Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood

Don't Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood
Don't Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood
Directed by	Paris Barclay
Written by	Marlon Wayans; Shawn Wayans; Phil Beauman
Produced by	Eric L. Gold; Keenen Ivory Wayans
Starring	Marlon Wayans; Shawn Wayans
Music by	John Barnes
Distributed by	Miramax Films
Release dates	January 12, 1996
Running time	89 min
Language	English

Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood is a 1996 film. Similar to the Wayans' previous effort I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, the film spoofs a number of black, coming-of-age, 'hood films' such as Juice, Jungle Fever, South Central, Higher Learning, Do The Right Thing, Menace II Society, Poetic Justice, New Jack City, Dead Presidents, and most prominently Boyz N the Hood, all primarily released between 1985 and 1995, and also mixes the names of a few of the said titles to form the long title of the film.

Don't Be A Menace teases out the racism inherent in the popularity of 'hood movies' such as the above, irrespective of their supposed "redeeming qualities". The film suggests that the result of the massive popularity of 'hood movies' was/is that black actors are limited, in an attempt to profit from these movies' success, to similar roles, especially in the 1990s. Menace attempts to comically satirise that sociological phenomenon. Some actors in the film also starred in the films the movie parodies, a few even in the same scenes and characters.

Cast

Some of the main characters include:

Ashtray: The main protagonist of the film, the Everyman, trying to make his way through a confusing world, is sent by his mother to live in the ghetto where his father might teach him how to become a man. Played by Shawn Wayans. Based on Tre Styles from Boyz N The Hood and Caine Lawson from Menace II Society.
Ashtray's Mother: Ashtray's mother whose brief cameo in the beginning is ended with her abruptly delivered quote: "Sorry baby. You know there ain't no positive black females in these movies." Played by Vivica Fox. Based on Reva Devereaux from Boyz N The Hood.
Ashtray's Father: Ashtray's temperamental role model who dispenses sage advice to his son. According to Ashtray, is only "a couple years older than me." Played by Lahmard Tate. Based on Furious Styles from Boyz N The Hood.
Loc Dog: Ashtray's cousin. Stoner/Drug Dealer/Criminal. Drives a USPS delivery truck which is loaded in the back with ballistics. Played by Shawn Wayans' real-life brother, Marlon Wayans. Based on "O-Dog" from Menace II Society.
Loc Dog's Grandma: A marijuana smoking, foul mouthed, church going old woman. Played by Helen Martin.
Preach: Ashtray's friend. The former gang member turned 'Islamic-politically conscious' activist. Has a fetish for white girls. Based on Sharif from Menace II Society. Played by Chris Spencer
Crazy Legs: Ashtray's friend. Was paralyzed in a drive-by. Based on Chris from Boyz N The Hood. Played by Suli McCullough
Dashiki: The object of Ashtray's affections. A "hood mother" with seven kids by seven different men. Played by Tracey Cherelle Jones. Dashiki's address is 6969 Penetration Avenue. Based on Brandi from Boyz N The Hood, Ronnie from Menace II Society and Justice from Poetic Justice.
Keisha: A possessed chick that Loc Dog meets at a late-night party and takes to his house. While proceeding to have sex with her, she morphs into a demonic version of herself and proceeds to force Loc Dog to have sex with her. It is unknown what happened after this. Played by Terri J. Vaughn
The Mailman: Director Keenan Ivory Wayans appears at various places in the film shouting "message" whenever a moral lesson is spelled out, just in case the platitude was overlooked by the audience. At the end of the film, when Loc-Dog gives a rambling speech ending with the film's title, he appears to say "What the fuck is he talking about?".

Damon Wayans was the only member of the Wayans family not to appear in the film.

Notable satires

When the white supremacist sniper shoots Malik, he crosses his name off the "Brothers Who are Trying to Make it Out of the Hood" list. Already crossed out off of the list is Ricky (from Boyz N The Hood), Caine (from Menace II Society), Radio Raheem (from Do The Right Thing).

References to Boyz N the Hood

Shawn Wayans' lead character is named Ashtray, as opposed to Cuba Gooding, Jr.'s Tre in Boyz N the Hood.
Ashtray is sent by his mother (played by Vivica A. Fox, Angela Bassett in the original) to live with his father (in the original played by Laurence 'Larry' Fishburne, here played by Lahmard Tate which is only a year older than Wayans himself) to teach him 'how to be a real man', and the sex-talks that Gooding has with Fishburne in the original are parodied. The reason the actor was portrayed as younger than Ashtray himself was because in Boyz N the Hood, Laurence Fishburne plays Cuba Gooding Jr.'s father, but in real life, Fishburne is only 7 years older than Gooding.
Ashtray has sex with a girl while her mother is at church, the way Tre describes his "first-time" with a girl in Boyz N the Hood. Humorously, Ashtray's girlfriend's mother comes back from church, only to be clad in a leather dominatrix outfit.
In a scene from Boyz N the Hood, Tre and Ricky get pulled over by two police officers, one being a black man who seems to dislike young black males from the 'hood. In a similar scene, Ashtray and Loc Dogg are pulled over while they are parked, and a black officer—played by Bernie Mac—states that he hates all things that are black, even the black keys on a piano.
In Boyz N the Hood, Gooding's character Tre goes to his girlfriend's house and starts swinging his arms, punching wildly while crying, all out of nowhere. In Don't Be a Menace, the character Ashtray goes to his girlfriend Dashiki's house and does the same, but, instead of air, he is actually punching her children.
While sitting on Old School's porch, Loc Dog goes on to say "either they don't know, don't show, or just don't care about being a menace to south central while they drink their juice in the hood. .." In a similar scene, Ice Cube's character, Doughboy, said, "Either they don't know, don't show, or just don't care about what's going on in the hood. .."
In Boyz N the Hood, the young boys go to see a dead body near the train tracks. In Don't Be a Menace, a group of similar looking young boys (some of the children reprised their roles from Boyz in the Hood) go looking for a dead body, and find the unconscious body of an Elvis Presley impersonator, face down with his pants pulled down.
Keenan Ivory Wayans' cameos as a mailman is a reference to John Singleton giving himself a brief cameo as a mailman in Boyz N the Hood.
The barbecue that Ashtray and his friends attended whereby Ashtray met Dashiki, is similar to the barbecue scene of Doughboy's "Welcome Home" party.
Lloyd Avery II, who played Ricky's shooter in Boyz n the Hood (who was often thought to be an uncredited Chris Tucker), is sitting behind the driver in the drive-by shooting.

