Never Seen It, #21 of 200: Boyz n the Hood

I made a list of 200 movies that I've never seen before—read it HERE—and now I'm going through the list in alphabetical order, writing a lot or a little about each one on the blogz.

Boyz n the Hood

1991

I should start by saying—and this isn't the thesis statement of this blog post, I just need to say it at the beginning—that for better or worse, sometimes I tend to handle my consumption of black-created entertainment with kid gloves. This is out of a fear of being either an appropriator or some kind of interloper into media that may or may not have been created for me. 

 

Like, if my coworkers are talking about Insecure, even though I have strong opinions on the latest Issa v. Molly argument, I'm more than likely going to keep my mouth shut. I would hate to think that someone feels possessive about a TV show they enjoy because they feel like they can relate to the experiences portrayed in that show, and then some white dude comes along and pops that balloon, just like white people always do. I know that sometimes or most times, this is just me being overly cautious, and maybe my coworkers really do want to know what I think about Lawrence's romantic decisions. But I don't want to take that chance.

But that's also me making an assumption about the creator's intentions, right? That's assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that a black producer, director, writer, and so on, intends for his or her creation to be consumed by an exclusively black audience. If that were true, then consequentially, my being white and enjoying said creation would mean that I am enjoying it against the will of its creator. That doesn't sound right when I say it like that, so I don't think it is true.

Okay, I should ask the question before/after each viewing of a movie or a TV episode: Who is this for, exactly? Is it for a universal audience? Or was it only intended for certain people? You'd think that, if you are creating art, then you'd want as large an audience as possible. It gets murky, however, if you have a creator saying something like: "When you try to make it homogenized, when you try to make it appeal to everybody, then you don’t have anything that’s special." So if it's not made for everyone, then does my liking it make the movie less "special"? Am I tarnishing a film's legacy by appreciating it, like a precious painting destroyed over time with flash photography?

All this hemming and hawing probably exposes a general weakness in my own personal movie critic game: I tend to place an unequal amount of importance on whether I can "relate" to a movie or not. True, this can sometimes provide a path to appreciating the film on a personal level—think about how much I got out of The Basketball Diaries simply because I could see my own addiction-prone self in the protagonist—but in order to become a true film critic, I'm going to have to eventually rise above that cheap shortcut to discussing movies.

Not only because it's lazy critical thinking, but also because that's an audience bending the will of the movie toward its own purposes, and that's not a healthy way to look at movies. It's unfair—why should my personal experiences dictate how well the movie was made, and why should it serve a vessel of ultimate judgment about how "good" a movie is? Film should be judged on its own merit. It should be judged on whether it successful accomplishes the goal it sets for itself.

I'm doing a lot of writing, and not much of it is mentioning Boyz n the Hood, so let's interject right now to say that this was a great movie. Yes, applying everything I've said already to this movie experience specifically, I can admit that I had misgivings as to whether I should be enjoying this movie as much as I did. That was director/writer/creator John Singleton that I quoted above, and in that quote he was specifically stating that modern black films tend to play to white people too, and that is detrimental to black film in general, so that didn't really put me at ease. And then there's the fact that I grew up white in the suburbs and cannot begin to fathom what it would be like in Tre's shoes, let alone Doughboy's.

My greatest anxiety, however, is self-inflicted. I touched on this a little bit at the beginning of my Being John Malkovich blog post—for as long as I've given a shit about movies (I dunno, four years, tops?), I've used a short to determine whether a movie is "great." For a movie to be considered "great," then it needs to meet two criteria: 1) it tells an enjoyable story, 2) it serves some higher purpose. Boyz n the Hood has #1 down easy, but what of #2? Like I said, I cannot personally relate to the story. In addition, the film shows with great empathy the tragic circumstances of our characters, but offers nothing in the way of solutions to their problems. The argument thus might become: "If all this movie exists for is to tell a story, then there can't be any higher purpose."

My anxiety is pointless, the argument is shitty, Boyz n the Hood is fucking great, and here's why: Sure, it exists mainly to tell a story, with no higher purpose, except that the very existence of the story itself can be that higher purpose.

Boyz n the Hood is, at its core, a coming-of-age story, not unlike something like Stand by Me (indeed, there are at least two explicit Stand by Me references). Our characters face trying circumstances, and face the adversity in the name of personal growth, or succumb to the tragedy. Except, unlike a high school movie like Clueless where the personal stakes are based around grades and popularity, the stakes in the world of the boys in this film are literally life and death. Tre isn't just trying to get to graduation with a good SAT score and loyal friends, he's trying to make it to graduation without being murdered in the streets.

The story serves a higher purpose through its existence by exposing a wide swatch of America  to the fact that this situation was even happening in inner cities in the first place. Doughboy, after seeing nothing about his murdered brother reported on the local news, observes this about audiences like me: "Either they don't know, don't show, or don't care about what's going on in the hood." Boyz n the Hood, then, serves as an introduction to that world for many, many people watching it. 

This is important! Because you hear about the stats—over 400 people have been murdered in Philadelphia so far in 2020, for instance. This is a number that can be used for many different purposes—say, as a reason to march in protest, or maybe as a reason to fight for more community funding in neighborhoods affected by the violence, or even in a bad faith argument of "why are we talking about police self-defense tactics when 400 people have been killed in Philly this year!!!" posted by your brother-in-law who lives in the suburbs—but Boyz n the Hood is able to put faces behind the numbers. It's easy to ignore a number, but it's more difficult to ignore seeing a young black man with potential for a bright future be gunned down anyway just because that's the environment he came up in. If you watch this film, then you can't possibly ignore it any longer—at least during the 1 hour 50 minute runtime, anyway.

I guess that answers the question of "Who is this film for?" in a roundabout way. Yes, the movie is for everyone, but it also exists for different people in different ways. For those who grew up like Tre, Ricky, Doughboy, Chris, et al, this is true and powerful reflection of a path well-worn. For those who grew up more privileged, this is a fucking wake-up call. Boyz n the Hood can exist for both purposes at the same time.

And while I can't say that I've been completely ignorant of the plight of these communities (mainly due to my experiences tangential to them through my profession), this definitely does serve as a wake-up call in one respect. That is, I think it's time to remove the kid gloves and trust that I can only benefit from exposing myself to all kinds of entertainment created by all different people from all walks of life. 

 

Even if John Singleton didn't make Boyz n the Hood for me, I can still better myself by at the very least being aware of situations that I wouldn't normally be exposed to. Film is a good way to broaden one's view of the vast specificities of the human condition. In that vein, I urge you, no matter who you are or where you come from, to watch Boyz n the Hood.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5

NEXT TIME: We watch Braveheart, regardless of whether Mel Gibson is still cancelled or not.