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Posted by martinphipps2 on 08/10/06 02:52
Fred Goodwin, CMA wrote:
> "Airplane"
>
> There was the bit with the two black gentlemen seated
> together whose speech is incomprehensible to the flight attendant until
> Barbara Billingsley of "Leave It To Beaver" fame offers to
> translate, explaining, "I speak jive."
I thought this was a remarkably positive portrayal of Black Men: it
wasn't that they were speaking nonsense, it was that we weren't
understanding them. That was very PC. Compare this to all of the
blackspoiltation movies of the 70s in which most black men were
portrayed as killers, whether they were on the side of the law or not.
> "There's Something About Mary"
>
> An argument can be made that brothers Peter and Bobby Farrelly should
> be honored in the politically incorrect category for their entire body
> of work rather than just one picture. But "Mary" is not only the
> brothers at their tasteless best, but also at their funniest. The hair
> gel scene is probably the one Farrelly brothers moment that is most
> famous, and the one that generated enough good word of mouth to make
> this a big hit. But they also create laughter with men surprised at a
> rest area pursuing their feelings for each other. And when Matt Dillon
> jump-starts a dead dog. And when Ben Stiller gets his zipper caught in
> an area where no man should get his zipper caught. And when Dillon
> tries to impress Cameron Diaz by boasting about his "work with
> retards." The film is a sweet romantic comedy that is drenched in
> crude humor, creating a rare and hilarious subgenre.
It's crude but that doesn't mean it's not PC. All the men in this
movie were jerks. The Farrelly brothers usually display positive
images of minorities, especially people with handicaps. A better
example would have been Me, Myself and Irene in which Jim Carrey's
three black "sons" swore a lot, presumably because they were black. In
reality, boys that were raised by Jim Carrey's character would not have
sworn.
> "Caddyshack"
>
> He also tells
> Wang: "This place is restricted, Wang, so don't tell 'em you're
> Jewish."
It is not un-PC to point out discrimination.
> "Song of the South"
>
> Uncle Remus, a wise
> old black man, tells the story of Brer Rabbit and his pals to cheer up
> little Johnny, a white kid. But most of the black people are shown as
> subservient to whites. This isn't exactly "Birth of a Nation,"
> but in terms of racial stereotypes, it's in that ballpark.
> "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" won the 1947 Academy Award for Best Song.
Again, it is a remarkably positive portrayal of a black man. If you
want to see positive portrayals of black men today, you have far better
options, but this was 1947 and it would have probably only have been
shocking to conservatives who wouldn't have have wanted an old black
man hanging around with a young white kid.
Is it just me or does there seem to be a hidden message here, the idea
that "political correctness" leads to censorship and that this is a bad
thing? What about all those movies in which women were slapped because
they spoke back to their boyfriends or husbands? What about all those
movies in which a Valentino type would take a women by force but it was
okay because it was what she wanted? What about all the
blackspoiltation movies that played into people's fears of violent
black men? What about Clerks II, a movie that came out just last
month, that displays sex as gross and disgusting in a way that
relatively few porn movies today would even dream? (Most porn produced
in the US today is aimed at the couples market: we are living in an age
when even porn has to be concerned about being PC, and this is not
necessarily a bad thing.)
Martin
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