Minorities Get Little Respect On The Big Screen

Michelle Yeoh at the Japan premiere of 'The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor' on Aug. 4.

Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty Images

Well, that's it. Summer's about over. Hope yours was good. How was mine? Thanks for asking. Well, I'm not given to absolutes, so I'm gonna say in terms of what Hollywood gave us, this was just the demi-most offensive summer ever at the multiplexes. Offensive, if you happen to be a person of color whom Hollywood in turn mocked, lampooned or humiliated ... that is, when we weren't just being completely ignored.

There was Jack Black supplying the voice of a Chinese bear in Kung Fu Panda. I guess the producers of the movie thought that it would be alright for an occidental to voice one of the most revered symbols of China, since they gave actual Asian actors Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu all of like five lines in supporting roles.

We had Mike Meyers entertaining himself by flogging Hindu and Indian stereotypes. And the lovely Jennifer Hudson playing a 21st century Hattie McDaniel to the Sex and the City gals. Excuse me, Jennifer's the one with the Oscar. Shouldn't they be fetching Jennifer's coffee?

Yes, there was Will Smith as a superhero. An alcoholic, abusive, foul-mouthed superhero. And, yes, there was redemption at the end of Hancock, but the path was so coarse as to be unsuitable for my kids to watch. So, the only hero of color they saw this summer was The Incredible Hulk. Which, by the way, why does a movie with nary a minority in it have to end with the Hulk destroying Harlem?

Honestly, this summer's offerings couldn't have been any more offensive if they released the director's cut of Birth of a Nation. On Blu-ray.

Out of 36 films put into wide release between May 2 and Aug. 22, only four had any minorities in leading roles.

In fact, the two performances that really stand out in big summer Hollywood films are Michelle Yeoh in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor -- she manages to bring grace and gravitas to every performance. And Robert Downey Jr. playing a white guy playing a black guy in Tropic Thunder. Sorry, but that one passes the funny test. It was funny. What can I tell you?

Now, maybe you think this is just complaining to complain, but remember this is the summer that featured Tiger Woods gutting out one of the greatest performances in sports history on a shattered leg, China having its coming out party with the Beijing Olympics, and Barack Obama making history in Denver. Now, I know truth is stranger than fiction, but when did reality become more fantastic than fantasy?

So, to all my dear, dear friends in Hollywood -- particularly the ones who can green-light -- maybe before you finalize next summer's slate of films, it's time to put down your trade papers and pick up some real newspapers.

5:08 AM ET | 08-27-2008 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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They're Playing Our Song?

Bruuuuce's "Born in the USA" is a classic, but the wrong anthem for these games.

Lennox McLendon/AP

Sooo ... the Redeem Team won the men's basketball gold at the Beijing games. If Russia thought it was suddenly resurgent as a superpower, it'd better think again.

But what was up with playing Springsteen's "Born in the USA" as the last second ticked off the clock?

NOTE: Maybe "Born in the USA" was ubiquitous for Team USA victories, but other than women's race walking and some kinda thing where people were paddling some kinda boat, a replay of the end of the men's basketball finals was all I saw of the Olympics, so I gotta limit my observations to that.

Anyway ...

While the song has all the trappings of great American-bred rock, as I'm sure most of you know, nary a more anti-American imperialism screed has ever been put to electric guitar: forgotten vets, jobs disappearing from the Rust Belt, Amerasian kids left "in country," and a to-the-point rendering of the Vietnam War.

Got in a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man

Yellow man? Helloooo, China!

Now, I'm not picking on Springsteen. I'm just curious as to who thought this was the tune to use when celebrating U.S. dominance in hoops? Americans who dig musical hooks, but aren't up on lyrics? Chinese who have a shrewd sense of irony? Or was it Bob Costas trying to make up for erroneously telling Brian Williams that Springsteen had dedicated the song to Michael Phelps at a concert? (Yes, he already publicly corrected himself.)

