Essay 1 (Gangsta) Flashcards
Introduction
- Resurgence of African American Cinema in the late 1980s and 1990s in Hollywood (gangsta genre)
- Inspired by both gangster and blaxploitation
- Contrary to Hollywood’s typical white patriarchal worlds
Possible Argument
Todd Boyd says that Boyz n the Hood “more acceptable as a political text than as a thesis on the complex gangsta mentality”
-I will analyse dialogue as well as specific narrative and cinematography to prove Boyd’s argument that Boyz n the Hood offers a bourgeois depiction of blackness, that critiques the movement of black nationalism (Political rather than authentic)
- Dialogue brings attention to the political landscape of America and the importance of parental figures
- How the two make life in the hood problematic
- The narrative focuses on the different paths leading out of the hood and does not offer a plot. We just see life in the hood unfolding, just as America is just watching and not intervening.
- Cinematography reflects upon this problematic by being sterile, filled with long shots and long takes that give the spectator an observing function
- Instead of focusing on a spectacular cinematography that depicts overt violence and gang culture
- Boyz n the Hood’s style differs from a depiction of race as in the blaxploitation era.
- Reflects upon the ‘endless cycle’ of the marginalised African American community in South Central LA
- Unique depiction of race in Hollywood
Gangster genre and Blaxploitation
- Europe had real-life revolutions
- In America people lived their revolutionary fantasies and obsession with the underworld through the gangster
- The gangster genre revealed the ideological shift from questions of ethnicity to questions of race
- With historical, and societal changes, the gangster genre died and the gangsta genre emerged: Next step in the descending social ladder
-Before the gangsta genre of the late 80s and 90s emerged, there was an era called blaxploitation
-Brutal, but authentic, often low budget representation of the life of certain African Americans: possible due to lose social restrictions of civil rights era
Ed Guerro: “The cinematic inscription and glorification of the parasitic, hustling milieu of the black urban underworld” (Different in Boyz)
-Material items are associated with seductive freedom (logical response to being an oppressed member of a marginalised group)
-Through these two influences and the emergence of rap music, gangsta became a cultural movement in the 80s and 90s
Political situation in the 80s and 90s
- Post-industrial black Los Angeles
- Politically charged period of Black nationalist movement (?)
- After the emergence of Hip Hop
- Crack epidemic (selling drugs is not shown until the end of the film, yet we see woman with baby addicted)
“Drug culture would be an important turning point in the historical discourse specific to the question of race”
- Conspiracy that the government supplied the Black community with drugs to keep African Americans sedated and oppressed (Reflected in Boyz)
- This is significant as it shows how crime is reaffirming capitalism, the system on which America is built upon, in racial terms (explain!)
- The ideology is discussed in the film is put in place by Reagan’s policies
- Conservative Reagan and Bush administrations created a drug paranoia
- Reagan made repeated attacks on affirmative action, his support of states’ rights and his overall embrace of positions with right-wing conservatism about race
- Black gang banger became America’s criminal of choice
Boyz n the Hood: Scenes (Narrative, dialogue, cinematography)
Doughboy’s monologue
“Either they don’t know, won’t show, or don’t care
what’s going on in the hood”
-America is just watching everything unfolding
without intervening
At night after moving in with his dad
“I’m trying to teach how to be responsible. Your
friends across the street don’t have anybody telling
them to be that, and you will see how they are going
to end up”
Fishing scene and arrest
“Black men ain’t got no place in the army”
-When they return doughboy and Chris got into
juvenile, the narrative implies that his relationship
with his father kept him off the streets
-This scene is juxtaposed with the song: “Ooh child”
“Things are gonna be brighter, things are gonna be
easier”
-Moynihan report (Also in scene as kids when
Doughboy is yelled at)
Furious giving Tre a haircut
-Father son relationship is really emphasised
(importance of parental figures in the hood)
-The cinematography underlines this, as we are
presented with a long shot take held for over 20
seconds, as Furious asks Tre if he “had some pussy
yet”
-Just like we see the narrative unfolding, the
cinematography underlines this by being simplistic
and letting us see this intimate moment unfolding
Chain gets snatched
-Doughboy etc. beat him up, but the scene is shown
from an extreme longshot
-We just see life in the hood unfolding, without
glorifying, or intensifying it
Scene where his mom calls
-Family issues are juxtaposed with sounds of
helicopter flying over the house, reiterating gang
violence
-Suggested rather than explicitly shown through
cinematography
Doughboy and his friends in his living room
-Dialogue reveals that Doughboy and Ricky have
different fathers, which is why they end up differently
The scene where a teacher from USC comes by
-Ricky in a shirt and tie is visually juxtaposed to
Doughboy in a hoodie and cap with a bottle of malt
liquor
SAT test
-This scene emphasises the politics and the
institution needed to get out of the hood
In Furious’ office
-Ricky drinks milk which contrasts to the malt liquor
everyone else in the film drinks (future through sport
vs. no future)
“Most of those tests are culturally biased to begin
with”
Compton
-Furious explains gentrification
-Dialogue explains how property value is brought
down, government buys it, moves people out, raises
the price and sells it at a profit
“How do you think the crack rocks gets into the
country?”
