Say Whaaaa? Special Edition: A Few Things About the 50 Most Racist Movies
A new list making the media rounds compiles cinema's 50 most racist films, along with the massive qualifier in fine print: "That you didn't think were racist." While this is not unlike many other lists that purport to enumerate Things That Are Contrary to What Everyone Says They Are, there's really not that much contrary about it at all. In fact, if anything, it raises a few questions about what film history's most insensitive and/or flat-out racist filmmakers are still getting away with. Actually, it raises only one question -- again and again and again, from the outspoken Movieline staffers whose protest you know well: Say whaaaa?
I spent some time reading the list with the Say Whaaaa? Singers, whose dudgeon is high! To wit:
49. Bottle Rocket
So Luke Wilson's character sleeps with the Latina maid who doesn't speak English. Even the editors acknowledge it barely matters, but that "it's just that the movie is so violently white that you know something f***ed up is going on somewhere." Say whaaaa? It's set in Texas, for crying out loud -- where "Violently White" is just another brand of paint. Also: This seems to suggest that Wes Anderson's whole method makes him is the D.W. Griffith of his day, which totally explains The Darjeeling Limited. You know why we "didn't think" this is racist? Because it isn't.
43. Falling Down
Say whaaaa? The Joel Schumacher "thriller" features Michael Douglas's downsized angry white man rampaging through the streets of Los Angeles, tormented by his own inertia while the ethnic swarm around him gets ahead. But! The only guy he kills? [Spoiler alert!] A white supremacist whose beliefs he despises. If this list were called, "50 Hacky, Appallingly On-The-Nose Social Commentaries About Which Some Half-Assed Listmakers Completely Missed the Point," then I guess Falling Down probably would deserve inclusion.
42. White Dog
Come on, guys, do I really have to go through all of these? Say whaaaa? OK, fine. And I quote: "Despite filmmaker Samuel Fuller's best intentions, sewing in a complex anti-racism message about teaching hate, the sensational plot (which no doubt gave white supremacists peckerwoodies) got the public so pissed off that the studio refused to release it." OK, so: If a film about the incurability of racism is misunderstood by the intellectuals at Paramount Pictures and the KKK, then the director and his "best intentions" screwed up somewhere along the line? If only Fuller had quit challenging audiences and simply left that super-obvious "DON'T HATE BLACK PEOPLE" title card he'd wanted all along, then perhaps this whole thing could have been avoided.
39. Pulp Fiction
Say whaaaa? Of course I don't think Pulp Fiction is racist. I know it's racist. And it's hilarious. Not hilarious: John Mayer bragging about his "n***er pass." Hilarious: The bracing shock of "dead n***er storage." Not hilarious: Michael Richards screaming "There's a n****er!" at black comedy-club patrons. Hilarious: "I'm gonna call up a couple a hard, pipe-hittin' n***rs and go to work on the holmes here with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch. You hear me talkin', hillbilly boy? I ain't through with you by a damn sight. I'm gonna get medieval on your ass." At least the use of "hillbilly" must cancel something out here.
35. Gung Ho
If a lost, Japanese-skewering piece of '80s crap falls in the forest and the Say Whaaaa? Singers aren't around to hear it, can't we just assume it's forgotten?
34. Driving Miss Daisy
Say whaaaa? Patronizing, trite and thus celebrated in its time, but not malign or mean-spirited like a Hounddog or Mandingo (neither of which made the list).
1. Breakfast at Tiffany's
Say... OK, yeah, that's just racist.
· The 50 Most Racist Movies (You Didn't Think Were Racist) [Complex]
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maybe these were too racist to make the list:
crash
Gone with the Wind
Beverly Hills Chiwawa (or whatever)
Madagascar
Risky Business
Independence Day
The Scary Movie franchise
Blind Side
it's a wonderful life
maltese falcon
I believe that real-life autobiographical stories ( especially about the lives of very poor females in the deep southern US)are important because they reveal social and racial attitudes that teach important lessons about individual rights, and facing the sources of these attitudes is the only way to cure a special brand of injustice, for which predatory males in both the white and black races in the south have perpetrated. These true stories have a rightful place in history, not because they were right. Because they were WRONG. Because they were so horrid. Stories of multi-generational sexual abuse, including the brutal rape of minors and incest, lack of education and employment opportunity, and the larger circle of social abuse inflicted by the larger community, as the poorest women were selected to abuse and then written out of validity as human beings, by both black and white males. Those stories are a hidden world of slavery that America did not extend its riches and opportunity into-- even n the 1960's and 1970's. That world STILL exists as the multi-generational exploitation of poor women and their children in the sex industry. They are murdered, made into drug addicts, sold sexually on the internet all day long ( and YOU are the one buying!), and they are exposed to every slang verbage assault on the English language, (ho) to every disease (from HPV to HIV), and every physical and emotional abuse and danger imaginable. Don't say a word until you read the biographies either -- or your judgment will be inadequate. The racial overitures are undeniable -- but the are very real and have a rightful place when retold. They ARE the history. IF you are offended, then don't live that way or speak that way, and don't tolerate or passively condone it around you. THAT is the lesson. Unbiased recollection of the truth is the only way to learn from an ugly reality that requires its understanding in order to heal and to move on. You have to face a problem to fix it.
