THE HOODS
A fairly economically-rich South Chicago neighborhood. Gentrification-bearing newcomers. Rising, mysterious deaths. And one urban legend.
Synopsis
When a Black-owned strip mall in a South Chicago neighborhood experiences mounting disappearances of shop owners and citizens, one veteran owner (Daren) soon surveillances the White outsiders who have arrived with rising redevelopment and the new, charming women’s boutique owner next door (Terry). All the while, he forgets the age-old urban legend that lives in the inner-city.
Daren played by Shaune May (L) Terry played by Sa’Shel Del (R)
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY
The Hoods is a thriller, somewhat of a psychological thriller. Told by following the two protagonist Black store owners, the premise is that in a thriving Black neighborhood where a shopping center is now completely Black-owned, there are predominantly White people making their way into the neighborhood along with new business developments.
But possibly even more threatening than that rising gentrification are the night people from the city’s notorious urban legend tale, The Hoods, who dwell in the old apartments (a.k.a. crack houses). Why are they so threatening?
For many reasons. These night people wear dark hoods to conceal themselves when they come out to eat (human bodies are their meal of choice) and they do so secretly and blend in so deceptively that you don’t even spot them. Their quiet lurking and feeding are made even easier to achieve during the summer and best achieved in the summer in Black neighborhoods where there is so much constant Black conflict and homicides that a body disappearance here and there doesn’t cause any alarm. How can it when it’s the norm?
The hood is a multi-fold motif. One: The hoods in terms of literal articles of clothing and what that means in America. It’s a tough visual statement about Black self-defeat that reflects a Tennessee judge’s controversial statement earlier this year that “Black men wearing black hoodies” killing other Black men are more dangerous than the KKK. Two: The hoods in terms of the physical places Black people largely dwell and the deprived state of those places. Black people live in so-called ghettos or ‘hoods all across America. Three: The symbolic hoods we place over our heads and how they hang over our (our, meaning the Black community collective) eyes like veils in order for us to not see the truth as to how we’re our own worst enemy. We’re ultimately our own villain. All of us from all backgrounds can be our own villains in everyday life. We all have hang-ups, vices, flaws, or fears that make us self-sabotage. So, this story is also a universal one.
However, turning back to the inner-city minority focus, the plot twist at the end shows symbolically how Black communities’ own constant victimization, gang violence, and lack of collective support with one another only helps to ‘feed’ their current situations.
Different characters and scenes allude to both local Chicago and national urban news such as the 2018 death of Bronx teen Lesandro Guzman-Feliz who was killed by members of the Dominican gang Trinitarios after being mistaken for a rival gang member.
In the end, the prime question presented in The Hoods is: Who really is the enemy?