Watts Riots - Cultural References

Cultural References

• The novel The New Centurions, by Joseph Wambaugh, not only culminates in the Watts Riot but examines the negative impact of racist police in minority communities in the years preceding it.
• Frank Zappa wrote a lyrical commentary inspired by the Watts Riots, entitled "Trouble Every Day", containing such lines as "Wednesday I watched the riot / Seen the cops out on the street / Watched 'em throwin' rocks and stuff /And chokin' in the heat". The song was originally released on his debut album Freak Out! (with the original Mothers of Invention), and later slightly rewritten as "More Trouble Every Day", available on Roxy and Elsewhere and The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life.
• Charles Bukowski mentioned the Watts riots in his poem "who in the hell is Tom Jones?"
• The 1990 film Heat Wave depicts the Watts Riots from the perspective of journalist Bob Richardson as a resident of Watts and a reporter of the riots for the LA Times.
• The 1994 film There Goes My Baby tells the story of a group of high school seniors during the riots.
• The producers of the "Planet of the Apes" franchise stated that the riots were the inspiration for the ape uprising in the film "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes"
• The television series Quantum Leap did an episode entitled "Black on White on Fire" which aired November 9, 1990. The "leap" places the main character, Sam Beckett, into a black man who is living in Watts during the riots and is engaged to a white woman.
• Action of episode "Burn, Baby, Burn" of the series Dark Skies takes place in Los Angeles during the riots.
• The Movie C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America Mentions the Watts Riot as a Slave Rebellion rather than a Riot
• Walter Mosley's novel Little Scarlet, in which Mosley's recurring character Easy Rawlins is asked by police to investigate a racially charged murder in neighborhoods where white investigators are unwelcome, takes place during the Watts Riot.
• The Riots are depicted in the third issue of the Before Watchmen: Comedian comic book, including a scene in which The Comedian throws dog feces into the face of Police Chief Parker.