So, the next time somebody brings up the trope that music is ruining society, tell 'em clearly no one listens to the lyrics.

1:55 PM ET | 08-25-2008 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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The Elitist Tipping Point

John McCain can't remember how many houses he has. Immediately, he's hit by some with the charge of being an elitist.

Yet I recall watching an episode of Oprah once — only once — where she stated with a straight face that she was really upset because she had been about to make a meal when she realized she'd left her favorite cooking pan "in my other house." And all the nice suburban ladies trying to get by with their median household income of $48K did not bat an eye. She's Oprah. She's supposed to have many houses and favorite cooking pans.

Now, obviously, Oprah's not running for president. But she could, and she might just win. We love her for being so much more fabulous than us.

And, so, this is our public conundrum: What exactly is the elitist tipping point? Where does regular end and aristocratic begin? Is it a dollar amount? An attitude? Can one be poor and out of touch, rich and down to Earth? It's almost become an annual ritual: Fortune 500 companies revealing their executives' compensation to much public ire. But when a guy like Bill Gates — off and on the richest man on Earth — reveals that he often flies coach, he's derided as being either a skinflint or too showy with his austerity.

In every election cycle that I can recall there comes a moment — or a few — where charges of elitism and claims of commonness are wielded by presidential candidates like a sword and shield: Vote for me 'cause I'm one of you. It's the other guy who's out of touch.

Folksiness is a queer thing. You can be from a well-to-do family, attend an Ivy League school and be a "regular Joe" like George W. Bush, or you can be from a well-to-do family, attend an Ivy League school and be haut monde like John Kerry.

Or you can grow up living on food stamps in a single-parent home, attend an Ivy League school and be an "elitist" like Barack Obama for implying that people get upset and myopic when they lose their jobs.

Though it's nearly undefinable, elitism's like porn: You know it when you see it, and what somebody else likes doesn't necessarily turn you on.

And yet, we're electing the president of the U.S., still the most powerful person in the world. I don't want an underachiever working on my car's transmission. Why would I want someone regular sitting in the Oval Office? Sorry, give me somebody who has demonstrated a capacity to excel.

The cliche gotcha question of journalism is asking candidates the price of a gallon of gas at a particular locale. Can the candidate demonstrate with a single answer that he (or she) is a person of the people? Brother, I don't care if the candidate knows the local price of gas. I care if he fully understands the metrics that drive up or down a barrel of oil.

So the question isn't how many houses John McCain owns. The question is: Does he understand what's negatively affecting the equity of those houses, and what can be done about it, and how such gross fluctuations can be prevented in the future?

He'd better hope he doesn't have to check with his staff to answer that one.

9:46 AM ET | 08-22-2008 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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Laurence Fishburne On 'CSI' Ain't No Small Thing

Laurence Fishburne will star on CSI this fall. Is CBS taking bets on November?

Mark Mainz/Getty Images for CineVegas

This week it was announced that actor Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus of the Matrix films) will be joining the cast of the long-running CBS franchise pillar CSI.

Actors rotating in and out of series aren't exactly a big deal. NBC's Law & Order(s) have made bank on that.

However, a black actor taking the titular lead of a hit drama? That is a big deal.

There was a time when blacks were making serious strides in broadcast television. Led by the uber-hit The Cosby Show and the just regular hit Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, there was a wave of black — or in the vernacular of Hollywood exec speak, "urban" — programing on the air. The Martin Show, the Jamie Foxx show, Living Single, The Wayans Brothers, Hanging with Mr. Cooper... Some of these shows were good, some were typical television, but they facilitated a lot of work for blacks in front of as well as behind the camera. A lot of us in Hollywood thought it was the beginning of a real racial breakthrough.

We were wrong.

A couple of things happened.

