Boyz n the Hood – I’m not a Preacher, I just read a lot

Full transcript of Boyz n the Hood – I’m not a Preacher, I just read a lot.

0:00KT: It's another week in the For Your Reference household and another edition in the reference Biblioteca, John Singleton edition. If you are aware, if you are a person of quality, you will know we have two episodes covering the first three seasons of Snowfall as well as season four. And we've also done the embryo of it all, the Tyrese Gibsons of it all, Baby Boy. Let's get on with the show. Hey, friends, and the genesis of OG Morpheus lovers. Welcome back to the For Your Reference podcast. You got your host, KT.

0:00Oti: And Oti.

0:00KT: Who dis?

1:00KT: John Singleton exemplifies quality and range in his directorial debut and firmly on the Mount Rushmore of black cinema through bitch gods, dummy sucks and pulpit pussy. Meet us on the plastic couch with Boyz n the Hood this week.

1:00Oti: Mhmm. Woo hoo hoo.

1:00KT: I'm not a preacher, I just read a lot. Let's get into general stats and information, Love and Always Peace and Power to John Singleton, written and directed by, again, directorial debut, 24 years old. I could also tell you he was the youngest ever been nominated in regards to directing at the Academy Awards.

1:41KT: I could also tell you that it premiered in the Cannes Film Festival. I could also tell you that in 2002, it was added as an addition in the National Film Registry. But wow, wow, wow, friends and lovers, we're absolutely going to get onto it. Sit on your singletons and ride it. We're going to snap it off. Released in May 1991 with a budget of 6,500,000 and a worldwide gross of $57,500,000 in way of cast. Well, first of all, love and splooshes to a baby Bassett.

2:14KT: Cuba Gooding Jr, Laurence Fishburne, Ice Cube, Morris Tongue First Chestnut, Nia Long and Regina King. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. But don't call me a bitch. Don't call me a hoe. Call me a daddy if you're nasty. Well, let's get into it. 1991, a beautiful time in space and I'm sure a lovely time in Oti's space time continuum. Boyz n the Hood, I I assume you've watched it many times. What was your first experience like? I'm assuming it penetrated the shores of Kenya

2:48KT: and how did it feel coming again and watching it now?

2:48Oti: I loved it growing up. I think this is my sixth time watching it. Throughout my childhood and sort of adolescent life, I watched a lot of it. I enjoyed it. And I think most of it, and the difference is it's been such a long time since I've watched it that rewatching it now, it felt like a different movie than what I remembered. I think back then, I just took out the, oh, it's a hood movie, you know, just categorizing

3:21Oti: it as such. Like pure entertainment. Yeah. Yeah. And then that's the the the that was silly me. And I think watching it now with such a different lens to it, I appreciate it even more. I love the characters even more. Ricky Baker.

3:40KT: Oh, wow. What a tasty Venn diagram.

3:42Oti: Mhmm. But wow wow wow. I think I just forgot how good this movie is and the fact that he did this when he was 24, bloody hell.

3:52KT: Yeah. Absolutely. And I think, you know, my favorite example is you watching The Departed on films that you really

3:59KT: loved and you come back to it and it just doesn't hit the same.

3:59Oti: And I was scared. I was scared because, you know, when you when you talk about Singleton, you know, even when you're talking about the classic movies of the nineties, Boyz n the Hood is always there. Yeah. And I was really scared of delving back in just

3:59KT: I think a lot of people haven't recovered from Ricky getting shot either.

4:21Oti: But I'm glad that I rewatched this and wow, just happy. I'm feeling the vibes.

4:21KT: Well, I already said the spoiler, but you're in for a good time. Spoiler spoiler spoiler, tongue first chestnut, tongue first chestnut, tongue first chestnut. Watched Boyz n the Hood very I would say my early twenties. So it was quite recent, relative to when everyone else watched it closer to the nineties. I really enjoyed it, but I would say, your capacity to be able to consume the depth of cinema really reflects your life experience or lack of. Right? So even though

5:02KT: this film is timeless, there was only so much that I was able to absorb in my early twenties. And when I say timeless, it's a compliment to Singleton, but it's also potentially a mirror to all of us because while it is timeless in its quality, unfortunately, a lot of the themes that black Americans were struggling with in the nineties that were reflected in this film are still being addressed today. Yeah. But I gotta say like, it does get

