The disheartening and severe bleakness felt throughout illustrates why Menace II Society is a cultural force to be reckoned with. And its shocking consequence sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Menace II Society is a response – the fear, the pain and the anger exploding into harmful and destructive acts. While subjected to racial profiling, it’s a commentary on the growing tensions between Blacks and Asians in that period, specifically, the real-life murder of fifteen-year-old Latasha Harlins. That mood is summed up in its opening scene where Caine (Tyrin Turner) and O-Dog (an incredible feature film debut by Larenz Tate) enter a Korean American store for malt liquor. And when systems and structures fail, education comes from whatever source is attainable to survive, and that exploration in Menace II Society is violent, grim, and incredibly tragic. Children are growing up faster than expected in the ‘City of Angels’ – an ironic nickname when its inner-city streets are a war zone. The context (particularly the film’s use of Watts, Los Angeles in the 60s, where police brutality against the Black community was justified as ‘law and order’) moulds an argument how generational trauma and hopelessness shapes the person you grow to become. In its visual language – styled like a Scorsese film (with narration and tracking shots) but filmed like a documentary (no doubt influenced by the Hughes Brothers’ music video careers), highlights an expendable feeling amongst the youth. It shouldn’t go without saying how significant Allan and Albert Hughes’ film is.
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The other is an honest question: how do we break free of those institutional cycles designed to keep Blackness down, in their place and collectively inhuman? One that benefits the status quo, based on a society built on violence and subjugation. Just like films of its era – Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood, Mario Van Peebles’ New Jack City and Bill Duke’s Deep Cover, Black consciousness entered the mainstream with a visceral rawness about an undeniable truth. Dutton) utters those words in Menace II Society, the emotional poignancy it transmits speaks volumes on the cultural mood of Black America. All I’m saying is, all I’m saying is…survive! All right?” When Mr Butler (Charles S.
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“Being a Black man in America isn’t easy.