As a format, sitcoms after Seinfeld and Friends began to fail. That meant fewer of them made it onto the networks' schedules. And black sitcoms tended to be relegated to the Weblets — Fox, UPN and the WB. Fox moved away from urban programming; UPN and the WB merged into the CW, which — like Fox — pretty much abandoned urban programs.

As an aside, the idea that black programming had to play to an urban audience exclusively or even primarily was faulty logic to begin with.

Regardless...

When sitcoms faded, drama took over as the scripted fare the networks leaned on. Dramas have always been the restricted country clubs of broadcast TV. The last time there was a "black" drama on TV it was City of Angels, which aired briefly back in 2000. Beyond that, sure, you'll see blacks sprinkled in with a supporting cast — you might even get Dennis Haysbert (24) as president, which ain't a bad thing — but you won't regularly see blacks or other minorities as leads in straight dramas. And before you get your little blog-back fingers typing, Ugly Betty — terrific show that it is — is a dramedy, not a drama. It don't count.

But CSI is a drama, and it's got a new lead investigator in Fishburne. Better than that, it's not even a black or "urban" show. It's a show that will feature a qualified man in the lead who happens to be black.

Is CBS taking bets on November?

And is Hollywood actually setting down its collective morning mimosas and taking a look at the demographics of the rest of the country? Well, I hardly think one casting move is the beginning of more color to go with our HDTVs. But every little bit makes for great viewing pleasure.

Good luck to you, Mr. Fishburne. Good luck to all of us.

5:06 PM ET | 08-19-2008 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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Black Is The New Black

It started about two years ago at the corner of Progress and Peril. Not an actual intersection, but instead the first in a series of in depth articles by The Washington Post on "being a black man." The series published long enough ago that Barack Obama was still merely "the American Idol of national politics," rather than the international superstar he is today.

I remember thinking at the time: Wow, are we really still that alien to the "mainstream" a series like this is needed? I mean, look, when I go to business meetings I'm still told way too often by some receptionist "the mail room is downstairs" to believe that racial perceptions don't still exist. But I figure there are always going to be knuckleheads no matter how many of their herd get stuck in the tar pits of progress. At the same time, I can't help but think that the very idea of figuring out what it means to be black is bigoted since there is no single standard of blackness.

But whether or not a series like the Post's was actually required, it was turned out to be the first in a flood of "in depth" coverage of that odd animal known as black people.

CNN recently ran its Black In America specials to gangbuster ratings. And the program wasn't without its "smack in the head" revelations: Having the fact that you're black on a job application weights similarly to having a conviction.

This weekend, the The New York Times Magazine runs a piece on generational black politics. It may well have been in the works before the Jackson/Obama tiff, but that exchange only makes the piece more potent.

Obviously much of this focus on blackness is in response to Obama's historic run for the White House. Ironic, since Obama is biracial.

Ironic, too, since blacks are no longer the largest minority in America, having been supplanted by Hispanics.

The attention is also ironic since most of these liberal institutions which are working so hard to understand people of color have been pretty God-awful when it comes to self-integrating. Maybe if they did a better job of seeking out blacks, they wouldn't be so curious as to what blackness is.

But no matter. For the minute -- in the chattering classes at least -- it's hip to be black. I guess we should just enjoy it until the fall brings some new fashions.

6:44 PM ET | 08- 8-2008 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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The New Invisible Man?

In the category of Things We Already Know, a new USA Today/Gallup Poll finds that most Americans believe "racism is widespread against blacks in the United States." As is to be expected, the degree that people hold this belief is dependent on their own race -- black, white or Hispanic. The survey in and of itself is worth taking a look at but, like I said, doesn't exactly stun with unexpectedness.

Except for one thing...

What was interesting to me was that a survey about how "most Americans" feel about racism and minorities didn't include responses from Asian-Americans.

They're not minorities? They don't have views on racism?

Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders make up only about 5 percent of the population, so by default maybe they lie outside the strict definition of "most Americans." But the poll was culling a variety of racial attitudes, and it managed to include views of racism against whites. You'd think if the survey had room to include views on the pervasive systemic oppression whites suffer through (now go back and read that sentence sarcastically), they'd take the time to chat up an Asian or two.