-This reiterates the politics of capitalist America that
causes all issues of the hood portrayed in the film
-He also mentions how on TV you only see black
people selling it, not how it gets here (important race
media discourse)
-Liquor and gun stores on every corner: “they want
us to kill ourselves”
-Gangster: “What am I supposed to do, fool rolls up
tries to smoke me, Imma shoot that motherfucker”
-The juxtaposition of these two lines of dialogue
emphasises the exact problematic that happens in
the hood
-The different mentalities created through growing up
with or without strong parents make it difficult to
change the political situation they are facing
On Crenshaw Avenue
-They car is visually juxtaposed to all the mustangs and cadillacs
“Your paps is like Malcom Farrakah”
-Referring to two black nationalist leaders
-When gun is drawn static shots, long takes
Black cop stops them
-He just assumes he is a gang member and as the audience seeing everything unfold this just feels wrong
Crying
- Long take intimate moment - Even when they are having sex helicopter lights and sounds are juxtaposed
US Army advertisement
-Influence of media discourses
When they walk to the store
“You belong to them”
-Extreme static longshot
Ricky gets shot
- Sound is suspended (chion) - Long take of them sitting over dead body - When they in the living room, everything happens so slow due to the cinematography (we cant wait until doughboy takes the baby away) (too real)
Ending
- Cycle continues - Still selling drugs - Eye for an eye - They are trapped in their environment
Boyz n the hood: Information
- Directed by John Singleton
- 1991
Starring:
- Tre
- Doughboy
- Ricky
- Furious
- Brandi
Themes
- Racial class separation
- American politics
- Violence
- Coming of age
Whats the main point?
- The idea is that we just see everything unfolding, but nothing is really changing, we are just observing the effects America’s policies have on South Central LA
- Cinematography reflects that notion, while dialogue emphasises the politics behind it
- Ricky represented a way of getting out of the hood, and his death shows the inevitably tragic cycle of that environment. Even though he got the grades, he fell victim to the hood.
- The political position of Boys n the hood can be defined as either bourgeois black nationalist or an Afrocentric model that focuses on the ‘disappearing’ black male
- Boys finds its strength in its script
- Nothing arrestingly visual in Boyz (That is the point)
-The film shows an empowered articulation of marginality that defies the monolithic reduction of race often rendered by dominant media discourses
Reading/Facts about the film (Know in case question is more specific)
-Singleton can be regarded as part of the New Black aesthetic (educated elite from USC)
- Culture is depicted as a modernised version of the Moynihan report (The typically broken African American family is the cause of societal dysfunction)
- Shows a denial and approval of a privileged parental voice (those who follow the advice of their fathers have an advantage)
- The film is conversant with the Afrocentric discourse that spreads through much of Black intellectual and cultural life
- Furious comments represent male-centred Afrocentric ideals
- The film sets up a binary opposition between conservative politics of America and African Americans’ rejection of these oppressive policies (not only this perspective)
- Through the setting of gangsta culture in opposition to national politics, the idea that gangsters historically are transformed into revolutionaries is ignored (Endless cycle, it just continues)
- Being a gangsta is the result of racial and class hierarchies in America
- The film makes use of gangsta icons like Ice-Cube while maintaining a black nationalist critique (how?)
- Boyz privileges the ideological critique over gangsta iconography (Afrocentric discourse of bourgeois blackness)
-Tre and Brandi go off to Morehouse and Spelman (historical breeding ground for bourgeois Blackness and middle-class Atlanta as a metaphoric space free of the obstacles that are depicted)
-The self-hating Black police officer has been ideologically seduced to believe that his own personal interests are synonymous with those of the white establishment
- A modern day Superfly that represents major social and political concerns
- Films like Boyz in the Hood link issues of race and class
