BOYZ ‘N’ THE HOOD
The protagonist is the term used to describe the character that a story is about; he is responsible for making decisions that affect his life journey. Boyz ‘n’ the Hood is the coming of age story of Tre Styles, a 10-year-old raised in South Central, Los Angeles, by his separated and struggling working mum. Tre Styles is a bright, black teenager whose father Furious raises to make wise decisions in the hood and to be skeptical of the obstacles placed by larger social precursors on their culture. He is the main character since he seems to have a role in his outcome from the beginning of the movie. Throughout the film, we witness the boy’s development into a young man who is primarily shaped by the environment he is raised in. He undergoes a search for his place in a neighborhood riddled with violence and economic struggles while simultaneously trying to make a straight living. Tre’s coming-of-age story is a distinct demonstration of the effects that families, friends, and the environment can have on an individual’s outcomes.
The story focuses on the stories of two of Tre’s friends, Ricky Baker and Doughboy, who all live in an era where South Central Los Angeles was experiencing a significant increase in gang violence. Tre’s father, Furious, serves as a role model to his son from a very young age. He carefully guides him through the snags he would experience living an urban childhood. As a result, we see Tre turns out to be a responsible young man that thinks critically about his actions and how they affect him and others. After Ricky gets shot in a street shoot-out, the boys decide to take revenge by killing Ricky’s killers. However, when they get there, Tre gets out of the car and aborts the revenge spree because he realized there has to be an end to all the perpetual violence. At this point, the viewers observe the protagonist’s maturity that results from sensible thoughts and following good counsel from those around him.
On the other hand, we also witness Doughboy’s life that ends tragically two weeks after Ricky’s death. Since they were kids, Doughboy had always been an aggressive one; he was willing to fight some boys that had taken his brother’s ball when they were kids. He was arrested as a kid alongside one of their friends, Chris after they were caught shop-lifting. Having spent the better part of his childhood in prison, Doughboy needed strong guidance when he got out; however, that was not the case. Eventually, he executes the man who killed his step-brother Ricky and later gets killed as retaliation by a street gang. Before he died, he visits Tre to confess that he wished there was less violence in the hood. He admitted to hating the choices that young men had in the hood because the rest of the world turned a blind eye to their challenges. The two young men had such different stories because they made different choices despite having the same options.
The coming of age story of Tre, a young man from the hood setting, is different from that of a character from another background. From my understanding of the concept of coming-of-age, a protagonist’s outcome is usually determined by their history, social responsibilities, and opportunities in their environment. Boyz ‘n’ the Hood outstandingly expressed the coming of age stories of three young men living within the same environment to differentiate our backgrounds’ effects on psychological and moral growth.