Trailer Talk
December 2, 2010
It's "Black Swan"...not Blaaaack Swizan
Nothing makes me want to shed my ethnicity like going to the movies. Soooooo jealous of all the fun white people get to have. At the same time, however, it lets me know that be loathing the skin I’m in, I’m on the right track. I mean, I saw the trailer for For Colored Girls. Yikes! Being a Regular Black Person (RBP for the newbies) looks really hard and sad and scary and seems to make you way more likely to cut a bitch.
And I don’t want to cut any bitches.
Taking a look at the movies opening this week (and some from last since I missed an entry) to see what best firms up my commitment to being an Oreo!
Black Swan – Ballet, Portman and girl-on-girl love, oh my!
- Stuff White People Do In This Movie – talk to themselves, dance ballet, be overbearing, hold lavish parties, create competition, go en pointe, take advantage, take baths, take off running, shapeshift.
- Stuff Black People Do In This Movie – n/a…I mean, have you seen the way RBP dance? Definitely would not fit in with this movie.
All Good Things – Ryan Gosling tries to escape his complicated, tortured past
- Stuff White People Do In This Movie -wear tuxes with huge bowties, arrive mysteriously, have dinner with friends, play tennis, visit the other side of the tracks, get married, disapprove of weddings, enjoy lakeside chats, get caught up in the family business, dramatically remove glasses.
- Stuff Black People Do In This Movie – Do not appear, though I suspect there might be one at one of those parties serving drinks or parking cars.
Dead Awake -Best I can tell, there’s a mystery…and death…and skip-bleach processing
- Stuff White People Do In This Movie – Pensively watch home movies, relieve events, trap loved ones, see ghosts, get admitted to hospitals, yell, cry, walk precariously on the edge of buildings.
- Stuff Black People Do In This Movie – do not appear
I Love you, Phillip Morris -Jim Carey looks pretty decent in briefs.
- Stuff White People Do In This Movie – be lawyers, be judges, be charming white collar criminals, have families, play in the grocery store, fall in love, wear yellow n jail, golf, have pets, get in over their heads, have unusually understanding spouses, crossdress.
- Stuff Black People Do In This Movie – populate the prison, work as a prison guard, work as a mover.
I think it’s neat that on the streets, in the courtroom and at the grocery store there are no black people. Why? Well, you see that once they get to the jail…that’s there the RBP are!
Night Catches Us – Oh look, here are some black people in a movie. Wonder what they’ll do!
- Stuff White People Do In This Movie – frisk an RBP.
- Stuff Black People Do In This Movie – get into bar fights, explain their absence, be loathe to forgive, get handcuffed–shirtless, look lovely on a porch swing, be Black Panthers, carry handguns, threaten their friends, carry rifles, shoot firearms at children, try to explain things to their children, run for cover, wipe prints off handguns.
Holyeffingyikes, being of color is rough and scary!
The Warriors Way – Ninjas V. Cowboys?
I tried to say some snarky stuff about this one, but it kinda looks really badass….No black people, though. And I guess, sure there weren’t too many black folks in the Old West, but there weren’t flying ninjas, either.
Why does this matter to Oreos? Well, whether we like it or not, people are very much affected by what they see on TV. It’s why advertising works. So to remind us over and over that of colors are at best marginal players and at worst criminals, it really helps those of us trying to hide our true colors find better and better hiding places.
******
Getting people to understand that last paragraph is a real challenge. Discussions/debates make the rounds of my net-neighborhoods a couple of times a year and yet there are always more people that just don’t get it.
Of the movies you listed the only one I’m interested in is the Cowboys vs Ninjas and I go into that knowing that it’ll probably be devoid of female characters that are actual people. But this sort of ridiculous action nonsense is one of my brainless pleasures so I can usually ignore the idiocy long enough to have fun.
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