As a white American, I have to admit that there's quite a bit of African American entertainment I don't relate to. Much of it seems to be made by blacks for blacks, without any thought given to being accessible to people of other cultures.
A recent example that springs to mind is "Barbershop". I utterly failed to relate to any of the scenes shown in the previews and interview-accompanying clips for the film. In particular, the stuff presented as being ostensibly funny seemed completely humorless to me.
Coming from this background, I came across "Baby Boy" during a Cinemax free preview weekend, and it instantly hooked me. Unlike some black films, this movie was clearly not made to glorify the black experience above all others, nor to speak only to black people. It's just a realistic (as far as I can tell) depiction of a certain time and place, that being the black neighborhoods of L.A., circa 2001. Many of the themes were universal, and the material that's specific to this particular subculture was presented in an even-handed and easy-to-relate-to manner.
While my usual instinct on hearing about the doings of "gangstas" is disgust and disbelief that anyone would choose to live like that, this film did a great job of portraying how much the environment you grow up in has an effect on the way you live. I definitely felt empathy for these characters that I'd just think of as "scumbags", were I to just see a news story about their crimes.
I think Singleton probably does a real service to the black community here, letting people outside the culture understand what life can be like in that environment. I think this does a lot more for racial understanding than, say, the average gangsta rap album does, though they touch on the same areas.
Speaking of which, a more mundane reason why I probably enjoyed this film more than many black movies is that the soundtrack wasn't wall-to-wall rap. I really don't enjoy most rap, so there's the danger of my missing out on otherwise good cinematic material if I'm too turned off by the music. "Baby Boy", on the other hand, featured an effective (if somewhat generic) orchestral score by David Arnold, along with some tasteful R&B. The rap was restricted to some brief and not in-your-face appearances on characters' stereos. I think this helped the realism of the film, and the sort of docudrama-type presentation of the material.
Like a couple of other commenters, I was bothered at how unwilling to call 911 the characters in the film were, when it was clearly the time to do so. But rather than make me lose my suspension of disbelief, this just made me sad to think that there are probably a lot of people in these communities who agree with the rap lyric that "911 is a joke", and don't feel they can get any help from "the man".
A recent example that springs to mind is "Barbershop". I utterly failed to relate to any of the scenes shown in the previews and interview-accompanying clips for the film. In particular, the stuff presented as being ostensibly funny seemed completely humorless to me.
Coming from this background, I came across "Baby Boy" during a Cinemax free preview weekend, and it instantly hooked me. Unlike some black films, this movie was clearly not made to glorify the black experience above all others, nor to speak only to black people. It's just a realistic (as far as I can tell) depiction of a certain time and place, that being the black neighborhoods of L.A., circa 2001. Many of the themes were universal, and the material that's specific to this particular subculture was presented in an even-handed and easy-to-relate-to manner.
While my usual instinct on hearing about the doings of "gangstas" is disgust and disbelief that anyone would choose to live like that, this film did a great job of portraying how much the environment you grow up in has an effect on the way you live. I definitely felt empathy for these characters that I'd just think of as "scumbags", were I to just see a news story about their crimes.
I think Singleton probably does a real service to the black community here, letting people outside the culture understand what life can be like in that environment. I think this does a lot more for racial understanding than, say, the average gangsta rap album does, though they touch on the same areas.
Speaking of which, a more mundane reason why I probably enjoyed this film more than many black movies is that the soundtrack wasn't wall-to-wall rap. I really don't enjoy most rap, so there's the danger of my missing out on otherwise good cinematic material if I'm too turned off by the music. "Baby Boy", on the other hand, featured an effective (if somewhat generic) orchestral score by David Arnold, along with some tasteful R&B. The rap was restricted to some brief and not in-your-face appearances on characters' stereos. I think this helped the realism of the film, and the sort of docudrama-type presentation of the material.
Like a couple of other commenters, I was bothered at how unwilling to call 911 the characters in the film were, when it was clearly the time to do so. But rather than make me lose my suspension of disbelief, this just made me sad to think that there are probably a lot of people in these communities who agree with the rap lyric that "911 is a joke", and don't feel they can get any help from "the man".