and pain. “Missing You” by Brandy, Tamia, Gladys Knight, and Chaka Khan plays. It is a moment of rebirth, freedom, and finally: escape. The black dress that Keith bought her lies on the bed beside the money from the final bank robbery. She calls him and says “I am.” We understand this to mean she’s free and he does too. No other words are needed. She rides off alone into the wilderness, unbound from obligation and firmly away from captivity. 

Alice Walker has four definitions of womanist in her text, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. Perhaps the second one is the most apt description of our Set It Off heroes: 

A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or nonsexually. Appreciates and prefers women’s culture, women’s emotional flexibility (values tears as natural counterbalance of laughter). And women’s strength. Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or nonsexually. Committed to survival, except periodically, for health. 

Set It Off is about a lot of things but at its core it's about the love felt between four Black women and how they navigate it together. These women are complex, emotional, strong, vulnerable, capable, and powerful together. They’re failed by everyone in their lives to an infuriating degree. Time and time again, they’re shown to be able to rely on no one but themselves. Solidarity, even from Black men, is understood to be a dangerous expectation. This depresses me greatly, mainly because it’s not inconsistent with reality. 

I often associate Set It Off with two other movies that do not appear to have much in common with it at first glance: Waiting To Exhale (1994) and Eve’s Bayou (1997). All three of these films have Black directors and all three are about the love shared by Black women. Waiting To Exhale is about the romantic strivings of four Black women while Eve’s Bayou is about love between two sisters, their mother, and their aunt (that’s four!). A lasting impression of all three films is that Black women have nothing but themselves. It’s a sobering idea, possibly an undeniable truth. I think about who failed Stony, Cleo, Frankie, and Tisean and real life examples of black femicide come to mind. They were left to fend for themselves by the black men in their community. Even still, I have to wonder if their loss was a failure or if their marginalization is by design. I know the answer. As a Black man, I feel like I owe it to the Black women to show up for them. We carry so much experience that has welded us together along with the camaraderie of common origin. I can’t fail them. 

The final questions I have pertains to the lyric intensity and epic depth present in everyday living of a people (particularly the working class [queer] Black woman) trapped under socioeconomic pressures. Once you escape as Stony did, what is being mourned? Can you truly get away? What’s free? 

“I am.”