22nd Favorite Movie - Boyz in the Hood

Make sure you have read the first post in this series ("My 50 Favorite Movies") before you read on...

This movie came out in the theaters when I was a junior in high school. By the time I was a senior and it had been released on VHS (no DVD back then!) it was already the favorite movie of many of my friends. In fact, I had one friend - Daniel P - who whenever we went to Movie Express in Montclair (no Blockbuster then!) to rent something, he would only beg us to rent Boyz in the Hood or Juice, even though we had already seen both movies 20+ times. For some reason it seems like people didn't own movies that much back then... I don't remember people collecting movies on VHS like people do with DVD's now. Maybe we just didn't have enough money, but I can't remember it ever crossing our minds that maybe we should just buy these two movies instead of paying $3 to rent one of them every 2 weeks.

I was excited to watch this movie with Bethany a few months ago because she had never seen it. I wound up being a little disappointed with how dated it felt... at times it truly seemed like a "made for tv movie". Some of the music is a little sappy... the production a bit cheap-looking... and those clothes!!! I mean, just check out Cuba's yellow-orange shirt on the picture above with the one big polka dot on it. But the movie still has undeniable power.

So you got Cuba Gooding Jr. before Jerry Maguire as the teenaged Tre', Laurence Fishbourne before The Matrix playing his father, and Angela Basset before Akeelah and the Bee playing his mother. But Ice Cube steals the spotlight from all of them playing Tre's friend, Dough Boy. The last scene where Dough Boy says in reference to local newscasters, "Either they don't know or don't show what's going on in the 'hood" always gets me.

Boyz was the directorial debut of John Singleton and at the time it seemed like this was the beginning of a promising career that perhaps would even rival his mentor, Spike Lee. But after being nominated for best director and best screenplay for Boyz, I would have to say that Singleton has not made another film that compares to the power of his inaugral effort.

One of the main themes of the film is fatherhood. When the movie begins, Tre's mother decides that he is getting to the age where he really needs his father's presence in his life, so she sends him to live with his dad until he is in high school. Many of Tre's friends do not have fathers, and the film shows how being raised by his loving and disciplining dad affects the choices that Tre' makes later in life.

I've been reading a book by Donald Miller (he wrote one of my favorite books of all time, Blue Like Jazz) called To Own A Dragon. The subtitle of the book is "Reflections on Growing Up Without a Father". Miller says that not having a father around to teach him how to make wise decisions, to make him feel significant, and to just give him an idea of how a man is supposed to conduct his life made him often feel lost, like he didn't belong, and like he was worthless. The book says that 85% of people in prisons grew up without a father.

Although they may be intended for different audiences, Boyz in the Hood and To Own a Dragon are saying the same thing: as a father, there is nothing you can do that is more important that raising your children to know right from wrong and to have a sense of purpose in their lives. I have been more and more grateful for my dad as I read this book and also I have been more and more eager to learn HOW to be a good father for when that day comes. Heck, I even watched a couple episodes of Run's House for the first time on MTV today, hoping to glean some parenting tips from Reverend Run, formerly of Run-DMC. But I guess all that will come in time. I guess Bethany and I should enjoy this time we have together without kids because someday there will be a lot for us to do.