Posts Tagged 'race'

What is there left that hasn’t been said about Avatar? First of all, yes, it’s gorgeous to look at. James Cameron really puts the emphasis on immersing you in a weirdly beautiful world of fluorescent trees, glowing dandelion pods, and flying dragons.  The big blue people are beautiful (and yes, sexy) as well, moving through the jungle with preternatural grace.  The fight scenes are big, but they’re not poorly edited and impossible to follow as in the style of so many action movies these days.

Second, to agree with the second point everyone else has raised, the story is mindnumbingly predictable post-colonial white guilt claptrap.  The dialogue is almost George Lucas bad, and everything that’s going to happen is telegraphed ages in advance (sure, let’s spend a whole scene describing some great heroic act that only happens every few generations- you don’t suppose the hero will do that very thing before the end of the movie, do you?).  I agree with the comparisons to Ferngully and Dune and Dances with Wolves (although I admit I’ve never watched Dances with Wolves, I’ve pretty much got the idea). The one comparison that sprang to mind which I haven’t heard anyone else make is to The Dark Crystal, in which the creators got so wrapped up in building a beautiful and internally consistent world from scratch that they didn’t leave any time for building an equally interesting and unique story.

I think Annalee Newitz is right that this film has a serious problem in its (metaphorical but inarguable) depiction of race, and I further think that SEK is right that we should go ahead and call that problem what it is: racism.  Cameron sets out with clear intentions of respecting indigenous people, but you can’t just fall into the same old “noble naked savages with feathers in their braided hair communing with horses and being one with the Earth Mother” trope and act like that’s okay.  It’s not okay, and we need to move past it.

I did think it was kind of interesting how Cameron finds a reasonably believable pseudo-scientific justification for the whole “connection to all living things” idea by giving the aliens a cluster of tendrils (like a biological USB port) that they can connect to plants and animals to communicate psychically with them.  Usually, when science fiction features psychic powers, there’s a big suspension-of-disbelief pill to swallow in the idea of dualism (that our minds exist outside our brains), since real science has repeatedly found that it just doesn’t hold up, as much as we might like it to.  By creating a physical, nervous connection between two discrete beings, Cameron gets around that problem.  Of course, when it’s all in the service of creating an imaginary race that’s even more like we want American Indians to be than American Indians actually are, it’s hard to really appreciate this innovation.

I also have to say that I’m really, really sick of the “military asshole” archetype embodied here by Colonel Miles Quaritch.  Wasn’t this exact same guy in District 9 too?  The problem with a character like this (aside from the fact that he’s obnoxious for every moment he’s on screen) is that it embodies everything that’s wrong with militarism in one cartoonishly villainous character, and then the audience waits in great anticipation for the scene where he gets his, and then he does, and everyone cheers “Hooray, we’ve defeated militarism!”  I’m sorry, Hollywood screenwriters and action movie fans, but you can’t kill a noxious ideology by putting arrows through some asshole’s chest.  For that matter, you can’t rid the world of greed by packing Giovanni Ribisi into a spaceship and sending him away, but whatever.

In closing, I’ll say this: If you have any interest at all, even a little bit, in ever seeing Avatar, SEE IT IN THE THEATRE.  The spectacle is all it has going for it, and it will be totally pointless on a TV (no matter how big, flat, and HD).

No real spoilers in what I’m about to say, but if you haven’t seen the movie I can’t imagine you’ll be very interested.

So is Brad Pitt’s character, Aldo Raine, meant to be Jewish?  On the aforementioned Slate podcast, they took it for granted that he’s not, which is understandable, but the movie never spells it out.  His name and appearance are ambiguous, whereas the rest of the Basterds have black hair, nebbishy looks, and names like Utivich, Donowitz, and Hirschberg.  I agree with the people at Slate that if you read the character as the non-Jewish leader of a squad of rather stereotypical Jews, that’s a problematic element of the movie.  On the other hand, if he’s meant to be Jewish as well, that makes things a little more interesting.