5:34KT: me excited to again revisit like the hood classics of the nineties. Although I don't think Juice will necessarily hold up. But I guess what I wanna delight in and what I wanna steep myself in a little bit longer is John Singleton's ability to really merge the two worlds of quality in cinema, as well as reflective, true, and dare I say, authentic black experience. There's a symbiotic nature that Singleton brings. The symbiotic singleton, if you will, if you're nasty. Because

6:14KT: I think I'm not going to say that we didn't deserve this film, but I would say if you had or if you have watched Boyz n the Hood and you just chalk it up to a black film, I would say that that's kind of shame on you and you're kind of missing it because a black movie can be enjoyed by everyone, it's not just for black people.

6:14Oti: Facts.

6:14KT: And I guess that's a difference there because

6:39KT: it and it does it does kind of make me a bit sad and I will even harken on to Snowfall as well because a lot of the time there's so much richness, there's so much quality outside of the behemoth sort of mainstream ether. Right? There's so much quality that is happening outside of, you know, again, that that mainstream sort of ether that people are really missing quality because it's chalked up to a black film, a black show. And Snowfall is absolutely

7:10KT: one of those shows and I'm glad it's getting attention, but there were many times that I was shouting into the black Twitter space. Like it wasn't being loved and appreciated the way that it should because of the quality that it has. And we're not talking about like, you know, Raya and the Last Dragon not realizing everybody else is poor and she's had rice every day of their life. Like we're talking about actual lived through experiences and we talked about it in The Chi,

7:43KT: how it was so without it having any sort of context ever being in Chicago, it was so authentically The Chi, right? We talk about Taika Waititi, how everything feels so intrinsic to New Zealand. And we see that with John Singleton's work with South Central LA. And I think something fun just to reflect on as well is while I was watching Boyz n the Hood again, I couldn't help but wonder where this would lie in regards to the happenings of Snowfall as well. And it's it's kind of interesting to think of how things would align

8:19KT: potentially. And I think if we go back to Snowfall, not necessarily any sort of spoilers, but Franklin Saint was the genesis of the crack cocaine era or at least the byproducts of. So it's interesting to think of the Singleton universe and the different sort of characters that you would have as well.

8:19Oti: Oh, yeah. For sure. And I think one of the things that I loved about this as well is we recently covered Candyman

8:44Oti: and we had issues in how they try to get out their messaging. And with what Singleton did, you know, if if you don't take a step back to just think about it for a second, it might miss you just because it's done in such a nuanced way that, hey, it doesn't come off as preachy. It's just showing you what it is, you know, and it's exposing you to a different world that's there that you might not be

9:10Oti: privy to. But once you take a step back and and and just get off the mentality of, oh, another black movie or or anything categorizing it into such a box. But I just appreciated it so much more. You know, back then watching it my one to fifth time, I don't think I saw it in that sort of light. Maybe that just speaks to me being exposed to the world more, me understanding the world issues more, and

9:37Oti: then watching this and and just seeing how fucked up everything is. Yeah. And Furious Styles, would say is the perfect example of a helpful Raiden. Like he kept he kept dropping these these, you know, these these morsels of wisdom and it was all very helpful.

9:37KT: I absolutely agree with you and I know you're alluding to gentrification which is a tasty theme that we will get to in a moment but it does bring me back to when Furious was saying, it's the nineties, we can't be scared of our own people

10:10KT: Wow wow wow. He just and you're right because there's there's a way to do it that becomes, know, it just doesn't meld together. It's kind of chalk and cheese. It's kind of oil and water like in the newest sort of Candyman. We love Nia DaCosta, can't wait to see when Nia DaCosta continues to direct. But in the way of messaging, it wasn't cohesive, it felt very preachy and it was kind of out of nowhere, right?

10:38KT: And if we're gonna rate tongues, would prefer Morris Chestnut tongues and Boyz n the Hood than Yahya's tongues.

10:38Oti: You were speaking tongues of the wrong guy. But yeah, because the way

10:38KT: Absolutely the way you say it Oti, the messaging is so fucking effortless. And I think this comes back to John Singleton and the I guess the sort of ownership of telling your own stories because it was pitched to particular studios and they wanted to be able to have more control over it. And it's like, let people write their own stories,

11:17KT: like give them free reign and you'll see amazing dividends. Oh, wow. I just thank you for joining our John Singleton tribute corner, but we're going to get into the film now. Before we get into the film, obviously, we'll talk about characters as we get through it. But just for now, do you have a favorite character from the film?

