DON'T BE A MENACE TO SOUTH CENTRAL WHILE DRINKING YOUR JUICE IN THE HOOD

US, 1996, 89 minutes, Colour.
Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Tracy Cherelle Jones, Chris Spencer, Sull Mc Cullough, Helen Martin, Lahmad J.Tate Keenen Ivory Wayans.
Directed by Paris Barclay.

Don’t be a Menace is a spoof of the popular American Black films of the first part of the 1990s, with reference to Menace 2 Society, Boyz in the Hood – the film by John Singleton whose other films of the time, especially Poetic Justice with Janet Jackson as the poet and Higher Education with Omar Epps reprising his character, Malik, who is taken to college with celebration by his friends, wishing the best future, him - to be shot dead a moment later!

In 1988 k Keenen Ivory Way Evans, directed a spoof of the stereotypes of neighbourhood life in I’m Gonna Get You Sucka! The Wayan brothers appeared on television from 1995 in spoof comedy. This film comes at that period – and was the forerunner of many spoofs, many involving the Wayans, including the initial Scary Movie satires, Dance Flick, Haunted House… Marlon Wayans had a strong career in the spoofs as well as more serious roles in such films as The Heat, with Sandra Bullock and Melissa Mc Carthy.

This film is a parody of life in the Hood, with a voice-over by Shawn Wayans as Ashtray, brought back into the Hood by his well-to-do mother, with the comment that there is no place in these films for well-educated female role models! He goes live with his dad who is only a few months in age difference from him, a joke about the two teen teenagers and their respective roles, the dad certainly not a role model.

from the outset, there is a focus on the violence in the neighbourhood, with several characters being shot instantly in the street.

He goes across the street to see his cousin, Loc Dog, Marlon Wayans, who is afflicted with one of those jaw and lips attitudes, parodying the gangsters. He has a ferocious grandmother who smokes marijuana, packs a gun, does dance competitions in the Pentecostal church with its satire on sermons and money collections.

There is a romance, with Ashtray falling in love with an attractive young woman who has seven children, much parody about single mothers, absent fathers, parenthood.

There is also a young man, crippled in a wheelchair, his aim to be a ballet dancer.

And there are a whole lot of crooks, stand-offs, shootouts.

And there is a lot of discussion about the word, nigger. As well, there are some white characters, especially a criminal who holds up a Korean store, shoplifts and has a gun. And there is a jokey romance between a confused Muslim African- American and a rather plain white girl.

The film was intended for the black audience, enjoying parodies of the film – although more serious- minded audiences might worry and wonder if the satire has been taken too far. And as for white audiences watching this film in the 1990s? With so much African- American satire, it seems quite acceptable in many ways in later years.