SOURCE: Nadell, James. “Boyz N the Hood: A Colonial Analysis.” Journal of Black Studies 25, no. 4 (March 1995): 447–64.

In the following essay, Nadell praises Singleton for using his films to address such important and relevant social issues as drugs in African-American communities and the effects of “Euro-American racist capitalism.”

Although several issues of consequence are addressed by John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood (1991), mainstream, capitalist media inquiry has emphasized the peripheral, sensational events surrounding the film, failing to provide the necessary structural and contextual analyses that Boyz merits. The raw human tragedy and triumph depicted by Singleton sears and energizes the consciousness of the viewer. In order that this energy not be squandered, it must be channeled into a holistic understanding of the psychological/political/economic/cultural matrix within which the phenomenology portrayed in the film is played out. This article will attempt to provide the structural and contextual analyses...