Applicability: While the group in general averts No Communities Were Harmed, the police they rebel against in "Fuck tha Police" is simply referred to as "The Police Department", with no mention of which police department they are referring to. This was done to make it a protest song against police in general and not just towards the police in the Los Angeles area.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: After an album's worth of heavy beats and angry lyrics, the album ends with the more uptempo, electro-influenced "Something 2 Dance 2", a showcase for the otherwise absent Arabian Prince. Something Awfulmockingly described this as "like a bloody gangster movie cutting to a glowstick rave during the closing credits".
Harsher in Hindsight: "Fuck tha Police" became this after the 2016 Dallas shooting that resulted in five police officers being killed and the death of George Floyd in 2020.
Values Dissonance: "Fuck The Police" contains a homophobic slur in reference to male police that get too handsy.
Values Resonance: "Fuck The Police" has become a sort of anthem of 2020 due to the death of George Floyd.
The film
Alternate Character Interpretation: Eazy-E is a complicated character in real-life and his persona in the movie is every bit as much. One note is whether or not his need for a father-figure blinded him to Jerry's duplicity or whether the band chose to portray him that way because of how much they loathed Heller.
And You Thought It Would Fail: The movie became one of the biggest surprise sleeper hits of 2015, notably because of its release in the month of August. It was the highest grossing musical biopic following its release, beating out even Walk the Line (to date, only 2018's Bohemian Rhapsody has beaten it) and has the fifth-highest grossing opening weekend in the month of August. And yet ironically, it only managed to grab one Academy Award nomination.
Award Snub: There was huge backlash when the 2016 Academy Awards nominations gave it only one for Best Original Screenplay, which it lost to Spotlight. The film's snub played a pivotal role in causing the Academy to re-evaluate its nomination process.
Awesome Music: Obviously, since it's a biopic about one of the greatest rap groups of all time.
Broken Base: The movie itself has been debated as a Warts and All portrayal or a Self-Serving Memory with even the band divided on it. Ice Cube and Dr. Dre said they were going for the former while MC Ren has stated its closer to the latter. Notably, Cube and Dre get a large portion of the screentime as well as focus.
Do Not Do This Cool Thing: Debated in-movie as the N.W.A are accused of promoting gang violence and culture while being personally affected by it. They also drew attention to RL police brutality and racism. The N.W.A also make their A Party, Also Known as an Orgy lifestyle look good. Even then, they show the consequences of such reckless extravagance.
The Police Brutality from the 1980s depicted in the film which inspired the group's groundbreaking music has continued well beyond the film's release to this day. Nothing has changed.
Suge Knight's general brutality in this movie. In 2015, he was arrested for homicide because he ran over two men after getting onto a fight with them on the set for this very film. Then in 2017, he was indicted for threatening to kill F. Gary Gray.
R. Marcus Taylor, the actor who played Suge, was arrested for assault in 2017.
He Really Can Act: O'Shea Jackson Jr. has been highly praised by audiences and critics alike for his portrayal of Ice Cube, especially given the fact that the latter is his own father.
Hilarious in Hindsight: In the movie, Ice Cube yells that he had a baby on the way. What made the scene hilarious was how the actor playing Ice Cube was the baby on the way in real life.
Jerkass Woobie: The N.W.A crew has their moments, such as when they're being wrestled and brutalized by the LAPD. That being said, they're still far from model people themselves.
Memetic Mutation: After the movie's release, there was a fad for "Straight Outta ______" pictures in the style of the movie poster.
Narm: As tragic as the scene where Eazy learns that he is diagnosed with AIDS is, his response, "But I ain't no faggot!", was admittedly pretty funny.
The scene where Eazy-E is diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.
Special Effect Failure: A minor one, but it's fairly obvious that O'Shea Jr. is wearing a wig because he never takes off his hat until after Ice Cube gets a haircut.
"like a bloody gangster movie cutting to a glowstick rave during the closing credits".