Today would be my uncle Dwight’s 49th birthday. He passed last month, and for whatever reason, I wasn’t able to mourn about it. The first things that popped in my head were all the fun stuff that I remembered him most for. One of those was how I used to ride around with him when I was younger, in his blue Z28 with that same Led Zeppelin tape on his dashboard for years. Sometimes, we’d go to the mall, Pizza Hut, or the movies. My most memorable ride to the movies was in July ‘91, the Saturday afternoon after Boyz N The Hood came out.
It’s a classic no matter which way you watch it (stay away from that TV-edited version though). However, I can say from experience that seeing it in B-More’s most hood-ass theater (Harbor Park!) TRUMPS watching it on DVD or TV by far. It was packed seat-to-seat, and the “crowd participation” was almost as entertaining as the movie itself. Everybody loved Ice Cube’s character Doughboy, we all laughed at Little Chris‘ jheri-curl, and some people genuinely seemed sad when Ricky got killed. Also, you haven’t gone to the movies until you’ve seen niggas cheer like it’s the Super Bowl when the dudes who killed Ricky got their come-uppance.
There’s been some “hood movies” since Boyz N The Hood that have been more violent and less message-heavy, but I feel like BNTH is still one of the most real. It showed different sides of each main character, which is a lot closer to truth than those movies where everybody in the shit is just keepin’ it gangsta 24/7. You had the ones who were always into somethin’, and then you had the ones who wanted to do more than what they were around. There were the parents who looked out for the best interests of their son, and then there was the mother who showed blatant favortism with her sons. The “good guys” of the movie weren’t good ALL the time, and the “bad guys” weren’t bad ALL the time.
The characters didn’t just pop up in the movie from jump, doin’ hoodrat stuff with their friends. BNTH showed them growing up and HOW they grew up. It showed how Doughboy’s mother (and yo, I HATE her) literally told him he wasn’t shit, so he had no respect for women when he got older. It also showed how a kid like Tre could only get babied by his mother but so much before he eventually had to be influenced by an older male (and that’s something that I personally understand). No dis to the MANY movies that followed, but BNTH wasn’t just about violence and gangs and guns- it was more fleshed-out than that.
And on top of that, it’s entertaining as hell. As “poignant” as it gets credit for being, it also doesn’t ignore that other stuff that makes it worth watching. You get humor, you get sex, you get quotables. You even get a lil’ bit of rap beef, when Doughboy’s crew beats the shit out of the crackhead wearing a “We Want Eazy” t-shirt. At the time, Cube had his issues with Eazy-E and the rest of N.W.A., and I doubt the shirt was just a coincidence. Even scenes that aren’t all that relevant to the movie have their moments- like when Monster says “watch me shoot this muthafucka” and then it turns out that he’s playin’ Duck Hunt. I didn’t think people in the theater were EVER gonna stop laughin’ at that shit, and neither was I.
Add all that to the fact that it was done by a rookie director, with a mostly-unknown cast, on a young-ass budget, on location in real areas of South Central L.A. The homie John Singleton gets love forever for this movie, because he took the little bit that he was given and made it great (and if THAT ain’t some hood shit, what is?). It’s movies like this which make me proud enough to do this blog- I don’t have to write about it in revisionist form and put myself in that place, because I WAS in that place. And I loved the whole fukkin’ two hours.
Things To Remember From Boyz N The Hood:
1) A pill ain’t gonna keep your dick from fallin’ off. 2) Black cops hate niggas too. 3) Best way to get ass that’s been eluding you is to throw wild punches at the air and cry. 4) Catholic girls are the biggest hoochies. 5) When niggas are riding around with a shotgun looking for you, you don’t belong in an alley playing a scratch-off game.
Music From Boyz N The Hood:
Ice Cube “How To Survive In South Central”
Compton’s Most Wanted “Growin’ Up In The Hood”
-D! (Happy Birthday, “Chuck”)
Posted by Danj! 