11:39Oti: Has to be Tre. Right?

11:39KT: Doughboy? Yeah. Well,

11:44KT: no. Well, you explain why you like Tre, and I will say why I don't necessarily care for him.

11:44Oti: No. Because Tre is the sort of grounding for this. He's the protagonist. We gotta see

11:54Oti: the the hood through his eyes and through his relationships with his friends and even with his dad. And we experienced all this through him, so it's hard for me not to connect and reason it with a lot of the things that, you know, he experiences. And I think that's I think that's one of the reasons why I I think that he was it for me.

11:54KT: I think I would say things happen to and around Tre as opposed to happening because of him.

12:22KT: What did you think about his virgin story or him proving he's not a virgin story?

12:28Oti: If Furious had any sense, he'd know he was fucking made up.

12:33KT: It was as realistic as anime titties jiggling for no reason. Yeah. I would say Doughboy was my absolute favorite character. Furious, yes, but I think Furious by default would be everyone's favorite character. The reason why I really love Doughboy is he wasn't necessarily raised and nurtured in an environment where he was set to thrive, but he had a good sense of the world. And he even talked about reading a lot in prison, right? So I really liked a lot of the, again, effortless nuance that we had, especially in regards to Doughboy's character and without

13:14KT: skipping too far ahead, when he brings Ricky back to the house and his girlfriend has the baby and the baby is literally looking at his father bleeding out on the couch and Doughboy's like, this kid should not be here. He shouldn't be seeing this. Right? And those are the those are the effortless sort of nuances that we get with Singleton via Doughboy's character, even though he likes to call a bitch a bitch and a ho ho ho. Yeah.

13:41Oti: Well, he was pretty much in jail in his formative years. So you kind of see that through him. And I get what you're saying that he he has this way with his words and you know what you're gonna get with him. But I don't know. I just couldn't connect with him that way. I understood him. I love the fact that he always looks after Ricky even at a young age, you know,

14:03Oti: going to the to the older gang members and be like, hey, give me the ball. Yeah. You know? He steps up and it's just sad that he felt that he wasn't loved enough because he he didn't. He wasn't Ricky.

14:03KT: No. But it wasn't that he felt he wasn't loved enough. He wasn't

14:03Oti: He wasn't. But sometimes he could, you know, you you're not loved, but you could, you know, lie to yourself.

14:26KT: That's just how it is. We're getting some insights here.

14:32Oti: Well, he had good reason to be upset. He had good reason to shake his fist at the sky. He did. He did. It it was a tough up upbringing and always feeling as if he was in the shadow of Ricky or he wasn't as good as Ricky. But to be fair, he even had qualms like, Ricky could get a girl pregnant and have that girl stay at the mother's house. Yeah. In house pussy. In house pussy indeed. Yeah. That's wild. Well, there you go, my friend.

15:03KT: We all have some shit we need to work through. Sometimes we do it through podcasts. Let's get into our themes. There was a lot, like I was very impressed again. There are times when I wanna sit and I wanna enjoy a film, but there are absolutely moments that I need to take some notes because I know we're going to talk through it in the podcast. The first theme that I have for Boyz n the Hood is gun violence slash the normalizing of violence.

15:32Oti: We get to see it quite early, especially when the kids are walking around and they're like, you wanna see a dead body? And they just go around and say, if, you know, this is normal. This is all normalized to us. And that's fucked up.

15:45KT: But even like walking to school, they were talking about gunshots as well.

15:48Oti: Yeah. And the type of gun. Oh, what what kind of gun was it? Like, whatever fucking magnum. I'm like, I don't even know bloody gun types right now. Yeah. Oh, it's wild.

16:00KT: And I guess that also goes back to, you know, Furious Styles, which is around the same the actual same scene when they're talking about gentrification. He talks about a gun shop and a liquor store on every corner because they want us to kill ourselves. They don't give a fuck. Right? And critical race theory is a very hot topic at the moment, but you know, you see the differences and the highs and lows of America where it becomes, again, very normalized to witness and experience and to be living in this sort of violence

16:34KT: and the rest of the world or the rest of the country not fucking care.

