----- Original Message ----- From: "joanna bujes" <joanna.bujes at sun.com>
> So, that's why I thought it was racist. My nine-year old daughter just
> thought it was a bad movie. She liked the little black boy the best and
> didn't understand why he was made to disappear.
I kind of agree. I mean, I'm not sure whether I would call it a 'racist film', but on the face of it it's a film which pretty much trivializes racism into the question of whether some (straight) white guy is so racist that he wouldn't fall for Halle Berry. I think Dick Gregory explored this ground 40 years ago by asking white racist men whether they would rather be on a desert island with Lena Horne or [I forget who]. I would hope that we have made some advances since that time. Of course somebody might come along and say "we have slid so far back during the last 40 years that 1960's-style movies are progressive again."
Unless.. I don't suppose there is anything to the notion that Halle and Billy Bob [I've forgotten the characters' names] are actually being criticized by the film as self-centered losers, who cut themselves off from their relatives, their communities, etc., refuse to engage with society or address its problems in any meaningful way, and retreat into a ménage-a-deux cocoon? Hmm? Or is that just too subtle? Probably so.
I'd be interested to see what African-American women thought of the movie, though.
lp