Rob Skogen
"[T]he remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country -- a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America…"
--Barack Obama (March 18, 2008)
The representative sample for this week’s discussion topic “Race, Gender and Cultural Resistance in Film”, Boyz ‘N The Hood (1991), was a powerful “slice of life” film depicting the coming of age a typical black urban male in modern America can expect. John Singleton’s film presents this narrative through the experiences of three main characters, each symbolic of different worldviews through which to deal with the harsh, oppressive reality of growing up in South Central Los Angeles. It is the development of these characters and narrative that Singleton created that meet the requirements of “burden of historical representation” presented in the assigned reading from Jeremy Stoddard and Alan Marcus.
In approaching a given film as an educational tool, as we are for our course, Stoddard and Marcus argue that it necessitates “underrepresented groups be portrayed in a way that allows the viewer to understand their points of view, history and language”, because it has a lasting impact on how people view the world and the groups that are represented, even if they know that the film’s portrayal isn’t accurate” (Stoddard and Marcus 27). All of the other articles that we read this week agree that Boyz ‘N The Hood was a one-of-a-kind film that sparked a new movement in Hollywood films being directed by blacks. In his article, Kenneth Chan identifies this outcrop of such films as “being engineered to appeal to the frustration and rage felt particularly by black males” (Chan 35) through the construction of an identity unfamiliar to most mainstream movie audiences.
Bakari Kitwana explores this construct in further depth in his article and discusses how many films released after Boyz ‘N The Hood focused on, reinforced, and even glorified the nihilistic characteristics of the thug culture, or “America’s nightmare – young, Black, and don’t give a fuck” (Kitwana 131). Although he understands the complex economic and social factors that contribute to the formation of such a character, he also warns that ignoring the socially aware, politically conscious roots of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of a generation past is not going to stop the cycle of self-destruction and violence that has been holding a culture back from success for far too long.
As Singleton illustrated through the character of Tre Styles, there is an alternative persona for young, black males to adopt that can lead to a way out of the dead-end lifestyle of a gang-banger, drug addict or pimp. As our parent’s generation showed us, change does not occur overnight – it is accomplished one step in front of the other. We cannot give up on what they started, because doing so will only set us further behind on the path to fully realizing the ideals that we aspire to as individuals and as a nation.