Hellobee Boards

Sixteen candles! The exchange student! The worst. (played by an asian actor too! so cringeworthy.)

I took a film class in college called white redemption, which talks a lot about plot lines where characters of a minority group just play the role of redeeming the white character. Those plot lines are pretty popular, like The Blind Side.
http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2009/12/enjoy-white-guilt-redemption-fantasies.html

@mrs. wagon: I thought of that one too.

I feel like there are too many to list! Mostly comedies but I never think racist jokes are funny. This is off subject but I also hate when child actors swear in movies. I watched Friends with Kids on Netflix and I hated that a two year-old said the f bomb multiple times. Ick.

Isn't our whole world kind of racist though? I mean, these movies are a reflection (a lot of the times, anyway) of the world around us, so it doesn't surprise me one way or the other.

@meredithNYC: I was trying to think of The Help but was drawing a blank!

@looch: I agree.

@mrbee: Oh, of course they have a right to have their story told. My feelings about it are probably too complicated for an informal forum, but I guess I just wonder about the popularity of these types of stories? My cynical guess is that white people (I say this as a white person) like to see themselves represented in the "savior" position and thus, that = big money at the box office. But, that's just my perspective.

Edited to add: to call such films "racist" is probably a bit too strong, but... I definitely feel like there's something that doesn't sit right with me re: the white savior archetype. Just because something doesn't scream "RACIAL STEREOTYPES HERE!" doesn't mean that it shouldn't be examined a little more closely.

And... on a related note, http://www.salon.com/2013/02/21/oscar_loves_a_white_savior/

@dagret: Ahhhh, that is my favorite Christmas movie! My mom and I watch it every year. I don't know what we are going to do about the blackface now that we are going to have a LO, especially considering they will be 1/2 black.

When they play it on TV, they cut that part out, so we could always just skip it. But DH (who is AA) says we should show it to them and talk about it with them as they are old enough. I just don't want them to internalize any of the negative messages.

@meredithNYC: I think the book "The Help," while still a good book, was more racist than the movie. I really didn't like how the (white) author wrote the black characters' dialogue in a dialect, but the white characters - who certainly had strong Southern accents as well - weren't written in dialect.

@daniellemybelle: I would agree with that, too. For what it's worth, I actually enjoy watching the film. I love the actresses and it's a perfect lazy-day-feel-like-watching-a-movie type of film. I just have complicated feelings about it.

@dagret: @Mrsbells: The song is how Lincoln freed the slaves, but "whats-her-name" (haha!) is dressed up in a totally offensive pickaninny outfit with big lips and braids in her hair And Bing Crosby is dressed up as black Abe Lincoln...?! Does not compute, haha!

Having said that, I do kind of give it a pass, because it's from the 1940s. A lot of movies from that era had some element of racism! It's a product of it's time. Aladdin on the other hand, for example, was made in the 1990s... I feel like the stereotypes on display there are not as excusable. The bad guys have Arab accents but the good guys have American accents...?! What is that?

I just saw a preview for the Lone Ranger movie coming out soon, and I felt very annoyed that Johnny Depp is playing Tonto. I get that he's super famous and all, but they really couldn't find a single American Indian to play the character? Also the Last Airbender casting white actors instead of Asian.

@.twist.: Ha well, technically so do I, but I don't self-identify as an American Indian. It just would have been nice to see a native character portrayed by someone with true native roots, if that makes sense.

@MrsSCB: @zippylef: haha I agree with both of you! I am part metis but have never actually said it unless people ask. I just thought it was funny!!

@daniellemybelle: @meredithNYC: I didn't see the movie, "The Help" because I thought it was going to be much like the book which I thought was racist. But I hear the book wasn't the same as the movie so maybe I'll watch it.

I have no idea what I'm going to do about Disney movies. Some of the movies on the list I forgot about and I never thought about how racist they were when I watched them as a child.

@mrbee: I don't really know the details of funding/executive producing for it, but I don't really see that as a justification for doing something that offends a lot of people.

@MrsSCB: i actually read an article about the movie and they had an advisor in the movie who is Comanche. They tried to be culturally and historically accurate with the character. They even had the advisor do Native American blessinfs and things on the set. So... At least they tried to be more racially sensitive about it.