16:34Oti: Yeah. True.

16:34KT: The next theme that I have is drugs in brackets, crack cocaine. We see an example of this with Cheryl where, you know, she's kind of strung out a lot and her baby's always out in the street. And that's kind of where you see the similarity because, you know, you see Tre bring the baby back, but you also see Doughboy bring the baby back as well. There's still this onus on the community to look after each other regardless.

17:02Oti: But it's sad because you could also draw, and I know Singleton talked about this when he was doing a Snowfall. He wanted to delve more into that. So it was good to see.

17:08KT: Yeah. And again, I I would say the gentrification scene is is very much, even though there are so many scenes, there was so much that was like can be taken out of that particular scene. And that's where you have that old man blaming the youths essentially driving down the property value and that sort of thing. And Furious Styles,

17:30KT: he talks about how do you think the crack rock gets into the country? We don't own any of the planes. We don't own those ships. We're not the people who are flying and floating that shit in.

17:41Oti: Yeah. If people just took five minutes to think about this shit, it's wild. Yeah. And and you know what? With Furious' whole speech and getting the community, getting black owned businesses, people putting money back into their own community Yeah. People have been trying that and they kept on getting burnt and shit. You know, it's it's it's a lose lose sort of situation

18:03Oti: and it saddens me to see that even after all this time, there's still the similar issues are still being talked about and we know what needs to be done, but shit just can't get done.

18:03KT: Yeah. I guess that's the difference between all skin folk ain't kin folk. Right?

18:20KT: And you know, I I mentioned that in the intro about the Mount Rushmore Black cinema because I love the way he just addresses you know. You know, there's there's opposition outside of the black community, but there's also opposition inside of the black community. Mhmm. You know, John Singleton

18:36Oti: thrived for Jeymes Samuel to thrive because everyone's fucking thriving. The fuck has always been an advocate of you need to be the creator. You don't just fucking act. You know, anyone can be a fucking actor and you always look for handouts and all, be an employee for some shit. Do your own. And the fact that he studied that and he had the mentality at 24 to give us Boyz n the Hood. Yeah.

18:59KT: I love how you were referencing Marlon Wayans.

19:01Oti: Who knew? He's done more than Marlon Wayans to be fair though.

19:01KT: No. But who knew the products from that wisdom,

19:08KT: that Furious Styles John Singleton wisdom is what we got out of Marlon Wayans creations. Let's move on to the next theme, sex education slash AIDS. I guess if we wanna start on a playful note, have the quote from Furious. How many times do I have to tell you? If a girl says she's on the pill, you use something anyway. Pill ain't going to keep your dick from falling off. I don't know why you insist on learning things the hard way, but you're gonna learn. Oh, you're gonna learn.

19:37Oti: Yeah. And that's one of the things that's been plaguing a lot of the communities, you know. It's things that people don't wanna talk about. If you're Catholic, they're not gonna, you know it was a long time before they allowed fucking condoms. Yeah. So there's this non acceptance or, oh, let's just not talk about it and it doesn't fucking exist. But being brought at the forefront, talking about protection, its importance, that, you know what, you need to protect yourself. And that's something that the Furious kept on saying and insisting, you know? Yeah. And

20:10Oti: I think it was like, one of those one one of the fast scenes we see is like, don't bring any babies here. Yeah. And then next minute we see that Ricky is all grown up and of course he has kids.

20:19KT: Well, by the way that he's kissing by the barbecue at the cookout. It was only inevitable that that would happen but that's absolutely true because protection, contraception, it isn't just about babies. Like it's also about sexual health. And unfortunately, not all of us can have Gillian Anderson as our mother. But if we had Gillian Anderson as our sex therapist mother, we would have our own Oedipus sort of issues.

20:52KT: But I absolutely love it, especially the casual, like don't bring no babies around here. And I think again, it comes to that effortless sort of nuance on the difference that, Tre had in having the presence of a father. I would potentially, if I was feeling spicy, talk about toxic masculinity in the sense that Furious is like, I need to teach him how to be a man. However, I do understand that circumstances, in the nineties in South Central LA were definitely different.

