Deliberate Choices For Artistic Flair: ‘Boyz N The Hood’ (1991)

Director John Singleton’s films are known to center around inner-city tension and have narratives that center African Americans. As a Los Angeles native, it shouldn’t be incorrect to assume that he wanted to see films that featured people who looked like him, for representation sake. As this film is inspired by much of his own experiences in South Central LA, it is a testament crafting parts of your life story into a script and dutifully moving forward to make a film of it.

Picking up two nominations from the Academy the following year as noted on the film’s IMDB webpage: one for best director for Singleton and the second nomination for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. It is worth noting that Singleton, (24 years old) at this point in time, became the youngest director and also the very first African-American in cinema history ever to be nominated by the Academy for Best Director.

Boyz N The Hood paints a picture of a hard truth — of boys becoming men with a lens of blackness. With a tagline of “Once upon a time in South Central L.A. … It ain’t no fairy tale”, Boyz N The Hood presents a narrative that includes music to foreshadow its plot and special attention to the editing to maximize tensions.