• The Hood genre is a praiseworthy invention of independent Afro-American directors, dedicated to the problems of black neighbourhoods, particularly in LA, where the new generation shoot each other down and often seldom reach their 24th birthday. Films like Boyz 'n the Hood and Menace II Society were hits both at the box office and with critics: not unexpectedly, a wave of Hood films has taken over the way black citizens are represented in the cinema. So much so, in fact, that even the German distributors of Waiting to Exhale made it known that this black women's drama had nothing to do with the Hood.

Unfortunately, with time innovations seem to run out, and things become clichéd. In contrast, films which deviate from the norm, like Allison Anders' Mi vida loca - My Crazy Life about young Latinas, or the subtle struggle of 12-year-old Fresh against all the gangs in his neighbourhood were not very successfully marketed. And so the time is right for a parody.

Although in places the style seems to come straight from the Zucker-Abraham-Zucker stable, Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood takes the problems which led to the parodied films more seriously than, say, High School High, but on a completely different level, of course. Rather than weeping there is laughter, and in some circumstances some of the messages can come through a lot clearer in this roundabout way, than by means of fatalistic drama. There is also a postman, Keenen Ivory Wayans who, in a running cameo, always delivers the message to the audience at the appropriate time. But he does not quite understand the message in the title, which is quite obvious, right...?

There is laughter non-stop, even if an audience, like the German one, will not get all the jokes, as parodied films such as Dead Presidents or Higher Learning should be familiar only to avid watchers of videos. It is still a surprise for Don't Be a Menace... to have found its way into German cinemas. In May '96 we quoted Mercury, who distributed the soundtrack in Germany, as saying that this film would have about as much success in Germany as German films like Karniggels might in America. But not-so film-literate audiences are not left high and dry: the gags are such that one can enjoy them, even if one doesn't always understand what they allude to. Even the jokes, which were more successfully played out in other films such as Clueless or Hot Shots, have already found a wider audience.

The serious backdrop, luckily, does not vanish in slapstick. When the dust settles in the morning in the neighbourhood and the youths are let out again, having been arrested for being black on a Friday, there is still an element of social critique. Or when the name of rapper/actor Tupac Shakur appears, already checked off next to Michael Jackson and OJ Simpson on the hit-list of "the (white) man" who wants to destroy the lives of black celebrities. At the time this film was made, Shakur was in trouble, but has since then been murdered.

Naked Gun slapstick, without detracting from the content – great!

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