How Hollywood Derails Racial Progress in America

Hollywood detests people of color, even when its fetishizing us in some way. Let me get that out now.

On a very heated SWPD debated which had to do with a wholly different topic, I listed eight movies and asked a commenter to choose which of them he liked. Another commenter stepped in and decided to play along.

Now they want to know what their choices "mean". But first, here are the films I listed:

Blood Diamond
DragonBall Z
The Last Samurai
Journey into the West
Dances with Wolves
Avatar
Memoirs of a Geisha
The Forbidden Kingdom

By the way, I forgot to add Beyond Borders to the original list.

Blood Diamond, Dances With Wolves, and The Last Samurai all touch upon "sensitive" periods in POC history--effects of post-colonialism, prelude to genocide, and centuries-old culture being eroded by outside influence (readers should note that Edward may-he-go-to-the-special-hell Zwick directed the first and last of these three).

The people causing the problems (or in the case of Blood Diamond, caused it and left to continue causing it from somewhere else) are white. But the main character fighting the POC's battle...is also white. So naturally--because this heroic figure either goes native or was already born in that land--white viewers latch onto him and distance themselves from those other, less palatable whites. Films like these are "white guilt fantasy" films. Writers like Macon on SWPD (and Annalee Newitz), for example, focus on the "white guilt" part. For clinical reasons, I often focus on the "fantasy" part.

In these three films, DiCaprio, Costner, and Cruise all play completely fictional characters. However, the white armies, generals, and asshole politicians in these films are painfully "real"; they are inspired by real men who did exist and who did similarly horrible things. But most white people don't want to see that. They don't want to sit in a darkened theater next to POC reliving past horrors they constantly try to brush off--to hell with that. So Hollywood instead creates imaginary white guys who fight off these evil, too-real white guys...and in so doing earn the love, loyalty, and even sometimes the deference of POC.

When white viewers watch this version of history, they feel better, more comfortable, exonerated and validated even. They indulge the "fantasy" that stuff like this may have actually happened and yet just somehow slipped through the cracks of written history. In essence, white viewers are given an option when dealing with history--they can either identify with the good guys or the bad guys (three guesses which one they pick).

POC, on the other hand, don't get that option.

Nope...we just have to watch ourselves get massacred, exploited, and dehumanized all over again...and again...and again. And when POC point this out to noticeably (and disturbingly) desensitized white viewers--who only want the camera to hurry up and get back to their champion--whites immediately hold up that "good" white guy hero who never existed, while loudly rejecting the ones who did as though they were some wholly alien, extraterrestial, "Other" force, rather than their own ancestors. I like to call this the White Sociopathic Alter-Ego. I define it as the tendency for whites to blame white crimes on evil, bloodthirsty "Other Whites" who apparently phase in from another dimension, wreak havoc, and then vanish, leaving "Innocent Whites" behind to be held accountable for their actions (and though never mentioned, convenient beneficiaries to their spoils of war).

I first started thinking about this phenomenon when I noticed that, especially after watching films like these, white people act as though they have absolutely nothing to do with the whites who came before them, or the ones who are causing problems right now. Whites treat these mythical "Other Whites" as though they are just that--a myth, or another species. They talk as though these people aren't their ancestors, their kin, their friends, their celebs, idols, or politicians--anyone they could possibly have anything to do with.

Exhibit A: Whites loved George W. Bush and kept him in office for 8 whole years. Needless to say, it was a very bad idea, and no, it's not up for debate. Not that anyone's really debating; whites will eagerly state now that it was a bad idea...but they tend to talk as though it was some other group of millions and millions of whites who put Bush in office. And yet despite a nationwide search, these "Other Whites" are nowhere to be found.  

Exhibit B: Whites have the highest numbers of suicides, murderers, pedophiles, drug users, drunk drivers, and binge drinkers...and yet when confronted with the actual statistics, the blame does not go to widespread ineffective parenting, racist law enforcement, a racist judiciary system, or the overall pathology of white privilege--no, no; it goes back to those "Other Whites". Apparently, they came, they shot themselves/shot a bunch of other people/did a bunch of coke/drank a bunch of booze and were courteous to stick around long enough for data to be collected before phasing back to their home dimension (which is an amazing feat, particularly for the ones who shot and killed themselves).