21:25KT: So, you know, I'm not going to bring it up today, but just know I'm always ready for a spicy fight. But it was definitely good to be able to get insights into how sex education, if it does actually get addressed, then I don't think Dooky had any sort of benefit in that particular topic.

21:44Oti: Yeah. I don't know because my parents never talked to me about this shit.

21:44KT: It was all left in school, didn't you?

21:44Oti: Yeah. But it it was never a conversation you'd have with your dad or anything like that.

21:44KT: I get that. And and weren't you also the one that said that you thought the condom on the banana was just the TV movie thing?

21:44Oti: Yeah. We never fucking saw condoms until we were bloody fucking using them.

22:13KT: The difference the difference in education, I suppose. But I come to the cookout scene, how Dooky is being saved by not having sex and just getting sucked off because apparently that makes it safe. Mhmm. I I again, I applaud Singleton in the sense that even in the nineties, he was addressing a topic such as AIDS.

22:13Oti: Oh, yeah. For sure.

22:13KT: Alright. The next theme that I have is the army. I would also reference Da 5 Bloods. Go and check out our episode on Da 5 Bloods if you haven't already.

22:45KT: You know, Furious talks about, to Tre specifically, that a black man has no place in the army. And, you know, we've spoken at length why that is the case, but you also have Ricky's character wanting to enlist. So it was quite an interesting sort of dynamic.

22:45Oti: It was because a, black people have been plunged into wars that don't belong to fucking them at all Yep. For decades and decades.

23:10Oti: My granddad was involved with fucking two. He had no business to be there. Yeah. He was there nonetheless.

23:10KT: Well, you're you're a obedient colony state.

23:10Oti: Yeah. True. And to have black black people in Vietnam fighting shit that while they're still being castigated in their own country Yeah. Fuck that shit. Fuck that noise.

23:10KT: Mhmm. What do you think the appeal was to Ricky though?

23:10Oti: He doubted himself. He didn't think that he was good enough to go to college,

23:38Oti: make meet the grades to get himself there. And he saw the ad, he thought, this is something that can secure the future of myself and my family. Mhmm. And, you know, that's a lot of the options people have out there. Go in, your family is sorted, and you don't have to worry, you know, until you come back as a vet once you're left with your own devices.

23:58KT: Yeah. You know, if ever there would have been a potential sort of spin off, it would be like the younger years of Furious. It'll be like adjacent to the Wonder Years, the Furious Years. The next theme that I have is the NFL, the prospects of the NFL to outroot you out of poverty. In regards to this as an actual quote where we have the scout asking Ricky what degree does he wanna major in because statistically, he may not go to the NFL after college.

24:32Oti: Yeah. A small percentage of people do. And I think that's where you know, you always the dream is there. You'll get to the NFL. You'll get to the NBA. You'll get into the pro leagues, but statistically speaking, very few people get to that. Yeah. We're watching a movie sometime last year in National Champions where there was a big push in trying to get college athletes Mhmm. To get that paper because statistically

25:01Oti: speaking, most of them would have to fall back on other careers because they won't make it to the pro leagues.

25:09KT: But I think even then before they even become pro, there are life changing injuries that can happen as well.

25:09Oti: Yeah. Because I think the way they draw the boundaries is because they're college even though they're working towards pro but there's no protection. Yeah. Everyone can't make sense of it. A coach earns millions of dollars, teachers get pennies. Yeah. You can't justify that shit. You really can't.

25:09KT: But on a lighter note, shout out to Key & Peele for having the teacher draft. Mhmm. That was very cute and very nice, but good shout out to National Champions because that movie

25:43KT: really highlighted a lot of truths that we weren't necessarily privy to in regards to the prospects of going to the NFL. But, you know, coming back to Boyz n the Hood, we see that with Ricky. Yeah. And I think that's exactly what you're saying about him realizing, oh shit, I need to have like a plan b. Do you think it was him you think it was him becoming aware of the reality of it or you think it was him not having confidence in his ability?

25:58Oti: Him not having confidence that he'll get 700 in the SAT. I think he thought he'd dunked it, and I'm pretty sure he didn't think. Even when he was speaking to Tre, he he was downplaying that shit so much. You you knew that, okay, he's not he thought he's not gonna get in. And they even made a big bit of it when the mom looked at his results

26:28Oti: after he'd already been shot and died. And it's like, yeah, he he got like seven zero four or some shit. So he was through. He was through. He didn't know he didn't need to go to the army to get his his life sorted or his family sorted. He had a future.

