It’s disturbing that 50 Cent’s response to criticism about advertisements for his new movie was sardonic and self-congratulatory. “I do appreciate it,” he said after folks in Los Angeles protested a large billboard promoting the movie, “Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” with the rapper splayed across the board, his muscle-bound, tattoo-smothered back to the camera and a gun in one hand, a microphone in the other. “They are helping me out.”

It’s not what he said that was shocking. What else can we expect from men who seem to wear their manhood on their sleeves – so needy of us to see them as macho, hard, daaaaaaaaaaangerous that you almost expect them to apologize if you catch them smiling or saying anything even close to reasonable. 

Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson is, after all, is a man who brags about having been shot nine times, ignoring what that says about the apparently superior toughness of the shooter.

Of course he was going to respond as he did. It’s the big boy equivalent of the “that didn’t hurt” schoolyard bravado.

What disturbs about 50 Cent’s retort is that he’s probably right. You can bet that droves of young people will pour into theaters to see the film.

With their parents’ money in their pockets, young fans will fill Paramount’s and, to a lesser extent, 50 Cent’s, even as they perpetuate negative stereotypes about poor, urban and black youth; even as they aggrandize the kind of common violence that makes it unsafe for their little brothers to step outside to catch fireflies bugs or for their grannies to watch the sun go down from the porch; even as they whittle down life’s worthy ambitions to two choices -- wealth or death.

It’s not enough to dismiss it as “just a movie.” Aside from the semi-autobiographical nature of the plot -- a drug dealer who gives up the life for a rap career -- movies like this one have messages. They have intentions. They create the illusion of young black men with power, when all they really have is weaponry. With their glocks and their snarls, it’s fear they engender, not respect.

I don’t have to see the movie to know this: the gangsters will look tough and cool. They will have women. They will have money.  They will have cars, clothes and bling. They will have space. It’s an old formula that’s been used in nearly every black exploitation film since "Superfly."

I do like 50 Cent’s beats and his melodies. Millions do. That’s why he’s rich and famous.

His lyrics, however, do treason to his people -- something his patron, Eminem, wouldn’t understand and probably wouldn’t care about if he did.

“I come creepin’ through your 'hood in the dead of the night, boy,” he intones in a little diddy called “We Don’t Give A F---.”

“Just run up on a nigga and blow his f---- brains out,” goes a line in “Homicide.”

Thank you, 50 Cent. Lord knows, we could use more creepin’ through the 'hood and more brains blown out. That should fix what ails us.

I suppose it could be argued that there is some redemptive quality about the plot, considering that 50 Cent does abandon gangsta life, though only to glorify it in rap. 

But, even if the main character turned out to be an empowering brother like Kanye West, kids need to know that rapping and basketball are not the only alternatives, not the only reason to put the gun down, not the only way to get over.

They might start by understanding that there’s more to life than getting rich.