What do you want to bet that years from now, the few white American descendants left will be scrounging for ways to distance themselves from them?

The irony of Last Samurai is that if you change about five, six, maybe seven key things, the movie could've been flawless. But instead...all the samurai die (after being portrayed by an exceptional Japanese cast; Watanabe, Sanada, and Koyamada are just sexy). Meanwhile Tom I-haven't-looked-attractive-in-over-15-years Cruise lives on and gets to hook up with a hot Japanese woman (played by the model Koyuki) whose husband he killed, by the way...as if she'd actually forgive that (especially since her kids had to lose their father so young; not that it matters anymore...they've got Cruise now).

And this is another part of the white guilt fantasy genre which thoroughly appalls and repulses POC--and I'm not just talking the sick Asian fetishist aspect. I'm talking about how highly paid actors of color are constantly granting whites onscreen the forgiveness they know they're never going to get in real life. Which, if you think about it, is quite typical; if you want it and it's not yours, steal it. If it can't be stolen, kill the owner and take it. If you can't do that, then just go home, become a mad scientist, synthesize it, and then spend every day telling yourself it's the real thing.

And if that's not bad enough, white viewers always turn to look at POC viewers, as if expecting them to follow the example of the POC onscreen, to "fall in line" and be just as forgiving. Like the POC characters onscreen--designed and written by whites, mind you--we are expected to open our homes, our hearts, and finally our legs to further ease white guilt.

Avatar is no different from Wolves and Samurai. James I-need-bitchslapped Cameron tried to be slick and go the sci-fi route, and with the exception of special effects, failed miserably on all ends. First he portrays a future in which humankind is mostly white, even though geneticists and sociologists have been telling white America for decades to flush that fantasy already. Then he brings on aliens (voiced and acted by POC) with braids, mysticism, and a clicking language...but tells us not to read too much into it. Last but not least, we have our requisite white guy hero to go native and solve all the POCs' aliens' problems. He has a romance with a black woman but only because he and she both are playing aliens and not really touching an alien princess (they never give white guy heroes the slow-witted checkout girl from Wal-Mart; she's always got to be a princess or some shit). He even rants about them damn humans about how they can't have "our land."

Cue fountain of vomit.

Blood Diamond is especially insulting to me because the lead character in a story about the exploitation and post-colonial trauma of Sierra Leone, West Africa--actually set in Sierra Leone, West Africa--is a white South African. His love interest, and the only female eye candy in a film set in Africa, is a white American woman, and their romance instantly becomes more important than all the death and suffering of black Africans around them (and Zwick shows it all). DiCaprio's character gives the audience a sob story about how black Africans murdered his family (colonialists, by the way) in Zimbabwe. Then he we hear him talk about how he was in the South African military, and in some war or other, black and white didn't mean anything. Then we hear his old general talk about the legend of the Shona tribe, who say their earth is red from all the blood (their blood, by the way) that's been spilt.

The most important line in the whole film spoken by a black African is, "This is our continent. We were here before you and will be long after." And yet the actor's voice is hushed for some reason, and coupled with the conveniently extra sound on set that day of filming, his words are very easily missed.

DiCaprio finally dies in the end, but he's given a heroic death (of course), and is seen reaching his bloody hand to grasp a fistful of red earth...because we all know that white descendants of colonialists living in Africa have an equal or greater connection to our continent than we do. Just like white descendants of colonialists have an equal or greater connection to America than her original people do.

Beyond Borders is basically Blood Diamond, but this time it's Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen taking their romance on a roadtrip through famine-ridden Ethiopia, Khmer-Rouge era Cambodia, and the winter wastelands of Chechnya where it's the woman who "heroically" dies this time. The prerequisite suffering non-Westerners are all present and accounted for; they even hang back properly and just wallow in humiliating suffering like good Third World scenery should. And no matter what the body count, or the humidity level, or how long a grueling journey, even how many decades pass, Jolie's clothes always match, her face stays the same, and her makeup's always perfect.

Unfortunately, (with the except of Borders) four of these movies were box office successes.