26:28KT: I was hearing your favorite Kelly Rowland Stole. Again The best destiny there is me.

26:51KT: Friends and lovers, this podcast episode is for the culture. So I had to bring up Kelly Rowland. The next theme I have, we've kind of already talked about, but it is important to mention gentrification. We've talked about Candyman, how the OG Candyman did do it successfully and not necessarily the newer one. Insecure also perfectly, we're talking about LA, you know, vision for Insecure as much as it was to contribute to the culture and black ownership of stories, it was also a love letter to LA. And unfortunately,

27:30KT: the gradual and in some cases very rapid sort of gentrification to LA. And, you know, in in certain aspects, we also see it in The Chi as well. But, you know, is there anything else you wanna say about gentrification?

27:43Oti: Yeah. It's wild, know, you think that well, at least to me, that this was, like, sort of the new age problem people are trying to, you know, get their heads around, but this shit has been happening for decades.

27:43KT: Oh, absolutely.

27:43Oti: It's sad how it happens, you know? Know, anyone can be a gentrifier, it's all tied down to race.

27:43KT: Oh, spicy, but

28:05KT: I do agree, Oti. Go and listen to our Candyman episode where I give a very good proselyting sermon on how black and brown and everyone around the town can gentrify. We all want a piece of a pie but unfortunately the pie is overheating and we need to find resources. Mhmm. And there's your climate change sermon for today as well friends and Liz. The only other theme I have to discuss potentially if you're interested Oti is the God discussion with Doughboy and Shalika when they're in Crenshaw. Yeah. Because Doughboy was like,

28:40Oti: how could all this bad shit happen to black people if there's a god, you know, from my teachings? It's because we are being tested for greater things. So

28:52KT: But wasn't it the oppressors that were teaching you that? Yeah. So Have I got have I got my Hotep Furious Styles hat on or what? You do. You do.

29:03Oti: You can have all these questions. And and even growing up, we're told not to question shit. So we we never really bothered to ask ourselves. And I think that's where you get or at least for me, I never really understood why I couldn't ask myself these questions. Yeah. Even if I had, I had just keep keep quiet and keep it to myself.

29:03KT: Do you mean even when you continue rubbing and why it feels good, you didn't wanna question it?

29:03Oti: I didn't even because just

29:29Oti: the shame of all of it, you know. You're you're told very young, don't fucking masturbate. And you're like, what the fuck is that? Teach me what that is for us before telling me not to do it.

29:29KT: Isn't part of the issue with the Catholic church is they taught you?

29:29Oti: Well, I didn't get the one to one lesson, but alright.

29:50KT: This sounds like we're doing Spotlight next. Right?

29:55Oti: No. But, you know, fair enough. You you get where Doughboy's coming from. If if you're being faced with challenges like that throughout, you know what your life is, you know how you're gonna go. You know, he he knew I was gonna die. He knew I was gonna fucking die after, you know, retaliating.

30:12KT: But you can't have it both ways. Right? Religion and a God can bring comfort, but you also can't ignore all of the bad shit as well. Right? Because comfort isn't the same as factual truth. And I think that's part of the tenuous monster that we have. But I do love that Doughboy is the one that applies critical thinking in that particular conversation. True. And I think it also dispels stereotypes of incarceration and being uneducated. Yeah. It does. He had that he had that Denzel Alonzo Street Justice.

30:46KT: Go and check out our Training Day episode.

30:46Oti: Yeah. It was interesting to hear that wherever you fall, like, it it's is what it is. I don't know what to add to that though.

30:58KT: Well, yeah, you don't need to add anything. It just seems like you need to do some unpacking, but it's okay. Let's spend a little bit of time just giving some love and accolades to the performances in this. We didn't really get to talk about Regina King. Yeah. In the holy year of Regina King and every year is the holy year of Regina King. How did you feel? This was her first debut in a film.

31:23Oti: Yeah. You know, you grew up watching 227 and she was there. She's a treat, man. She's she's fucking great in everything she does. Yeah. But she wasn't that much of a character in this, which is fair enough. She wasn't. But it was nice to have her there. Yeah. Yeah. It it was good. It was good.