References to South Central

In South Central, there is a character called ‘Loco’ (Vincent Craig Dupree), who is also a member of the main character, Bobby’s, gang the Hoover Deuces. Loco is a young, excitable animated amiable character whose comical and exaggerated quips and appearance are more than reminiscent of Marlon Wayans’ character ‘Loc Dog’, most notably his large excitable eyes.

In South Central, Bobby’s character inevitably ends up in prison and eventually shares a cell with another prisoner, ‘Ali’ (Carl Lumbly), who is member of the religious group, The Nation of Islam. The ‘Ali’ character is a stylised character who largely speaks only in poignant proverbials most sufficiently summed up in the ‘Cycle of Hate’ and ‘Author’ dialogues. In the latter, Ali challenges Bobby to the name the author of some prominent proverbial quotes. This is satirised in Don’t Be A Menace when Ashtray ends up spending a night in a police cell with a pseudo Nation of Islam character called ‘FarraConvict’.

Right before the end of South Central, when Bobby is trying to talk his son out of shooting him, he uses a speech that seems to have come directly from the character Ali in which, amongst other things he says; “if you hit a man, in time his wounds will heal…”. This is directly lifted and said by FarraConvict in Don’t Be A Menace....

References to Dead Presidents

At the end, Grandma pops out of a garbage can and shoots the gang, with the corpse paint on her face.

The DMV instructor navigates Ashtray to a bank and proceeds to rob the bank. This is similar to the scene where Keith David's character asks Larenz Tate's character (who is totally oblivious to David's motive) to drive him to a debtor and proceeds to intimidate him through violence.

References to Poetic Justice

Loc Dog owns a mail truck, and there is a line "A road trip in a mail truck. .. that's about the stupidest idea I ever heard of." That was the whole point of Poetic Justice.

Dashiki, at one point, recites a poem to Ashtray that involves castrating him if he ever left her.

Dashiki's appearance is similar to Janet Jackson's character's appearance.

In one scene, the back of the mail truck has the words, "Janet waz here". Clearly a reference to Janet Jackson's character.

References to Juice

Youngster to grandma: "Now you got the Juice, Grandma", which in Juice a man says to "Q" (Omar Epps).

The actor that delivers this line is the same actor that delivered the line in Juice.

References to Menace II Society

Ashtray and Loc Dog (played by Shawn's brother Marlon) are racially profiled by Korean shop owners, who persist on following Ashtray throughout the store. The scene ends in a shootout parodying the end of the similar scene in Menace II Society. The actor playing the Korean man is the same as in Menace II Society.

"Dave the Crackhead", a beggar looking for change, attempts to offer Ashtray cheeseburgers and fellatio in exchange for money. In Menace II Society, O-Dog is confronted by a beggar, who is also willing to offer cheeseburgers and fellatio for money or drugs (who, in turn, may be inspired by a similar character from Dolemite).

Later in Don't Be a Menace. .., the beggar re-appears, again with the sack of cheeseburgers and is now looking for directions to Crenshaw (which is where the crew from Boyz N the Hood always hang out). He offers fellatio to Loc-Dog for the directions, and after a little thought, the scene then cuts to Loc Dog zipping up his pants.

Slow motion "drug-making" sequence, in which Loc-Dog makes a cake, in Menace II Society, Tyrin Turner's character Caine, prepares crack cocaine in a similar sequence.

Slow motion 'drive-by shooting preparation' sequence. In Menace II Society, Illena's cousin organizes a drive-by after he is beaten up by Caine and O-Dog.

Dashiki becoming pregnant.

Marlon Wayans' character, "Loc Dog" takes his name from "O-Dog."

Lahmard Tate (Ashtray's father) is the brother of Larenz Tate (O-Dog).

There is a black officer who says the line ,"You know you fucked up right? yeah, you fucked up" which is a clear reference to another cop (Bill Duke) in Menace II Society.
When Ashtray and Dashiki prepared to leave the hood, they visited Doo-Rag's, one of Daskiki's kids, father, which is similar to when Caine and Ronnie where preparing to leave and spoke to Pernell, Anthony's father.

References to Higher Learning

Omar Epps appears playing a character named Malik, who's leaving the hood to go to college (where a sniper, "Remy", shoots him).

References to hood movies in general:

Slow motion 'drive-by shooting preparation' sequence, with spooky music.
Drive-by shooting sequence.
"Serious" father-son talks.

Catchphrases:

Break yo' self, fool! (Loc Dog catchphrase when shooting)
Message! (Keenan Ivory Wayans' only line (besides "What the fuck is he talkin' about?"), usually said when Loc Dog or Ashtray says something with a good message, that recurs throughout the film. Keenan only appears through the movie to say this, as a postman or a baby)

External links