Boyz n the Hood

The scholarly literature has shown that Black men academically underperform all groups throughout the educational pipeline (Hood, 1992; Jackson, 2003; Polite, 1994; Watson & Hodges, 1991). Jameson (1991) explains that film can be a useful vehicle for unveiling harsh realities about the lived experiences of sundry people. In Boyz N The Hood (1991), John Singleton offers an alarming account of the survived experiences of Black people, particularly Black men, in a poverty-ravaged South Central Los Angeles neighborhood. At the center of the film’s narrative is the relationship and interactions between three young Black males: Tre Styles, Darrin “Doughboy” Baker, and Ricky Baker. The audience sees how racism, indifference, rampant violence, and the increasing disintegration of the Black family in South Central Los Angeles militate against the coming of age of these three Black males. As a contribution to the scholarly discourse on Boyz N The Hood, this paper provides an examination of how structural dimensions of the setting in which the film is set (South Central Los Angeles) have a damaging impact on the progression of these Black males. The structural frame championed by Bolman and Deal (2008) serves as the dominant lens through which this film is analyzed. John Singleton's movie Boyz N The Hood is the story of three young men who are forced to deal with the reality of life in South Central, Los Angeles. Singleton uses this setting to illustrate the obstacles facing these young black men who unavoidably encounter violence all around them. Singleton refrains from portraying his characters as inner-city misfits but instead he characterizes them as average American teenagers who are caught in a situation in which they have no control. Doughboy is an average American teenager but his behavior is not that of an average teenager. It is a result of the influence from the society he has experienced. The music used throughout the movie allows the film to move beyond the boundaries of just telling a story. Tre Styles learns at an early stage in his experience in the educational pipeline that the extant structure of curriculums and schools have little cultural relevancy to Black students living in impoverished urban circumstances, especially when his teachers make no effort to be inclusive in their pedagogical practices. Tre tests the structural authority of his White female teacher about why there is not a presence of Black people in what she is teaching. What he tests is the “pervasiveness of whiteness in curricula, space, and activities” that Harper and Hurtado (2007, p. 18) speak about being present at mostly white organizations. This challenging of her position authority leads her to send him persistently to the Principal. This leads Tre’s mother, Reva Devereaux, to use her position power (as his mother) to send him to live with his father, Furious Styles, who lives in a tremendously unsettling and violent neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles, as punishment for not embracing hegemony and quietly conforming to the Eurocentric curriculum. Tre moves to an environment where he has to be more concerned about survival than receiving an education. He is not able to find a sense of belonging in the school because this organization exists “to achieve established goals and objectives” (Bolman & Deal, 2008, p. 47) not inclusive of culturally relevant subject matter and education. Moreover, one of the most damaging structural elements in the film is the Black family itself. The film exposes an increasing dissolution of the Black family in South Central Los Angeles. The most troubling way in which the film illuminates this is in how Brenda Baker feels it necessary to favor her younger son (Ricky Baker) over her older son (Darrin “Doughboy” Baker), because the economic structure dominating her family’s situation makes her favor him. For Brenda, Ricky, who is a star student-athlete with great potential to not only become a superstar college student-athlete, but also professional athlete, is her family’s only hope of moving into a more positive position within the capitalist economic system. The audience witnesses how the lack of meaningful economic and social opportunities for Black families in South Central Los Angeles conjoined with an absent father forces Brenda to not only commodify her children, but also to reify them: Darrin becomes her “waste” and Ricky becomes her financial investment. Unfortunately, at the end of the film, both Darrin and Ricky pass away—symbolizing how important the unity of the family is and how harmful the dissolution of the family is. Through the use of music in the film Singleton is able to put emphasis on important situations and display the contrast between characters. The use of music in Boyz N the Hood allows Singleton to thematically advance the film. Singleton amplifies important situations through the use of music. With each song, the choice of instruments and lyrics creates an emotional response by the viewer which gives the scene a new dimension. The main instrument in the movie is the wailing saxophone. When the saxophone is played it allows for the intensity of the scene to build to illustrate his parent's loving nature and the concern they both have about his future. By utilizing this symbolic background music, Singleton expresses to the audience that the parent's feelings are authentic. Many scenes are emphasized through the lyrics of the music. When Tre is in the car with his father the lyrics "Things are gonna get easier" can be heard in the background. These lyrics send the message that things will get easier for Tre now that he's living with his father and that his father has the opportunity to teach Tre how to become a man, which is what Tre's mother expected. Singleton's selective use of music enables him to empathize certain situations and add a new dimension to them. The differences between characters is recognized through the various styles of music. The differences between each character is about age, lifestyle, and future goals. The music associated with Tre and his friends when they are young is soft instrumental music. There is a quote in the film where the character Doughboy says “Either they don't know, don't show, or don't care about what's going on in the hood. They had all this foreign shit. They didn't have shit on my brother, man.” This refers to the fact that there was no media coverage about his brothers’ murder. What doughboy is saying is actually the truth because, the media never finds out what’s going on the more rural areas. They never find out because either there’s not much issues for their attention to be caught or they really don’t care about it.
The bigger meaning of this film is it reveals how the current economic structure, in America is harmful to most people, especially for Black people living in poor situations. Jameson (1991) highlights how capitalism’s structure dominates all other dimensions of life, including the human resource, cultural, and (most importantly) political dimensions of the lived experience. The significance of this film is it offers vivid insights into why there is a need for another economic system, and it affirms that the structural is made from the political; that is, the political determines the structural. When we are seeing the structural, therefore, we have to consider the noticeable and subtle political that comes to compose what we see as the structural.

References
Bolman, L.G., & Deal, T.E. (2008). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership (4thedition). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Harper, S.R., & Hurtado, S. (2007). Nine themes in campus racial climates and implications for institutional transformation. New Directions for Student Services, 120, 7-24.
Hood, D.W. (1992). Academic and noncognitive factors affecting the retention of Black men at a predominately White institution. Journal of Negro Education, 61, 12-23.
Jackson, J.F.L. (2003). Toward administrative diversity: An analysis of the African-American male educational pipeline. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 12, 43-60.
Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Polite, V.C. (1994). The method in the madness: African-American males, avoidance schooling, and chaos theory. Journal of Negro Education, 63, 588-601.
Watson, C., & Hodges, C. (1991). Educational equity and Detroit’s male academics. Equity and Excellence, 25, 90-105.