Do the Loud Thing: The Boombox and Urban Space in 1980s American Cinema

Abstract

Amid New York City’s implementation of urban renewal programs, boomboxes faced considerable public backlash that made boombox users, predominantly young men of color, targets of the city’s gentrifying priorities. This article explores how US narrative films released between 1979 and 1989 expressed the boombox’s contentious meanings and uses. During a period of decline in Black representation in American filmmaking, the boombox served as a metonym, amplifying struggles at the intersection of race, space, and economics. American films in the 1980s employed the boombox as a narrative and representational device to echo, comment on, and reimagine subcultures’ and gentrifiers’ claims over urban space.