American Film | Narrative Theory
The Tragedy of Doughboy
How “Boyz n the Hood” nails a core principle of classical storytelling.
In the final sequence of “Boyz n the Hood,” the now-classic portrayal of the lives of young Black males in South L.A., filmmaker John Singleton takes us through an escalating progression of horrors. Violence begets violence in a chain of retribution that extends beyond the film’s end. Doughboy (Ice Cube) leads a charge to mow down the men responsible for killing his brother, Ricky (Morris Chestnut), coldly pursuing the leader of the crew on foot as he drags his bleeding body across a parking lot to take the final shot.
The film closes with an intertitle explaining that Doughboy will himself be murdered two weeks later, leaving his single mother to mourn both her sons, as Doughboy’s image fades from the screen. The cycle of violence continues, a cycle that the character Furious (Laurence Fishburne) has enjoined his younger neighbors to break, however strong the temptation may be to respond to the pressures of the moment with force.
All of this is heart-rending, harrowing, troubling beyond words. I remember, when I first saw the film as a child, being struck by a nameless sadness at Ricky’s horrifying death — and then a despondency bordering on desolation at its aftermath. But, as troubling as the events of the film’s climax are, none of them are tragic in the classical sense… at least not on their own.
“They either don’t know, don’t show, or don’t care what’s going on in the ‘hood.” — Doughboy
What elevates the story to the realm of tragedy is not the drama and horror of the film’s climactic series of events but the character’s reaction to and reflection upon his own deeds.
The morning after the murders, Doughboy approaches his friend Tre (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) on his front porch. Doughboy says that he understands why Tre didn’t go with them to commit the crime. He explains that he got up early that morning and watched the news. He found it disheartening, but also enlightening, to discover that there is ample reporting on violence being committed in far-flung parts of the globe but nothing about the reality they face every day in America.
As Doughboy puts it, “They either don’t know, don’t show, or don’t care what’s going on in the ‘hood.”
Seeing the events of the past few days from this broader perspective, he realizes, with bitter clarity, the futility of his actions. He got his payback, but it will be met with another payback, and so on and so on, with no end — unless that of mutual annihilation — and no point. Doughboy realizes what he’s done, but only when it’s too late.
This recognition, or ‘anagnorisis’ as Aristotle calls it in his Poetics — a sudden, profound shift from ignorance to understanding — is a critical component of tragedy. It isn’t enough for a bad outcome to befall a character. The outcome has to be the product of their decisions — but also, paradoxically, the fate that has awaited them their whole life. And they have to recognize how they’ve brought about their own downfall.
For Doughboy, all the ingredients are in place: He will be struck down in response to his act of revenge. This was an act freely taken, but it is also a fate that has awaited him growing up in a community blighted by gentrification and systemic racism (a point articulated by Furious in an earlier scene). And Doughboy now knows it. He can’t escape the fact that he is both a victim and a participant in his own destruction. He recognizes this. But it’s too late. The deed is done. And therein lies his tragedy.
The film’s ending balances this bleak outcome with an aspirational and inspiring result for the primary protagonist, Tre. Having overcome his own anger and impulse for vengeance, Tre will escape the cycle of violence. The intertitle lets us know that he will go to college and have a future with his girlfriend, Brandi (Nia Long).
But, while the audience has been rooting for Tre, much of the film’s power resides in the poignancy of Doughboy’s ultimate recognition — and in the audience’s recognition that, while this is a work of fiction, the kind of tragedy that befalls him is all too real in America.
Greg Beam teaches Film Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso. You can find longer reflections on various topics in the arts on his podcast, Quite Useless.
