The movie “Boyz n the Hood” is comprised of many types of issues that relate to social environments and different living situations based on location. The film was able to demonstrate gang violence and how a person struggles to survive in the hood. The film also showed how having a role model in life can be beneficial to succeeding in life. In addition to that, this film also demonstrates how neglected the hood is from the media and how looked down upon these people are by police officers and the government. This essay will discuss how people are affected by urban planning in the film along with the article “The Devastating Impact of Persistent Crime on Teens” by Chantal Hailey.…
Ricky and Doughboy family boundaries are not strong enough to keep them off from misbehaving or make them focus on how to get a better life. Consequently, this has resulted in them looking for alternative ways to survive and satisfy the lack that they face currently. The external and internal factors of social understanding can be coupled with sociological theories that deepen the understanding of a family unit. “Most theories about families suggest that families should not only have flexible, clear boundaries with the outside world, but they must also have well-established intergenerational boundaries. In other words, the parents should be partners in parenting the children” (Collins et al, 2013. p. 61). Simply put, parents should play an…
The television show “Roots”, a miniseries airing in the late Seventies, provided gripping and emotional insight into the lives of a fictional family victimized by slavery. This controversial project attempted to depict some semblance of the horrific history of the American black community in a way that the primarily white population would willingly consume. Unfortunately, this depicted the African-American involuntary “immigration” experience as one that was terrible yet palatable, tying it up nicely with the bow of a “happy ending”. “Roots” opened a dialogue amongst the American people and carved out a place for African-Americans in mainstream television that wasn’t comedy, but also catered to the comfort of its white audience. This show worked…
In Boyz n the Hood, these factors that are placed in their life keeps Tre and his neighborhood friends in harms way and in dangerous environments of urban life. Their family principles truly shaped them and this is shown in the movie as they are depicted before and after puberty. A stern father who was educated and very well spoken raised Tre. His personality is not like everyone else’s in his neighborhood. Ricky and Tre, are the exception to the neighborhood rule they really have aspirations and goals further from high school graduation and never included themselves in violent or mischief actions. Ricky is a teenage father who displays the feminization of the African American male as the stereotype athlete and ticket out of the hood by many…
Boyz N the Hood, the first movie from director John Singleton, is an intriguing and insightful look into the machinations of black culture, dealing particularly with South Central Los Angeles, California during both the mid 1980's and early 1990's. Rather than focusing on one aspect of the black experience in the inner city, the film instead splits its narrative to follow the intertwining lives of three young, black men as they mature and adapt to the unique challenges of their surroundings. Singleton's Los Angeles is one of open and constant violence, a malignant, ever-present police force, and a series of winding, unclear, and potentially treacherous paths through which its inhabitants must maneuver. The film's message that all black people must unify if they hope to end the fierce cycle of bloodshed perpetuated on them by corrupt external forces.…
Have you ever wondered how tough it is for young people living in rough areas, to graduate High school? In The Boys of Baraka, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady want to reach their young African American audience, to encourage them to graduate High school, and to not fall into peer pressure. The Boys of Baraka focuses of four boys: Devon, Montrey, Richard, and Romesh. These four young boys live in a neighborhood full of violence and drugs. Their lives at home aren’t any better; they have parents in jail, drug abuse, and single mothers.…
Despite the incoherent special effects and relying on clichés about young black men, Boyz N The Hood is an inspiring and thought-provoking film, which features riveting performance by Cuba Gooding Jr.…
The setting for Boyz n the Hood takes place in South Central Los Angeles in a neighborhood riddled with poverty and violence. Throughout the movie Singleton brings various elements seen in these real life neighborhoods to the big screen for people to observe. Robberies, shootings, and murder are some of the violent aspects shown in this film.…
Throughout the 1992 film, “Boyz in the Hood,” John Singleton takes a closer look at urban black America in South Central Los Angeles. Doughboy, Ricky and Trey, along with their parents are chronicled from childhood to adulthood. Each person, though living in the same neighborhood chooses different paths in life. These characters were raised in a very deviant community, however there were many causes as to why they did not all become deviant. Deviance is defined as behavior that goes against what is socially acceptable. It is when a person disregards what is normal in a specific society and acts upon it. Throughout the movie these characters had many chances to engage in deviant behavior, as some did while others did not. Their behavior and personality was determined by many factors and theories which sociologist study. The four main theories which explain why these characters did or did not become deviant are differential association, labeling, social control, and structural strain theory. As this deviant society is exposed to these theories, a normal society can better understand why and how this deviance originated.…