Aldo has a Southern accent and an unexplained rope burn scar on his neck.  There are a few Jews in the South, and it certainly seems feasible, particularly in the first half of the 20th Century, that one might escape marked by a noose and with plenty of violent aggression toward antisemites.  That was my read on the character.  His was probably the only Jewish family in Maynardville, and one night the Klan showed up.  He likely fled with only the shirt on his back, and possibly with some dead or at least beat up Klansmen in his wake, and ended up in the army.  Unable to do much against the bigots at home, he takes the fight to Europe.

That’s the origin story I prefer, because the alternative is that he’s just another Hollywood-created WASP who rallies the oppressed minority and inspires them to fight, which they’d never do on their own.  This is Slate’s take on the character, and Tarantino offers us nothing that directly contradicts it.  Still, when a filmmaker leaves a story untold, I’d rather choose the more interesting version.  I guess that’s my pop culture idealism manifesting again.

But what do you think?

For the first fifteen minutes or so of Neill Blomkamp’s District 9, I kept feeling like I was watching a South African edition of The Office.  The documentary style, the awkwardness of the characters, and the self-conscious banality were all strikingly reminiscent of both the American and British versions.  The lead character, Wikus van de Merwe, is even rather similar to Michael Scott.  He has a position of authority that seems to exceed his abilities, and he spends much of the film’s first act trying to sound knowledgeable for the camera while his actions betray his complete lack of a clue.  The key difference is that van de Merwe isn’t in charge of a paper company, but rather a paramilitary unit that’s been assigned to evacuate a bunch of insectoid aliens from the slum they’ve been living in for 28 years and herd them into a concentration camp outside of town.  Inevitably, things go very wrong with this plan.

The idea of human/alien relations as a metaphor for racism, which seemed so prevalent in the trailers and even in the film’s opening sequence, falls by the wayside as a more typical summer action blockbuster narrative takes over.  There’s a car chase, a reluctant partnership that grows into friendship, and a lot of things (and people) getting blown up.  Also thrown into the mix is a surprisingly large of dose of body horror, much of it lifted pretty directly from Cronenberg’s The Fly.  Amid all the explosions and mutations, there’s no time to explain anything about the culture or technology of the aliens, which ultimately leaves far too many questions unanswered.

Also, for a movie where the central metaphor seems to be about racism, District 9 doesn’t actual handle issues of race very well.  For one thing, the aliens seem created to embody the worst stereotypes about refugees and minorities.  Most of them seem to be lazy and violent, and they display no interest in trying to better their situation.  Perhaps this is meant to reflect the humans’ unenlightened perspective, but if there’s more going on with them, Blomkamp could’ve at least dropped some hints.  Furthermore, the film presents an incredibly negative view of black Africans.  Nigerians in particular are singled out as gangsters and believers in witch doctor hoodoo.  The only black character who’s at all positive is van de Merwe’s assistant (whose name I can’t find at the moment), and he comes off as nothing but a yes man until the very end of the film.

The documentary style doesn’t really work either, unfortunately.  It’s fine in the beginning, built on the conceit that cameramen are following the unit into District 9 to document the alien relocation program.  Then we meet the alien protagonists, and are left wondering who’s filming them, and why they aren’t reacting to the camera’s presence.  When the plot really gets going, the documentary conceit is entirely abandoned, but the shaky handheld camera remains, thus destroying any suspension of disbelief that this was ever a documentary to begin with.

Having said all that, there were a few things I did really like.  First-time actor Sharlto Copley gives a great performance as Wikus van de Merwe.  The aliens also turn out to be surprisingly good actors.  As CGI creatures go, these are some of the best I’ve seen, particularly in the expressiveness of their eyes.  Also, for a bug thing with tentacles, the alien child turns out to be surprisingly cute.  In fact, I found myself liking Copley and the aliens enough to wish that they’d been given a better movie in which to appear.

As a fan of both sci fi and pre-WWII pop culture, I naturally have a lot of affection for Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon. There’s much to be enjoyed about the original comic strip (which basically invented the style that led to the creation of super-hero comics), the 1936 serial starring Buster Crabbe, and even the 1980 movie, which I’ve mentioned before.  The 1970′s softcore porn version, Flesh Gordon, is also a lot of fun.  Although the various incarnations get pretty complicated, the basic story is of a regular guy from Earth who ends up on a bizarre alien planet, where he inadvertently becomes a hero in the struggle against Emperor Ming, the tyrant who has been keeping the whole planet under his thumb.  With the recent rebirth of big budget sci fi and comic book adaptations, the time almost seems perfect for a new Flash Gordon movie.  It’s never quite been done cinematic justice, and the basic story would hold up well to a modern interpretation.

