Black cinema in the early ‘90s shed light on the struggles of surviving life in the economically deprived South Central, Los Angeles. From John Singleton ’s Boyz n the Hood to the Hughes Brothers ’ Menace II Society , these seminal classics created hard-hitting portraits of young black men often facing a crossroads between the lure of thug life and a promising future outside a dead-end neighborhood. This narrative was flipped upside down ironically by the star of Singleton’s 1991 masterpiece, Ice Cube , when he co-wrote and starred in F. Gary Gray’s hood comedy, Friday .

Released in early 1995, Friday did not generate watercooler conversations about hardships in the black community like the aforementioned social dramas of the period. Instead, the film depicted the

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