Counter-hegemony in "Boyz n the Hood"

Abstract

Mass mainstream media plays a fundamental role in how we perceive and come to understand society. In the case of youth crime, mainstream media often presents sensationalized depictions of youth engaging in criminal activity that is significantly detached from its occurrence in actuality. Such sensationalized media discourses often overlook the reality of youth crime in society and how the broader forms of structural violence, such as neoliberalism and tough-on-crime policies, facilitate the conditions for crime and violence to occur in the first place. This results in significant disparities in policing and crime control policies which disproportionately target impoverished and racialized youth analyzed within the context of the United States. Focusing on John Singleton’s 1991 lm Boyz n the Hood, this analysis explores how mass mainstream media, which perpetuates sensationalized discourses regarding youth crime, may also be a site where hegemonic narratives of youth crime can be deconstructed, to which Singleton utilizes the medium of film to do so.