Unfortunately, there’s one rather big problem: Emperor Ming.  As the name implies, Flash’s nemesis is an unreconstructed “yellow peril” Asian stereotype.  Despite being an alien, he’s undeniably portrayed as the worst sort of racist view of a Chinese ruler.  He’s a vindictive, inscrutable tyrant with an affection for ornate finery and a lecherous eye for (white) Earth women.  In the original comic he has bright yellow skin, long fingernails, a high-collared robe, and a Fu Manchu goatee.

Unsurprisingly, the serial was faithful to this version, casting a white actor named Charles Middleton and putting him in the same kind of “yellowface” make-up that was common in those days for portrayals of Asian characters.  Of course, the actual skin tone was irrelevant in a monochromatic film.

Concerns about racism never even entered anyone’s mind until the 1980 film.  By that time, it was necessary to be at least a little racially sensitive (but not too much).  The answer was to leave Ming basically unchanged, while pretending there was never anything Asian about him.  Swedish actor Max von Sydow was given a look that was immediately recognizable as the classic Ming, but with just enough of the Asian elements replaced with a more futuristic, “alien” look for plausible deniability.

The animated versions of Ming, in both the Filmation’s Flash Gordon series and the later Defenders of the Earth, took this idea a step further.  Ming was given green skin, as if to say, “See, this guy’s clearly an alien!  How could you accuse him of representing an Earthly race?”

Even with these attempts at a more extraterrestrial appearance, however, anyone who’s at all familiar with longstanding racist depictions of Asian men can recognize Ming as an embodiment of that unfortunate tradition.  Meanwhile, more sympathetic characters who are clearly of the same race as Ming, such as his traitorous daughter Aurra and her lover Prince Barin, were unambiguously white.  They did have yellow skin in the original comics, but even then they were less recognizable Asian than Ming.  Later portrayals, even the cartoons in which Ming is green, show them as totally caucasian.  The message seems to be that the more evil you are, the more alien you are, and alien in this case looks a lot like Chinese.

Naturally, when the Sci Fi Channel decided to adapt Flash Gordon for TV in 2007, they were eager to avoid anything that could be perceived as racism.  Their answer to the Ming problem was to completely remake the character, removing every bit of his previous look to create a very white sort of fascist dictator.

There was a lot wrong with this adaptation (it was unwatchably boring, for one), but one of the complaints against it was that Ming was lackluster and missing everything that had made him a memorable villain.  Regardless of his origins, we expect certain things from Ming: a bald head, facial hair, an ornate robe.  Exoticism.  So what is to be done?  There can be no Flash Gordon without Ming the Merciless, but it’s possible that Ming is a character too wrapped up in racism to ever escape.

In my idle moments I’ve given some thought to how Hollywood could pull off a successful Flash Gordon revamp, and the only idea I have for Ming is this: don’t run away from his faux-Chinese heritage; push it in the other direction.  Cast a Chinese actor as Ming, and make Aurra, Barin, and the rest of their people equally Chinese.  Eliminate Earth entirely, setting the story in the future and making Flash’s planet one that was colonized by the United States, while Ming’s planet was colonized by China.  You don’t need exposition for this- just imply it with production design.  For Ming’s costumes, create a futuristic variation on what Chinese emperors actually wore, rather than just an American’s simplistic idea of the look.  Do away with Ming’s predatory behavior toward Flash’s girlfriend.  It’s a creepy and dated element regardless of his race.  Finally, sweep away the blond=good/dark=bad undertone of the original by making Flash Gordon black.  After all, it would make a great role for Will Smith, a charismatic action hero who’s been hurting for a sci fi property that’s actually worth watching.

