On "Boyz N the Hood"

Wow, I didn't realize I had so few posts! Unfortunately I've been forgetting my blog posts lately (obviously) so I'm going to do these last two extra ones in the hopes of redeeming my absentmindedness. :)

Yesterday we watched "Boyz N The Hood" after some excellent presentations the day before, and I definitely feel as if I have some new awareness about the issues plaguing the black residents of South Central L.A. I had heard before about the Rodney King beating and the subsequent race riots, seen a few specials on the Bloods and the Crips on History Channel's "Gangland", and of course heard some Tupac. However, this film offered an up-close-and-personal, 360 degree look into the life of an average (and comparatively lucky) black teenage boy living there.

Directed by John Singleton, this movie was an excellent piece of art with just enough political bite to make the audience sit up and take notice. He chose to use profanity and violence in his film, but in such a way as it always brought attention to the emotional undercurrents of the scene instead of distracting from them. Despite its sometimes shocking (and, very rarely, cheesy) content, I never felt as if the film had wandered off of its path. Each and every moment within the film was perfectly calculated so that the combination of the script, the actors, the costuming and the scenery brought incredible depth and truth.

Although I have never been to South Central L.A. and truly have no idea of what it's like beyond what I've learned from pop culture, this film felt amazingly authentic to me. It did exactly what it set out to do: it brought the audience beneath the surface layer of the people and the neighborhood so they could see the reality. None of the dialogue felt forced or like a caricature (except, perhaps, Furious' monologue on keeping the neighborhood black). Instead of showing a bunch of one-dimensional crackhead and gangsta characters, Singleton went further and showed the average Joes, people like the film's star, Tre. Although he did focus on people who weren't involved with gang activity (with the exception of Doughboy) he definitely did not ignore it either. The various scenes such as the card players fighting as the young Tre walks home, the burglar invading Furious' house, gunshots echoing through the neighborhood as Brandi attempts to study and eventually Ricky's tragic death all underscore the insidious presence of gang violence.

The film sends a strong message through Doughboy towards the end. As he tries to work out how he feels about his brother's death and his revenge on behalf of Ricky, he tells Tre that "Either they don't know, don't show or don't care about what's going on in the hood.", meaning the rest of the nation is so concerned with violence and war elsewhere that they are ignoring the tragedy within their own borders. Soon after that he walks away, pouring his beer out into the street. The subtitles then tell you he'll be murdered two weeks later. Almost as heart-wrenching as the innocent Ricky's death is the knowledge that so soon after Doughboy's epiphany he will be dragged down by the very life he's trying to escape. The only two out of the entire group of children followed throughout the film who make it "out" are Tre and Brandi. Although they finally do make it to college, we are left feeling as if it happened at an enormous cost.

Singleton's landmark film did for South Central L.A. what so many had been trying to do all along: raise awareness of the terrible problems that had taken root there. I don't know how far the fight has come in the last twenty years, but I hope that progress is being made. If it is, then "Boyz N the Hood" is part of the reason.