The movie Friday is a comedy, but it also depicts many important social issues. The story is set in the city of Los Angelos, California, in what could be called a high class ghetto. The main theme of the movie is about a young black man who looses his job and is influenced by his best friend to smoke marijuana. The movie also shows the relationships of his family and other members of his neighborhood.
With a zany cast of characters and a hilarious script this movie touches on everything from gang violence to the use of drugs, crime, guns, relationships, sex and life in the ghetto. Because of all these issues, I found this an interesting movie with a wide variety of topics to address. In the movie Friday, rap star Ice Cube plays the character Craig. Craig has never smoked marijuana. However, his best friend “Smokey” smokes marijuana everyday. Craig looses his job, leaving him home all day with nothing to do to occupy his time.
He just hangs out in the neighborhood with his friends. Smokey tries to convince Craig to try some marijuana. At first Craig doesn’t want to. Smokey is persistent. He points out to Craig that he doesn’t have to work and doesn’t have anything better to . Craig and Smokey eventually sit on the front porch and get stoned.
Peer pressure is obviously the only reason Craig gives in. Actually he had other options, but he chose not to use them. Common sense and a simple explanation would have worked for Craig just fine. Everyday we are faced with choices. It is up to us to decide what’s right and wrong. Craig decides to try it and things start to happen that he really doesn’t like.
Craig and Smokey get into some trouble with the neighborhood dealer, Big Worm. Smokey sells pot for him, but can’t pay him the money he owes because he and Craig smoked the pot. Big Worm threatens them and sends a gang of “hoods” after them with machine guns. They just barely escape and are scared shitless.
Violence and crime are issues we hear about every day. We can watch any news broadcast and see the evidence of these increasingly worrisome problems. In Friday, both of these issues are very apparent. Debone, the neighborhood thief and “bully” is constantly harassing the people in Craig’s neighborhood. He breaks into their homes, steals their possessions, beats people up to take their jewelry and other items and is just generally a pain in everyones ass.
He is the most violent person in the movie Craig gets into a fight with him and pulls a gun on Debone. Craig feels confused and not sure what to do. His father convinces him to give him the gun. He insists that Craig should fight like a man with his fists. I don’t think that was very good a choice.
Debone was twice as big as Craig and probably 100 pounds heavier. They do fight and surprisingly Craig wins. You would think that most problems can be solved without violent acts. The reality is that sometimes, under certain circumstances, that just doesn’t work. Obviously, this was one of those times. Sexual promiscuity was also depicted in this movie.
Craig’s neighbor has an affair with a preacher. His sisters friend sleeps around to get drugs. Smokey puts the moves on anything in a skirt. To so blatantly condone this kind of behavior is repulsive. With the rampant spread of the Aids virus and other sexually transmitted diseases anyone with common sense would know better than to behave in this manner.
Unwanted pregnancies and the abortion rate or serious issues that should also be considered. Craig seemed to have a loving and supportive family. His dad was a real trip. His ideas about how to handle certain situations were a bit far-fetched, but he meant well. Because there was no indication of what age the kids in the movie were, it’s hard to comment on how the parents should have advised their kids.
I do know that quite a few of the kids’ actions were questionable, even illegal. For example, if these kids were minors they would