But why didn't they? And why don't we hear more about and from Asians when it comes to race in America? Are Asians the new Invisible Man -- there but not there? In some ways, yeah. Blacks and whites are always carping about the metrics of racism. And any conversation about immigration reform is immediately flipped into a referendum on Hispanics.

But Asians rarely seem to weigh in on, or have their rallying cause, with regard to race in America.

I haven't had the time to do a full scientific study, but the couple of Asian-Americans I talked with -- I know how that sounds, but, hey, that's a couple more than USA Today/Gallup bothered to talk with -- said that mostly they don't care to talk about race. Instead, they tend to have a "go along to get along" attitude.

This propensity to be cool is often misconstrued as the "Asian as the model minority" stereotype. And it is, in fact, just that -- a stereotype. That's not to imply that Asians are somehow bad folks, but that -- just as is every other minority -- they are regular folks. But we can't know that if every time opinions are sought out, they are passed over.

Clearly, not all Asians are comfortable just "being cool" about issues. And Asian-centric political action may be a more recognizable movement in coming elections.

Their opinions getting left out of one of any number of surveys on race may seem like a small thing. Maybe it is. But I think if we're really going to have an Obamaian dialogue on race in America, then we've got to have the widest dialogue possible and not just hear from the traditional "big three."

Now, that would be a poll that might fall outside of the Things We Already Know category.

5:13 PM ET | 08- 5-2008 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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Damn That Obama For Being So Cool!

Oh, for the halcyon, eschaton-invoking days of the "Daisy Girl" ad. Give me, please, the salacious insidiousness of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Give me any of that over John McCain's low: the Britney/Paris/Obama ad. And I don't mean low as in low-class, cheap shot and underhanded. I mean low as in: "I pay you guys all that money, and this is the best you can come up with?"

The best political ads have always had text and subtext; the obvious and the arcane. The obvious text of B/P/O is: Would you all stop loving this guy so much, please?! The whole ad seems like an open admission by Camp McCain that, yes, Barack Obama is young and hip and cool, and our guy has trouble ripping songs onto his iPod unless his grandkids are around to help him.

But the subtext is where the ad doesn't even get going. Contrast it with the infamous Willie Horton ads. The subtext there was: Watch out! Mike Dukakis is gonna let dark-skinned people break into your houses and deflower your ivory wives and daughters.

But the most fear the B/P/O ad can monger is: Watch out! These guys are going to get all the good tables at Le Bernardin, and you know I got knocked down five spots on the list to get my new Ferrari California because of one of them.

The ad openly admits what we already know: that Obama is a superstar. And no matter what other racial difficulties America may have, it's got no problem with its superstars of color: Tiger or Denzel or Will Smith or Michael Jordan, for whom the phrase "I want to have his baby" was created. It's like a teenage girl Camp McCain has basically taped a Tiger Beat poster of Obama to the wall of America's bedroom so that we may now all sit, stare and coo, "Isn't he dreamy?"

But this lameness is not limited to McCain. To this day, the only argument against Obama that critics can seem to come up with involves admitting he's better than them -- though they certainly season it with some racism. You know, he's that lucky black man who actually appeals to the populace. He's that elitist who got himself off food stamps and into Harvard. He's the arrogant guy who would hang out at country clubs ... if he wasn't so busy playing pickup games of basketball.

McCain's ad comes off as if he were saying, "He's like a wealthy heiress, and I know 'cause I got me one!"

While some take offense to the ad, not me, baby. Oh, happy day when the enemies of ascendancy have got to confess that people of color rock. The only thing that's going to make me happier is when Camp McCain runs the Bea Arthur/Jack Klugman ad announcing that uncool is the new cool.

4:45 PM ET | 08- 1-2008 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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