As for the role of Ming himself, there are plenty of aging action stars who could pull it off.  Given the inevitable campiness of the project, Jackie Chan might work.  I’d suggest Chow Yun Fat, except that it could be hard to distinguish his version of Ming from the character he played in the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

But would this be enough to redeem the character and the franchise?  Maybe privileged white fans like me need to accept that some characters and stories have too much bigotry in their history to ever be redeemed.  After all, nobody is trying to create an acceptable new version of Uncle Remus (although I say this with hesitation, because it seems possible that someone in a locked room at Disney might right now be doing that very thing).  If there is to be no more Flash Gordon, I’ll accept that, but I do wish someone could find a way to solve the problem of Emperor Ming.

No real spoilers for True Blood, but if you’re the sort of person who wants to know absolutely nothing, then stop reading this and go watch the damn show.

I haven’t written about television so far, but it was always my intention to allow this blog to go there, so this is as good a place to start as any.  Like nearly everyone, I’ve been watching and loving HBO’s True Blood.  It has a great balance of smart writing and over-the-top pulpy luridness.  All the characters are great, and played by great actors (how can you go wrong when the only two cops in town are Bill Sanderson and the guy who played Frank Sobotka on The Wire?).

As I’ve already given away with the title, my favorite character on the show is easily Lafayette, played spectacularly by Nelsan Ellis, an actor who’s done nothing else I’ve ever seen.  There’s plenty to like about Lafayette, much of which my friend Mark covered in an excellent blog post last year.  I agree with everything Mark says:

Lafayette is exciting because his behavior is unpredictable. He can be soft in one moment and hard in the next. He can convince Jason to make an amateur porn today and he can kick a redneck’s ass tomorrow.

But thanks to the writing and Nelsan Ellis’ performance, he doesn’t come across as a scary loose cannon, even though he’s a drug dealer, a prostitute, a short order cook, and a road crew worker.  Instead, he’s the most blithely confident character on the series. He’s the only one who never gets shaken. The only one who is perpetually unsurprised.

Even better, Lafayette’s confidence comes with a clear moral code: Protect yourself, protect your friends & family, and fuck up the people who disrespect you.

Obviously, in Season 2 we’ve seen him get more than a little shaken (although it took a pretty extreme situation).  Still, though, he seems ready to reemerge as the same strong character he was before his ordeal, although perhaps with a more acute sense of his own limitations.

There’s something else that gets me excited about Lafayette though, which is the real reason I’ve chosen to spotlight him this week.  Mark points out that there’s nothing wrong with archetypes, but too often television characters aren’t archetypes so much as stereotypes, and often outdated and repetitive ones at that (even on shows as acclaimed as True Blood).  When watching (and writing) television and movies, people like to keep characters in little boxes based on their traits, much as they do with people they don’t bother to get to know well in real life.  The cultural focus right now is still on getting to the point where television isn’t just filled with reasonably well-off implicitly Christian heterosexuals who are all of one race (that race being white unless the show is targeted at a “niche market”).

Consequently, a minority character who has any sort of personality beyond their minority status, however sketchy, still seems like an achievement.  This is why it seemed weirdly like a breakthrough when Kelly Kapoor on The Office became “the shallow Indian girl” instead of just “the Indian girl.”

The thing about Lafayette is that he occupies more of these little boxes than any other character, possibly ever.  There are all these unfortunate ideas we have about the mutual exclusivity of various cultural categories.  You can be black and gay, but being too gay makes you seem less black, or vice versa.  And if you’re either of those things, you might as well forget thinking of yourself as having a Southern identity.  Similarly, there are respectable, hard-working blue-collar types who work in restaurants and on road crews, and we must be careful to keep them totally separate from cultural pariahs like drug dealers and prostitutes.  Then along comes Lafayette Reynolds, who insists on being a gay, black, Southern road worker/cook/dealer/occasional prostitute.  I’ve spent enough time working in a restaurant in the South to know people who fit most of these specific categories, and plenty of others whose list of boxes is just as long.

More importantly, he manages to be all these things and still have a personality that’s not just a string of social categories, and yet none of those categories seem tacked on or irrelevant to who he is.  I enjoy watching Lafayette on True Blood because he’s funny and fearless and I’m never sure what he’ll do next, but I love the character because he demolishes expectations of what a television character can be.