More Hollywood Shenanigans....

I'm only gonna do a couple of short posts today...it was my berffday weekend (me and the King!) and I have been practically bathing in lemondrop martinis, topped off with a Jim Beam-sponsered party last night. I don't know how those hillbillys drink that stuff. Needless to say today I am feeling the full effects of it.

I just wanted to mention this, tho, and was wondering if anyone else has noticed a trend. I saw the movie "Cloverfield" (which by the way, was a very fine piece of filmmaking.....if anyone tells you it wasn't off the hinges, they are too jaded to be going to the movies).

The previews were extremely interesting to me....there were four, and they all seemed to star the same white, bland, faceless, 23 year old girly-man as the main character. I'm serious. I could not tell if the dudes were different or the same. But what was more interesting/disappointing was that there seems to be a new type of "magical negro" sprouting.

For those of you who don't know, the "magical negro" in a film is a black character that exists solely to give the central or main white characters advice, life lessons, help, or come-uppance in a film. They seem to have no other existence or pleasure in life other than helping said YT in their journey. Examples of this are Will Smith in Bagger Vance, MCD in The Green Mile, and Scatman Crothers in "The Shining".

Anyhoo--there seems to be a new league of these coming up, but they are the "heavy"-- intimidating rather than subservient. They give the white character their come-uppance, albeit in a violent way, and they are:

-dark (which I'm fine with)

-super violent and/or menacing in every way

-completely second banana to this bland, faceless white dude

-actors that should have their own films with top billing.

The ones seen in the previews were Laurence Fishburne, Djimon Hounsou, and Samuel Jackson.

I must say that I don't believe I was making too much of viewing these previews, and what really gets me is the trailers probably contain about 10 to 15 seconds of each of them, regardless that you can tell they are very central to the story and probably get tons of screentime in the actual films themselves. What value are they placing on some of our communities most loved male actors? What kind of message are they sending out by making these films? Why are these major actors playing second fiddle to some kid I've never seen before and don't care about? WTF is up with this type of marketing in the trailers? Who are they marketing to, cause it most certainly doesn't seem to be us.

We are invisible even in the movie trailer realm. What do you guys make of this? What action should we be taking besides "witholding our dollars" which is a start, but imho not that effective of a message?


On a lighter note, for a funny caption on Digimon aka Djimon, click here.