Same with boyz in the hood. The good guys die, and the bad guys stay alive (Dough boy, O-dog). What are we supposed to get from that? The more street smart hoodlum stays alive?
Member since January 2005
Sometimes it does happen like that and sometimes it happens the way it's expected. I think O-Dog lived because Unlike the rest, he never dropped his guard (the only one with a pistol on the scene) because he wasn't planning to move to other states to find "Paradise" like all his friends were preparing to do (Stacey, Sharif=Kansas...Caine= Atlanta) O Dog was upset cause Caine was leaving which also kinda explains why he wouldn't run for help at the end, the look on his face was that he wanted Caine to just pass away in the Hood like a warrior, not out of spite but because Caine was a 'Hood Soldier' so O Dog in a twisted way figured that he should meet his end there. Some felt that he was in shock BUT he had seen enough to not freeze up during a crisis like that, he didn't freeze the first time Caine got shot with Harold.
shareActually, Dough Boy did get killed later on, according to the on-screen text. It was what he expected too.
There's really no telling what happens to O-Dog after the events of the movie. It's very safe to assume that his life probably didn't get any better either. He either gets killed (eventually) or most likely gets put in jail (since the cops did finally see the robbery tape and were looking for both him and Caine).
Knawmean?!
Dough Boy dies at the end, they say it right before the credits start.
Cult Leader my mind's frightening, I drink blood from a human skull like a Viking
Doughboy gets killed. The Bloods who killed Ricky get killed.
Tre, who makes the right decisions to not participate in a drive-by, survives and goes to college. Brandi, who studies hard and stays away from that lifestyle, survives and goes to college also.
Nothing in Boyz n the Hood suggests that the "bad guys" live. The movie gives the message that those in that gang lifestyle get caught up in a continuous cycle of violence.
"It just goes on and on you know....next thing you know somebody is gonna try to smoke me. It don't matter though, we all got to go sometime"- Doughboy
I don't that is the message at all. Like other posters pointed out Dough Boy does die later, and O-Dog will probably not have a good fate in jail. Caine does decide to move to Atlanta, but he is still making bad decisions such as beating up the girls cousin and that guy at the party.
shareCaine is not exactly a "good guy" either. He's the protagonist, and I would think that the Hughes brothers wanted him to be in the gray area, not a simple "bad" or "good".
They show at times that he has a good heart and can be a likeable/sympathetic character to the audience, but he's still a murderer, drug dealer, car thief, armed robber, etc....He's not a "good guy".
He's a product of his environment. A lot of people from the ghetto are good people who make bad choices because it's all they know/all they see/all they think they can be. There's that and being a follower, Caine was a follower.
shareI think it shows how quick you can get killed in the hood and over things you don't expect. The scene where he sucker punches Illena's cousin is almost a throwaway scene with the exception of it sparking his grandparents kicking him out of the house, it almost adds nothing to the movie. Until he gets killed for it.
Also, in real-life all sorts of people of killed in street violence. A lot of vicious criminals more violent than O-Dog get killed, but also some guy from another city who is visiting relatives gets killed because he didn't the color of his t-shirt was a gang color in that neighborhood.
I wouldn't say the beating adds nothing. I think it kind of shows that even though Caine is trying to do right and make decisions that will effect him, he's still caught up in the cycle of his past decisions. He doesn't go looking for Illena's cousin. He tracks him down where he lives. This isn't a situation where there are a lot of positive alternatives.
This scene is very much connected to Caine's final summation that he has "done too much to go back and he's done too much to move forward". He's a tragic character in that sense that even when he becomes aware of it, there is little he can do to change the cycle. He's done some very bad things in the film but the introduction of alternatives through his two mentors, Mr. Butler and Pernell, offer him a little insight and we get the idea through his narration that he understands some of the self-destructive behavior. I think there's something in the moment where he mentions Ronnie's son, Anthony, and not wanting him to live the life he has lived, that shows this character does not want to live this life. The decision to go to Atlanta supports this.
By the time he has finished talking with Pernell, he is on the path to change but it is here where his past indiscretions catch up to him. The girl he dogged out and never called, the guy he stomped out at the party, and the grandfather who has seen too much of his grandson's reckless behavior to deal with anymore. This is the tragedy. He wanted to change at the exact moment when he realized it was too late.
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O-Dog does survive, but he goes to prison.
This is shown very quickly at the end of the film. We're to assume this is because Chauncey turned the robbery tape to the police.
So even if Caine had managed to run, the cops would be after him for accomplice to murder & robbery.
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