DragonBallZ is a movie based of an awesome cartoon filled with Asian characters. The actors in the film, however, somehow translated into white--except for the Asian chick. Journey into the West and The Forbidden Kingdom are actually from the same classic source material, but once they hit film, their main protagonists went from Asian to white, the plot and dialogue became funny in a painfully not-funny way, but at least the Asian chicks stayed Asian (by the way, in 21, a film that went nowhere, originally based on a book of the same name, the main character also went from being Asian to white). Thankfully, all these movies bombed and have not been mentioned until now. I was actually kind of glad people hadn't heard of these.

Memoirs of a Geisha was a riveting book. The movie was not. It had Chinese and Korean actresses playing Japanese characters, and yes...people actually did tell the difference and rightfully complained. The movie was in English--fail. Everyone had a different accent, and it rendered the dialogue atrocious. It was directed by Rob Marshall, and in the behind the scenes featurettes, you can see him watching all these wondrous Japanese dances and looking over all these wonderful geisha wardrobe ensembles and his first question is always, "That's nice...so, like, how do we Westernize this?"

FAIL.

Arthur Golden, the author of Memoirs, and an admittedly gifted and well-meaning though rather misguided storyteller, did not intend to Westernize geisha, bless him. He meant to explain and educate people about geisha; he interviewed real live geisha and tried to incorporate as much lore, tradition, terminology, and history of that world--not turn it into a watered-down, Westernized fashion show with an overly dramatic score (i.e., a total waste of Yo-Yo Ma and John Williams' considerable talents). By the way, there were no white characters with speaking parts in the book or in Mineko Iwasaki's autobiography (she inspired the book).

Analysis...Finally
Now...what does it mean if you avidly adore these films and have posters or write fanfics and think these were just the perfectest movies in the whole wide world? Do I really need to say it? Well, okay then. Honestly, it's a sign of cluelessness, denial, insensitivity, possible fetishistic tendencies, and a good chance you're not friends with any POC, or you have POC friends who don't like you, so much as tolerate you.

Films like these hurt POC and whites alike. They do not portray either of us well at all. In their pathetic attempt to discuss history and its moral lessons, they lack depth, a real understanding of who we are, where we've been, what we mean to us, and what we want for ourselves. POC are dehumanized yet again; we're props, we're sets, we're pets, and we're servants.  These films tell POC that our histories, our struggles, our myriad cultures and legacies are just playthings, background music and locales for white people looking for a new and exotic place to fuck each other. And when confronted, directors, writers, and white viewers all have the nerve to be indignant or dismissive. We're supposed to be "grateful" our stories even got told. We're not supposed to criticize or react negatively in any way, and we should stop being so sensitive because when it comes to our worlds and our lives and our inner workings, we POC apparently have no clue what we're talking about.

Naturally, this does not endear whites to us. Rather, it confirms everything we've been saying about racism in America, from the good ole days right up until now. And we all owe Hollywood a great big thanks for that.

Films like these tell whites they don't have to deal with the legacies of their ancestors--that particular unwashed shitter is for "colored folks only". In films about horrific times, whites get to have the supposedly best character. He's not one of those mythical, evil "Other Whites." Nor is he, however, a backward, English-mangling little dark person from some tribe or clan. Not that there's anything "wrong" with that; these noble savage folk have all the best religions and tattoos and philosophies and--if they're thin and light-skinned enough or conveniently altogether adopted (the love interest in Wolves)--they've got the best women.

Such films offer whites that option of never having to face the reality of white privilege (which in itself is white privilege), and if they want to, they can always pretend that it doesn't matter how many people whites killed, raped, or robbed--because at least there was a possible hero somewhere, maybe, at some time, who said to those "Other Whites" just as they phased in from their distance dimension and started their usual bout of mayhem, "Hey...guys? Could you, like, maybe not do that?"

Tips for White Viewers
Don't support these types films. At all. Especially if the plot is being tightly held under wraps. Wait until the critics let you know the plot. Traverse the blogosphere and do some research. If it seems fishy, head the other way.

There are several online sites which allow you to create petitions. Get the word out. Start telling Hollywood you will boycott every film that comes out which insultingly misrepresents whites and POC, let them know you will comfortably watch their miserable production studios crumble to the ground, and then write them off as yet another sad casualty of the recession.

It also helps to start watching more foreign films; Netflix is your BFF. Get used to subtitles; listen to the different languages, see a world completely different from yours, in which people who look like you do not appear at all, and entire histories, cultures, and identities haven't been restructured to cater to you.