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Boyz N the Hood

Screening on Film
Directed by John Singleton.
With Laurence Fishburne, Ice Cube, Cuba Gooding Jr.
US, 1991, color, 107 min.

Singleton’s debut film, with its remarkable cast, brought New Jack Cinema into line with grander traditions of urban class melodrama—an Angels with Dirty Faces for South Central (and Compton). Worried about “glorifying” gang violence, or inciting it in the theaters, as Dennis Hopper’s Colors had in 1988, Columbia muted the gang references. No Crips, no Bloods, just blue and red. Still, when the film premiered, there was sporadic violence and Singleton was forced to “defend” his didactic film. That wasn’t the end of the censorship, though. Worried that Fishburne’s grand set-piece speech that linked black-on-black violence to gentrification would contribute to growing anti-Japanese sentiment, the studio (recently purchased by Sony) made Singleton change the name of the real estate company. His new version? Seoul to Seoul.

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