31:41Oti: Seeing baby Nia Long there as well. Yeah. Wow.

31:41KT: Do you think her and Tre ever stayed together during and after college?

31:41Oti: Yeah. I think they did. I think what they had was was true and real. And I think even when the scene where she didn't want to have sex with Tre and But Teal Tre said we're gonna get married anyway. Might as well. Now you know where Jagged Edge got the inspiration from. Just might as well do it, mate. Oh, wow.

32:11KT: This really is for the culture. This purpose.

32:16Oti: But, like, you know, he he she wanted it to be they had that connection. Tre was never really vulnerable like that with her. It was that moment and that intimacy that just, you know, got them to to hook up. So yeah. Yeah.

32:34KT: Since we're talking about the babies of it all, let's talk about baby Bassett. Wow.

32:38Oti: Where do I start? Wow. Well, she has this idea that Tre has to stay with Furious so that Tre could learn the ways of the world. Well, actually well, she pretty much gave Tre an ultimatum. If you get in trouble anymore, I'm gonna send you to live with the father. And Tre got into a fight because Tre had a fight in school. Yeah. Well, he wasn't wrong in saying everyone originated from Africa. It's the motherland for bloody reason. So when he, you know, so all these years, she's been away from

33:16Oti: Tre. We know that Tre gets to visit her frequently, but she wants Tre to come and live with her because she feels that, you know what? I've made my money. I'm in a comfortable place now. Yeah. Tre could come, but that ship has sort of sailed where Tre is more comfortable where he is. He's got his own roots. He's he can make his own decisions where he wants to go. Yeah. But I think it needed to happen. I think that gap where when you got introduced to Furious

33:42Oti: and he's like, you just watch all these other kids without their dads how they end up. Yeah. And at the end of it, we get a Ricky Baker.

33:52KT: We get Doughboy dying, you know. That was sad. When when they had the post sequence

33:58Oti: like, title and they're like, he died weeks later. I'm like, oh, man. I'm pretty sure Monster and Dooky followed suit as well. Like yeah. It's sad. And I think that the role that Furious played in Tre's life was pivotal during those years. Yeah. Because I think Tre would have just continued being angry and lashing out, and that would probably lead to issues down the road.

34:19KT: I will say though, interestingly, I didn't get emotional when Ricky got shot and I don't I wouldn't say it's because I've watched it but it is interesting for a film where I experienced

34:34KT: a lot, I enjoyed myself quite a lot. I don't know if I had emotional investment or not but I didn't get emotional watching Ricky get shot, which was wild to me.

34:34Oti: I remember the first time I watched this. I I did get emotional when Ricky got shot. But, yeah, after that, maybe it's me having watched it, I knew what was happening, maybe it got part of me. But, yeah, I'm with you right now. I wasn't emotional at all.

34:34KT: Have you ever gotten emotional watching Snowfall?

34:34Oti: Not really.

35:02KT: Yeah. I I felt emotions watching Baby Boy, but that had to do with Ving Rhames' African squats. Oh, we were so close to vulnerability and I had to do it.

35:18Oti: Wow. Yeah. I I don't think I've got an emotional in Snowfall either. Right. As much as we love the show. Interesting.

35:27KT: Interesting. Interesting. Well, I really just wanna end on Ving Rhames' African squats if that's okay with you. Juanita will be happy with that. Man, Juanita squat on my face please. Seems like I'm I'm due for an Oti embryo role play situation. Thank you friends and lovers for joining us another week in the For Your Reference household. We're gonna finish off in a segment we call For Your Reference. Oti.

35:58Oti: I'm gonna reference Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.

36:05KT: And I haven't watched it yet. I can reveal that at the end of the episode. Alright. Well, I will reference The Harder They Fall. I think it might be nice to venture into who we believe would be on the Mount Rushmore of black cinema. But again, I will always speak accolades for Jeymes Samuel and The Harder They Fall. If you would like to give some more accolades, Ving, Rhames, Oti, Squats, and otherwise,

36:32KT: on Twitter and Instagram, we're at for your ref pod. Write us an email at hello fyrpodcast dot com.

36:37KT: We're also on John Singleton forever podcast if you like to leave a rating and review, and we'll see you guys next week. See you. Bye.