Tagged: 05/17/17

Tagged by Diane C. Mullen is the story of fourteen year old Liam living in the projects in Minneapolis. He wants nothing more than to be a graffiti artist. His school work, baseball playing, a life are threatened by the interest the Irish Mafia are showing in his young career as a tagger.

Oh please.

It's not that organized crime doesn't happen in Minneapolis but the crime that does falls into the categories of bootlegging during prohibition, drug running, real estate fraud, and gambling (Minneapolis Organized Crime (1900-2000) by E. J. Johnson, 2004).

Graffiti and tagging as turf war markers are really more of a larger city type thing, such as New York City and Los Angeles. It's not that tagging and graffiti don't exist in Minneapolis, but it's not tied to crime and territory.

Instead it's more of an urban art thing. "None of the 529 tags on campus or in the Southeast Como, Marcy-Holmes and Prospect Park neighborhoods were gang-related from February 2014 to February 2015, according to city data." (The Writing on the Wall).

So before we can even get to the heartwarming mentorship of the troubled young artist by the older, established, bohemian aunt, we have to suspend our belief to the breaking point. I just couldn't do it. The set up reads like some vague concepts were tossed together in a blender and the results used to make a story with little to no research to make the situation seem at all credible.

One star

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