I’ve always felt a special kinship with the late director, John Singleton. He and I had several things in common. When he made his 1991 debut film, “Boyz N the Hood” at age 23, he was one year out of undergrad. I was 21 when I saw it, also one year out of undergrad. We both chose to study computer science, but our primary interests were in film. I wanted to write about movies; he wanted to write and direct them.
Singleton, who died in 2019, chose to pursue his cinematic desires far earlier than I did, and at 24, he became the youngest person to be nominated for a best director Oscar, and the first Black person nominated in that category. His original screenplay was also nominated; he lost both Oscars.
“Boyz N the Hood” spoke to me in a way no other film had done at that point. Because like “Cooley High” screenwriter Eric Monte before him, Singleton put his memories of growing up in a Black neighborhood on the big screen. I was too young to identify with Monte’s high school shenanigans when I first saw “Cooley High” back in 1975, but in 1991, I knew the world Singleton depicted like the back of my hand.
I grew up in the Greenville section of Jersey City, a neighborhood nicknamed “The Hill.” It was a rough place, even if you weren’t like me — a hopelessly near-sighted, painfully skinny asthmatic kid who skipped two grades and gave off nerdy, gay vibes. As a kid, I got beaten up almost every day. You could gauge how tough your ‘hood was by how many people attacked you when you got jumped. The magic number on The Hill was three.
My old stomping grounds were a lot like South Central, the neighborhood in LA that Singleton’s characters inhabited. Representation matters, and seeing a place onscreen that resembled where you grew up was a powerful tonic, an irreplaceable reminder that you mattered in the universe. Those jackasses braying about Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show have no clue how important it is to see yourself and your culture presented in the same way white stories have been told for centuries.
Ossie Davis understood this importance when he put Harlem on the big screen in his 1970 directorial debut, “Cotton Comes to Harlem.” In a Newsday interview, he said “An entertainment about Harlem at this time is revolutionary. Harlem has been an example of oppression, a symbol of what remains to be done. It has also been an example of the exotic, the quaint, the different — how Black people live.”
Singleton also wanted to show “how Black people live,” and he was young and cocky enough not to care about the repercussions. The story of smart kid, Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.), gang member Doughboy (Ice Cube, in an electric film debut) and Doughboy’s football hero brother, Ricky (Morris Chestnut), was a fictionalized page from Singleton’s own book of life. Because when it comes to getting personal, you write what you know. Stallone wrote “Rocky”; Spike Lee wrote “School Daze”; and Ryan Coogler continued this tradition with “Sinners.”
On The Hill, there was danger, drugs, violence, guns, and police brutality. There was also joy, hope, love and understanding, camaraderie, and people who cared enough to invite you to a cookout or rat you out to your folks if you were caught “living foul.”
That latter list was often left out of Black-themed movies, to the point where audiences were conditioned to expect an endless supply of brutalized Black bodies and other traumatic visuals. Standing outside the Walter Reade Theater after a press screening of “Nickel Boys,” I overheard several of my white critic brethren complaining that they didn’t get to see the horrific events bestowed upon the film’s Black characters — events that are implied but occur offscreen. I wanted to ask them why they felt they were owed that.
A brief plot synopsis is in order for “Boyz”: At his mother Reva’s (Angela Bassett) behest, Tre is sent to live with his father, Furious Styles (Laurence Fishburne). Two years before he played Ike to Angela Bassett’s Tina Turner, Fishburne played Bassett’s character’s ex husband in this film. Though this plotline seems to enforce the stereotype that a woman can’t raise a male child by herself, Singleton’s script does give Reva a short speech where she tells her ex-husband that Black women have been playing this role since the beginning of time.
“So you are not special,” Reva tells Furious. “You may be cute, but you are not special.”
“Boyz N the Hood” tells the story of Tre’s crew, and his relationship with Brandi, a ‘round the way girl played by the always-welcome Nia Long. The film also has some heartbreaking violence in it; as in “Cooley High,” the character most likely to succeed outside of his humble upbringing is killed. That begets more violence.
But these scenes aren’t meant to be shock value, nor are they a way to callously depict gang violence. By the time tragedy strikes, we’ve come to know these characters so well that the ensuing scenes of grief carry an undeniable power. So do the scenes of retaliatory violence. Singleton forthrightly depicted the familiar cycle I saw growing up. He gave those scenes the dramatic weight of great tragedy.
Here’s what is so personal for me about “Boyz N the Hood.” I was Tre, and not just because I bear a striking resemblance to the actor who played him, nor is it because my Pops looked and acted like Furious Styles (still the greatest name in cinema history). I was Tre (and Preach in “Cooley High”) because I was the smart kid who wanted to get in trouble so that I could belong. I was also the kid whom everyone assumed would “get out of the hood and be somebody.”
Truth be told, I wanted to be Doughboy back then, even if the film (and my reality) showed the bumpy path for that character. Guys like him were the most revered players in my neighborhood. I was such a follower back then — at least until I realized that doing the things that made you popular on my block often ended with your demise. I’m still here because I was about as popular as unseasoned chicken at a repast.
I’m still here, when in reality, I should not be. I may be cute, but I’m not special. I was just lucky. That’s why “Boyz N the Hood” hits me so hard every time I watch it nowadays. There’s a survivor’s guilt that I feel, because Singleton reminds me of all the Rickys, Tres, and Doughboys I knew back then, and where more than a few of them ended up. I guess it’s better to be lucky than good. To paraphrase Furious, somebody must have been praying for this fool.
One final note: Back in 2013, I showed “Boyz N the Hood” at the Off-Plus film festival in Krakow, Poland. (I also showed “Cooley High,” because, let’s face it, “Boyz” is sort of a remake.) I introduced the film, but didn’t stay for the screening. I returned just as the movie was letting out, in case anyone wanted to discuss the film. A woman opened the theater door and made eye contact with me. Her teary eyes looked at me with a mixture of sadness and “how could you do this to me?” shock. She’d been profoundly moved by the experience, and I’m sure she related to these characters who lived thousands of miles away and led lives that were different from hers.
I met her gaze and nodded, as if saying “I feel you, girl.” The only reason I hadn’t stayed for the screening is that I would have cried harder than she did. Think about that woman the next time the media and the studios tell you Black movies don’t translate internationally.
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.