Bit Of A Chat About Race In Film
Well this could be interesting, I'm actually going to do a blog about a serious issue that people strive and care about. What inspired me to do this was the revelation that George Lucas was producing a WWII epic called Red Tails. Not a big thing in itself but the big news is that its featuring a major cast of all black actors. The fact that this is still enough to cause controversy is baffling to me, the amount of epics that hollywood pumps out that has all white casts or Will Smith (Arguably the only black guy who had broken through to race neutral where the colour of his skin is irrelevant) in is ridiculous and no one bats an eyelid. We've got a long way to go.
Anyway the main main news on the Red Tails film is that it exposes Hollywood's attitudes towards race, namely that they "wouldn't know how to market a blockbuster with no white leads" which lead to George Lucas having to finance the majority of the film himself. Now of course I could go on a tirade about the institutional racism that is evident from this but its not just them, its us.
As Idris Elba asks "Imagine a film such as Inception with an entire cast of black people – do you think it would be successful?" as this latest revelation shows about Hollywood the answer would be...maybe? But not for the right reasons. The press and the audience would certainly be thinking "Ah this was certainly an incredible film for an all black cast" and not "Ah this film was incredible on its own merit". Whether this is necessarily our fault or the countless years where Hollywood have made "all-black" synonymous with a Gangsta film or a Tyler f***ing Perry film its hard to tell. But as I said before we have a long way to go.
Although its time to flip it a little bit and throw something controversial out there. Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. If you haven't heard the basic script slave becomes free, turns into a Bounty Hunter, kills white people who slaved and who have taken his wife. There are going to be two camps in the wait up to this movie. One may say it seems like a flipped "A Birth of A Nation", a KKK financed film from the 1920s where the KKK "heroically" kill African Americans. The other may say that the fact that they are different races doesn't matter, the slave owners were w***ers and a lovely bit of slave revenge should be awesome. Which camp I'm with....I'm unsure, I mean its hard to tell before the film is released. I'm going to have to go more with the second camp and say that this is a part of history and if white people come out and say hey that was a long time ago cant we just forget about it, spare a thought for the Germans. They've had to deal with the Nazi connotation when most of them now weren't even alive in that time.
Also in recent films why do white people have to think of themselves of the "saviours" of down on their luck african americans. See The Blind Side, The Help and The Soloist. They may be "true" films to an extent but I think as racially white people have too high a view of themselves, its such subtle racism and I really dislike it. I'm happy that Django Unchained is going to go against that a bit.
Obviously I haven't fully covered the subject this is just a few opinions I've thrown down onto a page. There is a lot more to deal with on this issue and I've not even scratched the surface so if you want to investigate it there are plenty of people talking about this, some right some wrong. But in my opinion we need to change.
Anyway the main main news on the Red Tails film is that it exposes Hollywood's attitudes towards race, namely that they "wouldn't know how to market a blockbuster with no white leads" which lead to George Lucas having to finance the majority of the film himself. Now of course I could go on a tirade about the institutional racism that is evident from this but its not just them, its us.
As Idris Elba asks "Imagine a film such as Inception with an entire cast of black people – do you think it would be successful?" as this latest revelation shows about Hollywood the answer would be...maybe? But not for the right reasons. The press and the audience would certainly be thinking "Ah this was certainly an incredible film for an all black cast" and not "Ah this film was incredible on its own merit". Whether this is necessarily our fault or the countless years where Hollywood have made "all-black" synonymous with a Gangsta film or a Tyler f***ing Perry film its hard to tell. But as I said before we have a long way to go.
Although its time to flip it a little bit and throw something controversial out there. Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. If you haven't heard the basic script slave becomes free, turns into a Bounty Hunter, kills white people who slaved and who have taken his wife. There are going to be two camps in the wait up to this movie. One may say it seems like a flipped "A Birth of A Nation", a KKK financed film from the 1920s where the KKK "heroically" kill African Americans. The other may say that the fact that they are different races doesn't matter, the slave owners were w***ers and a lovely bit of slave revenge should be awesome. Which camp I'm with....I'm unsure, I mean its hard to tell before the film is released. I'm going to have to go more with the second camp and say that this is a part of history and if white people come out and say hey that was a long time ago cant we just forget about it, spare a thought for the Germans. They've had to deal with the Nazi connotation when most of them now weren't even alive in that time.
Also in recent films why do white people have to think of themselves of the "saviours" of down on their luck african americans. See The Blind Side, The Help and The Soloist. They may be "true" films to an extent but I think as racially white people have too high a view of themselves, its such subtle racism and I really dislike it. I'm happy that Django Unchained is going to go against that a bit.
Obviously I haven't fully covered the subject this is just a few opinions I've thrown down onto a page. There is a lot more to deal with on this issue and I've not even scratched the surface so if you want to investigate it there are plenty of people talking about this, some right some wrong. But in my opinion we need to change.