South Central Los Angeles used to be easily dismissed – if it was thought about at all – as a vast economic and cultural wasteland, littered with minorities, madness and mindless violence.
That all changed when a 23-year-old first-time director named John Singleton debuted Boyz-N-the-Hood in the summer of 1991. Singleton, a Spike Lee protege, brilliantly humanized the underbelly of a glamorous city where individuals hoped and prayed and laughed amid the relentless specter of violence and gunfire, much the way Lee brought color and flavor to Brooklyn in the seminal Do the Right Thing. The 1-hour, 52-minute film became an instant urban classic and turned the film’s major players into stars, including the Academy Award-nominated director, Singleton, Laurence Fishburne, Angela Bassett, Nia Long, Ice Cube and of course Academy Award-winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr.
On the 21st anniversary, rolling out has compiled the 25 best quotes from the film with the aid of imdb.com.
Doughboy: “Either they don’t know, don’t show, or don’t care about what’s going on in the hood.”