I'm not selling Pulp Fiction Burgers. I'm telling the truth so I can heal and I don't keep secrets because perpetrators find them ugly.
It's almost like White Write is daring someone to say "Say whaaaa?"
THOSE THAT THROW THE WORD RACIST ARE RACISTS. REMEMBER THAT
oh my god.
so much to digest, but i guess the key point is that the term "writer" continues to be abused to this very day. Oh, and also, are the Pulp Fiction Burgers animal style?
How about "White Men Can't Jump". It goes both ways. I'm sick of the racist stereotype that only white people are racist. Far From It!!!
Say Whaaaa?
Well, damn. I guess I took the bait...
OKAY, I WILL REMEMBER THAT.
That's "Mona" with a "KKK", right?
At least the use of “hillbilly” must cancel something out here.
Well, how about a rape victim explaining how short, squalid and painful his rapist's life will be "cancels out" the N-bomb because... well, I don't give a shit about the delicate sensibilities of rapists.
Yeah Mickey Rooney won't ever live down Breakfast at Tiffany's if he lives be 120. Of course, he's almost 120 now, so there's hope.
racist. the belief that human races have distintive characteristics which determine their respective cultures, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule or dominate others. you also have to have the power to implement such beliefs, that applies to a select few. since most of us aren't old money, don't set policy or procedure, please stop throwing the word racist around like u really understand all it implies.most of us are bigoted,and ignorant, which can be changed, if u take ur head out of ur ass and really look at the planet we live on it about power and domination,race is a subtitle, America had her time as did the British Empire, the Spanish and so on, now it's someone else's turn, the question is who, and will they share the same beliefs as their previous rulers, probably, absolute power, corrupts absolutely, buckle ur seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride!!
OK, so what do we consider "White Chicks?" How the hell did THAT not make this list???!!! I'm with Mona here. Every example listed in this article simply villainized "racist" white filmmakers (though I too can't defend Breakfast At Tiffany's).
Race will always be a hot issue, because some people pretend it doesnt exist, some dont understand it, and some just cant seem to mentally escape it. Its hard to understand a wicked asskicking if you have never been in a fight.
rac·ism
1.
a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement,usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
What about bigotry of other types? I'm really tired of movies that protray all southern people as uneducated, racist, inbred, hicks or Italians as cold-blooded mobsters. And let’s not forget the stereotypical evil and hypocritical preacher or priest. Can't Hollywood come up with anything that doesn't insult our intelligence?
Merely representations of racism. For the real thing in action in Hollywood, consult an unedited "Ball of Fire" (1941) with Barbara Stanwick and Gary Cooper. Film featues Gene Krupa and Orchestra, whose principle soloist was the great trumpeter Roy Eldridge. During the band's main number, "Drum Boogie" (sung by the Stanwick character), Eldridge is prominently featured on screen. Then exit Stanwick, cut to audience applause, cut to Stanwick returning to stage. But wait! Suddenly Krupa's trumpet section is down to three and is now all white. Eldridge has mysteriously disappeared between cuts. Abducted by aliens? Perhaps. More likely, though, "Drum Boogie," which came at the end of reel two, was positioned in the film so that it could be easily dropped in markets where Eldridge's presence in Krupa's white band might be "offensive."
The worst movies are those that portray southern, italian, ministers as uneducated inbreds, who are stupid evil ministers for the mob. I just hate it when that happens.
Okay so how was Breakfast at Tiffiany's racist? All i remember was Audrey Hephburn and her boyfriend and her cat with no name. Then she liked a rich Brazilian or something but ended up with the poor guy. I cant remember where it was racist. And most stereotypes are true, youre just "racist" if you do somehing malicious about it.
The fact that racism stil exists is beyond me. But I guess if it makes those who are opposed to racial equality happy to be a stickler. Remember, with the word n****r, and I quote, Chris Rock here, "Even black people hate niggers". Which means if you get offended by it, you must consider yourself of the such.
If one is going to create a film about the ante-belleum South ( Like GWTW) or even 1930's America, if you didn't show racism, it would not be real.
I was just reading a 1930's paper, where the editorial was about a recent accident that had happened in 1935 where the great boxer oe Louis was thought to have been killed. The whole article was about the public outcry and how unusual it was that peole would be that affected by a 'colored" person. Thei article went into that this outpouring of concern had to be that Louis was so an exceptional person compared to the antics of Max Baer, a popular white boxer at that time. This was an editorial.
racist to who ? get a life.
How is Breakfast at Tiffany's racist? Never caught that.
MONA YOU ARE RIGHT WHEN YOU SAY that white people are not racists AS SOME OF THE WORST RACISTS ARE THE BLACKS AND ASIANS.
How is Breakfast at Tiffany's racist?!!
The Asian neighbor played by Micky Rooney. Herro? “O me so sorry! Me love you long time!”
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