Nicole Bratcher-Bouyer
February 3, 2015
Fallacy Essay

Don’t Be a Menace
The hit 1996 movie Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood is a remake of multiple classic hood movies mixed into one, in which the writers utilized rhetorical fallacies to point out stereotypes of black youth growing up in the hood. There are a plethora of fallacies in the film, but two stood out to me the most. The first major fallacy of the film begins in the scene of the main character, Trey, being dropped off by his mother to his father’s house in South Central. In the car they have one last heart to heart about what he needs to do now in order to insure he has a great future ahead of him. This intimate moment begins with the following fallacy:
“Trey, I don’t want you hanging out in these streets. I want you to finish school ‘cause without an education the only kind of work you’re going to get is selling drugs, pimping women, or working security for Eddie Murphy.”
This statement is an example of a slippery slope fallacy, which is an argument that falsely assumes one thing will lead to another. In this case Trey’s mother is falsely assuming without an education Trey will only have three outcomes in life, in which all are negative, but she used this fallacy to stress the importance of an education to Trey. However, the writers used the fallacy to point out the stereotype that every black man who does not finish school will only end up living bad alternative lifestyles which is known to not be true in many cases.
The second fallacy I want to point out takes place in the same scene:

“Now I’ve done all I can. I got my education. I worked two jobs to support you, but I can’t teach you how to be a man.”

This is an example of a Red Herring fallacy, which is an argument where a side issue that is not relevant to the debate is dragged in. The fact that Trey’s mother got an education for herself and worked two jobs to support him is irrelevant to Trey being raised as a man. Trey’s mother used this weak argument to justify why she could no longer take care of him. However, the writers used this fallacy to put an emphasis on the majority of black women in the hood raising their sons alone. Connecting this fallacy to the previous one shows how society claims that the reason young black men fall into the street life is because they have no positive male role model at home showing them how to keep on track which can be a reason why so many do let the streets raise them. The writers wisely used these fallacies back to raise awareness of the effects of fatherless young black men.
These two fallacies were great examples, and as I stated this film has numerous fallacies. There is about one fallacy every other sentence. When taking into account what message the scriptwriters wanted to send to the audience, it is clear that fallacies were used to put an emphasis on the many stereotypes of what it is like being a young black man growing up in the hood. Most times you see fallacies used in a way to mislead the audience, but I feel as if these fallacies were necessary to illustrate to the audience how ridiculous these preset assumptions were. I believe the fallacies proved effective to the audience. They pointed out many stereotypes and false assumptions that many of us carry around without even knowing. The illogical arguments of the fallacies, actually helped the audience to think logically on how we go about viewing what growing up in the hood is like, and what stereotypes we know are ignorant and must be let go. I believe the message of Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood reached the audience like the writers wanted with the help of some fallacies.