Donna Dewey and Homeboys

Jaclynne Madden

Final Questionnaire

Homeboys

Donna Dewey, 1989

Date Viewed: April 29, 2008

Made 19 years ago

Part A

1. Organization

A) Donna Dewey uses interviews with gangsters, interviews with the mothers and fathers of gangsters and victims, an off-screen narrator, pictures of victims and dramatic music as elements within Homeboys.

B) Homeboys combines elements of expository and mosaic forms. On the surface, Homeboys qualifies as an expository film because of its heavy usage of gangster interviews and testimonials. These testimonials establish the gangsters as witnesses and participants in the gang culture. The testimonials are meant to prove the main argument of the film---that gang life leads to a life behind bars. By using the words of gangsters who had their lives ruined by gang membership, Dewey gives her film a sort of scientific and transparent feel. If a gangster admits that his life was ruined by being in a gang, that is all the objective proof the audience needs to believe the director's point that gangster life is dangerous and not worth the risks. When a gangbanger admits that he feels regret for being in a gang and killing someone, that acts specifically as scientific and objective proof that gang life is a wrong path to take. Pictures of innocent victims and the testimonies from the mothers and fathers of those victims act as more proof that all gang life does is take lives, both through death and through jail time.

Homeboys also acts as a mosaic in that it "braids" the testimonies of several gang members. From these various testimonies, one general statement about gang life is formed--that gang life ruins lives, takes lives and that gang members ultimately regret their actions. Dewey braids what numerous and opposing gangsters have to say about school life, the pain they have put their mothers through, violence they have committed and witnessed and how life behind bars has changed their views on gangs. Although we never hear the interviewer asking questions, the gangsters throughout the film are always answering the same questions in succession, and this braids their stories together. The fact that a "red" answers a question similarly to a "blue" allows the various "parts" and persons of the documentary to become whole and united. All of the testimonies build off of and parallel each other. These testimonies prove that even gangsters from opposing gangs share similar sentiments and regrets about their decision to join and actively participate in a gang.

The expository form uses interviews to scientifically drive home the point that gangsters themselves regret their gang life, but the mosaic form builds off of the expository to braid numerous and similar testimonies together from opposing gang members to further prove that gang life has a very unappealing dark side that is often overlooked.

C) One of Dewey's primary intents of the film is proving to inner-city black kids that they should avoid gang life. In order to fully make this argument, she needs real gangsters to emotionally reveal their regrets about their gang life and their negative sentiments toward gang culture. She braids many testimonies together and uses lots of interviews because all of these gangsters have united feelings about their gangs--both the red and the blue gang members share the same feelings about their gangs. Dewey therefore uses reiteration from numerous and opposing sources as a way of proving the dark "reality" of gang life. Dewey's combination of the mosaic and expository forms is the best format for delivering verbal "proof" from real gangsters about the downfalls they have endured for being in a gang. The "proof" of how their lives were ruined is supported by interviews with their mothers speaking about the pain they have endured because of their child's gang involvement. These mothers and incarcerated gangsters act as living proof that gangs are not as cool as they may seem.

The first part of her film reveals the appeal of gang life and why people are drawn into the outwardly glamorous life of being a gang member. However, in the second part of the film, Dewey reveals that several of the interviewees are in jail and she has the gang members talk about the horrors they have seen and done within their gangs. Dewey purposefully sets the gang life up as something that kids cannot help but to be drawn to. But, she withholds the negatives of gang life and how some of them are in jail as a way to shock the audience and abruptly end any sense of the appeal of gang life. Her documentary becomes more hard-hitting by hiding that they are in jail--and she needs her film to be hard-hitting if she is going to be able to convince others not to join a gang. Also, the first part of the film allows inner-city children to identify with the gangsters and set the gangsters up as "one of their own." Had she initially shown that the gangsters were in jail, her audience would not have identified with them as strongly. Thus, when Dewey reveals that they are in jail and regret their actions, the audience already established a form of identification with them. That audience will therefore trust the gangsters more when they talk about their regrets and negative feelings toward their gangs. By originally hiding the fact that they are in jail, Dewey molds their incarceration into a more important and serious subject.

Dewey has a specific style of introducing the fact that these gangsters are in jail. She interviews both O.G. and Hollywood, using parts of their testimonies where they talk about why they joined and liked their gangs. Dewey abruptly freezes the frame on their faces and then brings up pictures of people that O.G. and Hollywood killed. Then, a male narrator speaks about how the victims died. Dewey then cuts back to O.G. and Hollywood as they talk more seriously about how their life was negatively affected by their gang involvement and how they regrets their actions. Dewey uses these abrupt transitions, transitions from a gangster to an inmate, to show her audience how quickly the lives of gangsters can change for the worst.

Dewey uses the testimonies of victims' parents and pictures of victims so that viewers can sympathize and feel sorry for the death that came simply because of a color. If Dewey can make potential gang members see the fruitlessness of gang-related deaths, then she can perhaps convince them to stay away from gangs. Testimonies from the mothers of incarcerated gangsters are meant to make viewers see how