Furious T. Stiles. Okay, so maybe I made up the “T.” part, but when you’re that achingly close to Groucho’s Rufus T. Firefly in the Ridiculous Moniker Hall of Fame sweepstakes, you have to ad lib a little. No, I have no evidence that writer/director John Singleton was even aware of Duck Soup when he penned his now-preposterously dated screenplay for Boyz N the Hood, but I’d like to think he was supremely intentional every step of the way.
Aspired for greatness, but learned to live with unintentional hilarity, as history is always kinder to the comedians among us. But if he meant it – and everything points to the heart-attack seriousness of the entire enterprise – I’m not about to forgive and forget the crimes on display. One could labor over six dozen offenses against good taste, reasonable character development, or the maddening Screenplay 101 reliance on every cliché later parodied by the Wayans Brothers, but for the sake of time and sanity, I’d prefer to narrow the focus to a single man. A silly man. A marble statue of absurdity, the very Furious of legend.
We’ll start with a quote: “You didn’t bring me no swine, did ya?” Tre, just having returned from a backyard barbecue, most assuredly did not, at least not for his humorless father. To begin with, to be anywhere near a barbecue and avoid swine is, well, patently absurd, and a supreme offense against culinary good taste, but for the sake of argument, we’ll assume Furious is a Muslim. By virtue of his firm declaration, we’ll also assume he’s quite devout. But wait a minute. Doesn’t Furious smoke like a chimney?
Indeed he does. Last time I checked, Islam also forbids tobacco. At least in theory. There are cafeteria Christians, after all, so why not cafeteria Muslims? But opposing delectably smoked pulled pork is an odd hill to die on. An idiotic hill, in fact. It’s like Jules in Pulp Fiction taking the same moral stand after killing people. There’s got to be more to it.
We move next to an even more curious Furious theory: the racist SAT test. It’s been a cultural trope for decades, despite no one ever properly explaining how and why problem-solving, logic, and critical reading skills are prejudicial constructs. At least Furious admits math isn’t a honky plot, though after a few beers, I imagine he’d make a stab at an argument. Despite his righteous claim to being one hell of a father, the dismissal of the exam seems to me more of a pre-emptive strike to spare Tre the humiliation of failure.
It’s a cruel trick, as Tre seems more than capable of securing the minimum score to attend the community college of his choosing. But let’s pretend the test is hopelessly biased, all but a foreign language to anyone non-white. Shouldn’t Furious be prepping Tre like nobody’s business? Enforcing long nights at the library, and what amounts to a Parris Island of rigorous study? Nope. Furious stands firm on throwing up his hands. Giving up before the game even starts. I’d call CPS for that alone.
And then, as the cherry on top, is Furious on the street corner. And yes, we all know what’s coming. With a slow and steady hum, the neighborhood’s layabouts and loudmouths stop by to get an earful. Even Grady from Sanford and Son is on board. They’ve likely heard it all before, but here, for the first time, before what approximates a roaring crowd. The Lecture, like 1964’s The Speech, only with less Ronald Reagan.
Here, instead, Dutch is in the crosshairs. It’s a curious tale Furious tells, and certainly one not without a dash of merit, only it’s utterly tone-deaf when considering the very basics of economics. You see, Mr. Styles believes that the ubiquity of liquor stores in the hood is not, as some might say, the end result of supply and demand, but rather a backroom conspiracy to kill people of color. Barrels of poison brought in under cover of darkness, against the will of all, to trick, trap, inebriate, and destroy. It’s had that result, of course, only Furious is absolutely bonkers as to the cause.
Furious also claims that because he, or anyone else on his street, doesn’t own an airplane, he (and they) could not in any way be responsible for the epidemic of crack cocaine. Yes, we can have a vigorous debate about racist sentencing guidelines (a fact), and the prison pipeline that shadows inner city prosecutors (also a fact). But what Furious is arguing is that the drug and alcohol trades have, from their inception, deliberately targeted black folks. Maybe, but if you’ve ever met an executive or holder of stock, you’d quickly realize that they’d sell their shit to literally any man, woman, or child if it meant more profit.
And would a corporation really build into its charter the idea that it must kill off its customer base? The paranoid theory sounds great at night when the lights are dim and reason takes a powder, but in the brightness of day, it’s just another crackpot idea peddled by maniacs at the end of the bar. More than that, it’s a profoundly dishonest excuse. The erosion of agency in favor of perpetual victimhood.
But that’s Furious for you. Pat his back if you must for trying to raise a young man against impossible odds, but you’re doing the lad no favors by instilling nonsense. Tre needs guidance and love, not an assortment of chips to stack on his increasingly crowded shoulder. Easy for me to say, I suppose, when I’m not under the gun on a daily basis. What, really, could I ever hope to suggest? I can think of three alternative ideas right off the bat: eat whatever the hell you want, study your ass off, and, above all, invest in a liquor store at 10th and Crenshaw.
Leave a Reply