Often times, it is said that we are the people we are because of the family and community we come from. In Black Boy, the author Richard Wright shares his experiences of his coming of age starting from innocence during 1912 to 1927 and starts of in Jackson, Mississippi and then moves onto Memphis, Tennessee. They were living the Jim Crow South which consisted of discrimination, segregation, and the Ku Klux Klan roaming free in the streets. In Separate pasts , the author Melton A. McLaurin shares his boyhood experiences during the 1950s, in Wade, North Carolina. This was a time in the rural South where whites and blacks lived and worked within each other shadows but segregation existed unchallenged.…
Life has many determining factors and Beverly Daniel Tatum’s perspective in Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria reveals the realization about an individual’s identity, which formulates where we are positioned in society. Tatum shares her experiences based upon specific studies and what she observed in her son’s life. The basis for this paper is to express to those I grew up around that I became the person I am because of my past. The topics discussed in this paper will be both Tatum’s and my cultural background, the roles and responsibilities in our family’s social structure, the typical stereotypes that directed our educational path, and the gender role that stationed us where we…
I faced a task of reviewing “American Gangster” a movie based on a true story about an African American gangster Frank Lucas and his lives endeavors with his day-to-day drug operation in Harlem New York in the late 60s. The movie is also a record of his family as well as others that suffered from the many types of psychological disorders. The psychological disorders that will be reviewed in this paper pertaining to the characters and how they are influenced by their environment. How they are influenced by the powers of Frank Lucas and not even realizing that they’ve falling to his powers. How the nature in which they are cared for affected them as well as the effect of the stress, which caused them to result in drugs and alcohol. These are a few behavioral and social culture concepts that will be reviewed in this paper.…
I had the opportunity to watch the film, Boyz N the Hood. While watching this film I was able to make connections to not only cultural problems which happen inside of the classroom, but problems that happen without. Throughout the entirety of this film the viewer is face to face with the decisions that make each character who they are and ultimately shape their future. What I noticed from an educational standpoint is that students need three things to be successful, the first being a positive and caring role model, the second is acceptance by their community and the third a sense of responsibility. The two themes which stood out most was whether or not these aspects were being applied to the child or not.…
First, one of the most common living situations for less fortunate African Americans is in the projects. A project is a public living environment that is government owned. Although these buildings are government owned they are far from nice looking. Most of the buildings have no windows, are run down, dirty, and old. The government’s main goal is to maintain affordable housing not to make them the best looking homes in town. The projects aren’t a good environment for a child to be raised. Throughout these neighborhoods different gangs can be found. These gangs are built to defend the different areas in the projects. The gangs bring major violence to the area and are one of the main causes of death. At a young age children join these gangs and are raised to be violent. Many of them decorate the buildings they are living in with graffiti expressing their gang colors, symbols, or motto.…
The movie I’m going to focus on is Baby Boy. Baby Boy is a movie by John Singleton set in California and focusing on a young black man named Jody and the struggles he faces in everyday life. I chose this movie because I can kind of relate to the story being that I’m from California and I’ve seen a lot of the situations presented in the movie. Jody is in his early twenties and has two kids by two different women, Yvette and Peanut. He still lives with his mother and acts like he is still a kid, hence the name of the movie Baby Boy. Yvette considers Jody to be her man but he’s still messing around with his other baby mama Peanut, along with numerous other women. Jody and Yvette are constantly arguing about his infidelity and his unwillingness to step up and be a man and move out of his mother’s house, where there is also an ongoing issue because his mother has just moved in her new boyfriend and Jody feels threatened by this. His wants to command the attention of his mother and act like he is the man of the house even though he doesn’t take on any responsibilities as far as getting a job and paying any bills or fixing anything. So the movie is basically about Jody’s quest to become a man while dealing with the everyday struggles that affect him in the rough streets of California.…