Wow! You reminded me of something I haven't thought about in ages. Looking back, I can laugh at myself now but man...
The summer after my 6th grade year, I went to visit my aunt and uncle in the Bay Area for an entire month. (That trip made me realize that I wanted to get as far from home as fast as I could when I finished high school. I realized how small my small town was, but that's a story for another thread altogether. Changed my life.) Any way, my cousins and I begged my uncle to take us to see this movie called Boyz N the Hood. He finally obliged dropping us off at the movie theatre. Needless to say, the movie had a hard impact on 12 year old LiveFromDC. Now for those who don't know, the movie was set in South Central Los Angeles. We were in suburban Fremont, California, LOL. Separated by a few hundred miles from Southern California, I didn't really comprehend the stark difference in distance and environment at the time. All I knew was that I was in California and this movie takes place RIGHT HERE. Walking out the movie and waiting out front for us to be picked up, I think I was trying to hold back tears and pretend to be much more hardcore than I actually was less some mark try to take me out. I still remember holding my chin up and clenching my teeth in an attempt to look cool and unbothered by the violence that might break out at any moment. At the same time, i was really hurting because of how the movie ended. I think we talked about that movie the rest of the summer. Even funnier, when I returned home to southern Louisiana, I was given a little street cred from friends for having seen Boyz N the Hood IN California.