A Vivid Look At The Lives of Three Young People

Boyz N The Hood is an illuminating look at the lives of three young men transitioning into adulthood in South Central Los Angeles during the turbulent 1990s. The film speaks on the socio-economic issues that plague the african american youth and developed a culture of poverty and abuse. The film touches on many aspects of the young black male experience and mentality of growing up in the LA ghettos. The film spends a good amount time following Tre and his close family and friends whom we come to know and care immensely about. Furious Styles, Tre’s Father, instills important values to his young son, and we watch him grow into a responsible young man. Tre Styles struggles to be a “man” in a culture where being a “man” usually gets you jailed or worse.

The film also focuses a great deal on the Baker family, which is on the other side of the black familial spectrum. Ricky and Doughboy, are half-brothers who live in the same house with their mother Brenda, the young men come from different fathers. She tries to supply them both with a better life then she had but obviously favors Ricky over Doughboy. Ricky is a teen father, and the mother of his child also lives in the house with them. Ricky is a promising football player with a college scholarship ready for him, consequently, he is the family’s most likely possibility for someday being able to have the money for a better life. Doughboy, on the other hand, is a troubled youth who after spending a decent amount of time in prison now spends his days on the porch drinking 40s. One could argue that Doughboy is more knowledgeable and contemplative than Ricky, but his mother openly favoring his brother has contributed to his hostile nature.

When all is said and done, both of the boys seem doomed because of the lack of a father figure in their lives. This is one of Boyz N The Hood’s central themes, even when boys have committed and in attendance single mothers as the head of their families, without a father figure, the kids won’t survive. Black men are given a role of immense responsibility in determining the future of their sons, but in doing so, the film argues that their influence is of crucial importance and that a father figure is much more valuable than a mother in the hood. The other central theme is the cycle of self-perpetuating violence and how it has seeped into every facet of our protagonist's lives. This is shown in the film when Ricky dies due to the fact that the boys had an altercation with an opposing gang. After this occurs Doughboy seeks revenge for his brother’s killing.

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Their mother straightaway shouts that Ricky’s death is Doughboy’s fault, heartbreakingly accusing the wrong son of being murdered. Doughboy’s fatherless, disgruntled upbringing molded an inner violence aligned to his surroundings, and he tracks down his brother’s killers to do what they did to his brother. The end titles tell us Doughboy is murdered a few weeks later, leaving the his mother alone with Ricky’s baby and its mother, two more statistics in the black urban crime book. Tre, on the other hand, goes to college, the product of a tough paternally guided household having the ability of showing restraint and acting in the best interest of his future. Doughboy, therefore, is a variant of what Tre could have been if he didn’t have the advice and pointers of Furious.

The film never feels overloaded by its strong themes. First and most notable, the surroundings that these kids grow up in is deadly. Drugs, alcohol, and guns contribute to a never ending cycle of hate and violence that spread throughout many of the black urban neighborhoods. Simply looking someone the wrong way can have catastrophic outcomes. Trivial arguments can turn deadly due to the mentality of not wanting to perceived as weak or soft, combined with readily available weapons. The ghetto is a place where you are constantly looking over your back or you may end up dead. The police are extremely offensive and insulting, especially the self-hating black police officer who harasses the characters and treats them as if they are subhuman pulling a gun on Tre as if was going to kill him just to get another “nigger” off the streets.

Yet in spite of all the hopelessness and violence, police act as an opposing force to the gangs. Furious Styles is an embodiment of a tough black role model for Tre. Furious teaches Tre how to be a responsible person in the dangerous and unsympathetic world that they find themselves. He tells his son what he thinks about their condition and how the white man's world is not meant for them and how the army is no place for a black man. Furious believes the “system” is only concerned with locking up blacks or is ok with destroying themselves while they profit from gentrification down the line. Furious goes on a rant about how you can’t find gun and liquor stores in beverly hills because they are not trying to keep the people living there down.

Surviving and leaving the ghetto is a key motivation for both Ricky and Tre. Besides the army, college is the next best way to escape. Ricky hopes to get a football scholarship to USC, while Tre hopes to get into college by using his intelligence. Even Tre, a character raised right, comes close to falling into the cycle of savagery. Unlike the other characters, Furious takes his frustration and attempts to make it into something productive. He represents a concept of manhood that is a rarity in the boys’ environment. The film’s biggest idea to be remembered is a message of responsibility; it suggests that the titicular “ boyz in the hood” must take on the responsibility of being a man and serve as their own father figures as so many of them are absent.

Normally a film with such a bright spotlight on its male characters lacks much concrete development of its female characters, and Boyz n da Hood is no exeption. Certain subsets of black urban culture are exceedingly misogynistic, and that expertly shown in the film’s dialogue. This blatant misogyny is brought up and mentioned as a problem, but it's never addressed, and many characters continue to treat the women poorly with ample amounts of verbal abuse. There are five female characters in the film, and three are mothers. In addition to Tre’s mother Reva, there is Brenda who has two grown young men, Ricky and Doughboy, out of wedlock, and Ricky’s girlfriend who has an child also out of wedlock. Doughboy’s main girl meanwhile, is a beer drinking hood rat, who does not enjoy being called a bitch but seems to reluctantly accepts her role as such. Tre’s love interest, Brandi, is at first held to an impossible ideal of pure womanhood, but even she gives up her pure femininity all so that the film can have a sex scene. The scene is awkward, and out of place with her character, and the film’s only justification is Tre’s emotional and vulnerable state led her to it. There isn’t a strong black female character to be found in the film and the women in the movie are primarily reduced to their sexuality.

Perhaps the biggest missed opportunity for a strong female character is Tre’s mother, Reva, who should have been portrayed as a strong female character. Unfortunately, she all but disappears from the movie after a few scenes. She is in the process of obtaining her master’s degree, and comes to the conclusion to let Tre live with his father so he can show him how to be a man. This is fine, but then as Tre ascends to adulthood, she is upset at her choice seemingly because Tre is going to college with a female. Perhaps she is concerned that Tre and his girlfriend will end up like his parents, by having a baby out of wedlock at a young age, and thus have to work that much harder to achieve their own goals; but the film doesn’t address this clearly. After a scene where she yells at Furious for unknown reasons, she vanishes from the film. Her character could have been developed to coincide with Furious, as a strong female counterpoint voice of reason.

This film exposes the deep wounds inflicted upon the black urban community by guns, alcohol, and drugs such as crack cocaine, but offers no easy solutions other than to escape. It’s themes and messages strike directly to the heart of the cultural and institutionalized problems of race within American society, problems that still affect minority communities to this day. Tre is the hero of this film, he gives young black men an option of what they could become this was something that was not shown throughout media. Though life may have its ups and downs it is up to the individual to pull yourself up and make due with the hand that you are dealt.

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