Interactive Media In Society. Boyz N the Hood through Karl Marx

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1 睘 ᗂ Name: Louise Keane Student Number: Week number: Week 6 Word count: 1,192 Interactive Media In Society Boyz N the Hood through Karl Marx One of Karl Marx main theories is on the topic of class struggle. In the opening line of his paper Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) he claims that a class struggle has always remained in a capitalist society when he states The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. He is not happy of this fact and wished for change as he aims to advice people to aspire for a goal of a classless 诲睜睞睞 ƺ0 ƺ society. Class is the members of a given group in society, regarded as a single entity. (dictionary.com), although class has many definitions I found that the above description defines the views that Marx has on class. Class struggles are apparent in many modern day films such as the John Singleton directed movie Boyz N the Hood. The movie was set in south central LA in the late 80 s/early 90 s and showed the struggles of black males in their teenage years living in a lower/working class society. This movie relates the idea of class to the idea of race although people may perceive that this movie tells us that all African Americans are lower class but in this movie they show two sides. In an early scene of this movie Trey, the main character s, house gets burgled so his father calls the police and two policemen show up, one white one black. The black 1

2 policeman insults Furious, Trey s dad, by implying that all black males are the same and then asks the police officer if there is a problem and Furious quickly responds with It's just too bad you don't know what it is...brother. (Singleton, 1991). This shows us that class is not defined by race as even a black police officer thinks he is superior to other black males although he implies that all black males are the same. This police officer appears later on in this movie where Trey and Rickey as a are pulled over for no apparent reason. The police officer threatens Trey as he puts a gun to Treys head without having any evidence that Trey was involved in a crime. This character seems to be put in this movie to show us that the higher class is not just rich white people. The above situation reminds me of a fragment of Marx (1848) essay, Manifesto of the Communist Party, where he states all of the opposite classes and used both freeman and slave and oppressor and oppressed. African American people were mostly slaves up until the 1950 s, in Marx time, so he may of referred to them as slaves yet we see from the above situation that an African American male was also an oppressor, which makes the definition of race as class inaccurate. Many people have studied Marx and they all seem to notice that the upper class oppresses the lower class. One student states that, the upper classes want to suppress the aspirations of the lower classes as much as possible in order to keep an ideal life for themselves, for what they think is truly theirs. (Martha Carter) In this movie a main theme in the movie is the aspect of being oppressed by the upper class. In the following quote Furious explains the fact that the upper-class control and try to destroy the lower class, 2

3 If you want to talk about guns......why is it that there's a gun shop on every corner here? - Why? - I'll tell you why. Just like there's a liquor store on every corner in the black community. Why? They want us to kill ourselves. You go out to Beverly Hills, you don't see that shit. They want to us to kill ourselves. The best way to destroy a people is to take away their ability to reproduce (Singleton, 1991) I feel like the above quote defines this movie as a whole and also shows its similarities to Marx s theory of class struggles. Marx informs us that class struggle is about oppression of the classes when he states, The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. (Marx,1848, p3) Within this movie there are many different characters with different points of view and different career and personal goals yet they all nearly come to the same end in life in particular the 2 brothers in the movie. The first brother is Doughboy, whose whole life was south central LA and who didn t think past what gang would either be shot or shoot at him. The other is Ricky who unlike his brother tried to avoid the life in south central, he states that, I don't want to be like my brother. Hanging out and not doing shit. End up dealing 'caine, just like him. I want to do something with my life. I want to be somebody. (Singelton, 1991) Ricky has also been accepted on a football scholarship to USC, pending on SAT results. Ricky was the only character in the movie that really wanted a better life for himself but was unfortunately murdered before he received his SAT results. The culture of the so called hood was that if someone shot your friend you would 3

4 immediately try and find that person and kill him, so Doughboy and his friends arrange to go out and hunt down Ricky s killer. Doughboy goes through with the murder and we are informed at the end of the movie that he was murdered shortly after this event. This shows that even though the two characters had a different view on life, their lives ended the same way. Marx theories on class is that class is a difficult obstacle to overcome especially for the lower class whom may think that they have their own views but their views are actually shaped on what the upper class decide. As can be seen from above the movie Boyz N the Hood deals with a lot of issues that Marx explains in his description of class struggles. I think that this movie was very revolutionary of its time, as those issues were never shown in the mainstream media especially with an African American perspective. Although this movie gave solutions that could aid people to change their future if they lived in these areas, there were many gang related violence The opening of BOYZ N THE HOOD was marred by violence; 33 were wounded and one person was killed when trouble erupted at 20 theaters in the first week. gohastings.com The above shows us that Marx theories and the message of the movie have almost proven the fact that it is difficult to have a classless society. I agree with Marx and Singleton that class struggles cannot be solved quickly and that it is difficult to achieve. I usually do not agree with many social theorists although after doing this project I do find myself agreeing with many of Marx s theories on class struggle by looking at it through the movie Boyz N the Hood. 4

5 Bibliography Atthemoviestv.com. "At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper : Boyz N the Hood." Retrieved 15/10/07, from ml?sec=1&subsec=550. Burke, B. (2000). "karl marx and informal education." Retrieved 17/10/07, from Carter, M. "Class Society and Democratic Renewal." Retrieved 18/10/07, from gohastings.com. "Boyz N the Hood." Retrieved 15/10/07, from Heywood,A Political Ideologies: An introduction. 4 th Edition. New York. Palgrave Macmillian. IMDb. "Boyz n the Hood." Retrieved 15/10/07, from Kreis, S. (2000). "Karl Marx, " Retrieved 17/10/07, from Marx, K. and F. Engels (1848). Manifesto of the Communist Party. Moscow, Progress Publishers. Singleton, J. (1991). Boyz N the Hood. USA, Columbia Tristar: 1 hour 48 min. Singleton, J. (1991). "Boyz N The Hood Script - Dialogue Transcript." Retrieved 15/10/07, from Wikipedia. "Boyz n the Hood." Retrieved 15/10/07, from Wikipedia. "Class struggle." Retrieved 15/10/07, from Wikipedia. "The Communist Manifesto." Retrieved 15/10/07, from Wikipedia. "Karl Marx." Retrieved 15/10/07, from 5

Act 5: scene 1:32-34 (34-36) scene 4: 25-29 (25-29) scene 5: 26-30 (26-30) scene 7: 15-18 (15-17) scene 8: 17-20 (17-20)

Act 5: scene 1:32-34 (34-36) scene 4: 25-29 (25-29) scene 5: 26-30 (26-30) scene 7: 15-18 (15-17) scene 8: 17-20 (17-20) Macbeth Unit Test Study Guide January 17 Exam will be between thirty and forty scan-tron multiple choice (40 points) Characters Be able to identify characters by either quotes or descriptions. To review