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I know, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. But, what were they thinking? Watch the preview of Who's Your Caddy and you'll see what I mean.
Pinched white upper crust faces clash with loud, apparently ghetto inspired nouveau-riche black characters in a supposedly hilarious encounter across the racial divide. Denied entry into an exclusive golf club, the movie promises in your face behavior: buxom women stripping down, expensive foreign made cars are blowing up and fat black men splatting on petrified white ones - all guaranteed to teach the white
man a lesson and make us laugh. At least, that's what the (all white) writing team of this movie want us to take away from the preview.
One thing is known: Hollywood relies upon the crudest stereotypes and gags for laughs. Even machines cannot escape them. See Transformers and you'll know what I mean. Clearly, Jazz is the Afrobot(?) among the Autobots: he breakdances when he transforms, says "Wassup, bitches?" (how else would you know he's black?) and is the first good guy to be killed (eh...that's a surprise?).
Fat, crude, generally overwrought and over-the-top characters are the mainstays of Hollywood's comedic props. Fat people who burp, fart and dress in loud or inappropriate clothes fortunately cross racial lines (Nacho Libre, The Nutty Professor). But why do fat black characters (Big Momma's House, Norbitt) come across fatter and cruder than their white counterparts (Shallow Hal or Hairspray)?
This much is also known: movies with an all African-American, Asian American, Hispanic American cast will rarely be viewed outside the narrow confines of race, religion and ethnicity: their stories never seen as an expression of the whole human (read, white) experience. Black, brown and Asian characters will rarely command missions to the frontiers of outer space. White characters will always be seen as redeemers and saviors of the downtrodden in movies like Glory Road, Music of The Heart and Freedom Writers. Black characters will continue to be potrayed as rappers, violent men (Transformers), car thieves (Crash), muggers, ghetto drug dealers and shrill women with 'no, you didn't' attitudes in form fitting clothes. Asians will mostly be seen as terrorists and kung fu masters and, with their Hispanic brethren, fools and drug dealers. The list goes on.
To avoid being defined by the majority, we jump in too eagerly to define ourselves with hyphens, in colors, in language, gender and religious groups and then be divided along these lines by politics, by media, by corporate America. Hollywood is only a reflection of our social constraints. So, when white Hollywood crosses the racial divide to "explain" the other, they visually reinforce entrenched stereotypes like the preview in Who's Your Caddy suggests. Why bother wasting your money on it?
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| Posted on 7/14/2007 1:23:41 PM © BrownedIn2007 |