Who thinks black women can only be maids nowdays anyways? Isn't that role occupied by Mexican women today?

What I am sick of, is the actresses they keep picking for roles. All blonde, thin, cute but not particularly gorgeous (excluding ScarJo of course). I'd like to see some different shit you know? Different kind of blondes, maybe curvy ones and trow in some Asian women too. I dunno it ain't a race thing but I'm so bored of Hollywood actresses. Reese Witherspoon is adorable but I wanna see some real shit, someone with smoldering sexuality.

Purplepen, you gotta watch British TV. They use all sorts of actors, all shapes, sizes, and levels of ugliness.

I read "The Help" on the plane, it's a good book for airport reading. That said, it's very, "Oh, save me Missus White lady! Save me! Thankee, oh lawdy, lawdy, THANKEE Missus White lady for saving dis po negro. We sho nuff do needs this White Lady to save us, 'cuz we sho nuff cant write this book ourselves!"

Given pretty much up with Hollywood in both movie and tv being realistic. I am not demanding real -real life realistic, all I ask for is maybe some Asians as doctors or maybe a character that is married or has children. Or god forbid actually consider not having all the villain as either white, rich or both. I would like to thing we have reached the point of having black, hispanic, or asian as serial killers as not source of putting civil rights back.

I will disagree a little with PurplePen. I would prefer a good looking filled show then a complete realistic one. TV and movie does not need to be People of Wallmart just a good image of the whole spectrum of people.

The one that really is putting me over the edge is fricking women as hackers. Yes women can use computers and program - a few very well. Yet the majority of amazing computer programmers and crackers will be MEN. Evo pysch will back me up on this. Maybe I am sexist about this but I can believe more in a black gay astronaut then a blond good looking women hacker breaking into NSA.

A 2600 meet is more likely be filled with Jolt cola and a touch of testosterone, then estrogen and a soy latte.

I will second NicoleK of watching UK tv. Still some over the top PC but the ability to see a heavyset man in a lead role is nice.

In the end who ever wins the Oscar should win because the are a GOOD actor/actress - not because the want to champion some group or fill in some PC quota. Oops last black person who won was a few years ago, we must show that we are not racist and nominate a African American.

"I would prefer a good looking filled show then a complete realistic one."

Me too, but I want them to look different than what I'm currently offered.

Jennifer Anniston, Reese Witherspoon, Kristen Bell-none do it for me. They're cute ok? But I want something different like a girl with natural big boobs and an ass. Or a hot asian chick (why are these rare in American t.v.? no idea)

I dunno, let's mix it up.

I liked The Help. Book and movie. If people aren't willing to watch when blacks were treated like that, then they'll forget (or never know) that it truly happened. There are plenty of Mexican nannies and housecleaners not treated any better than that, today. And beyond that, it was just entertaining to see the whacky white ladies. We need to start seeing black actors as...actors. No more african-american films, just films. Why is that hard?

"Jennifer Anniston, Reese Witherspoon, Kristen Bell-none do it for me. "

Sorry meant DONT do it for me.

Purplepen: All I have to say is, Hendricks, Christina.

Bah. I'm having a hard time caring one way or the other. They're all living in the Hollywood that they themselves helped build.

As a black woman, I thought The Help was a well-written, well-acted movie. Did I enjoy being brought back to a negative time in our history? Not particularly, but who cares? Life is uncomfortable.

John, it's hard to understand your thoughts on mixing up the races for serial killers, but for hackers, they should be men. Serial killers are by far white males. However, I think it all should be mixed up.

I look at shows like SMASH, which was highly publicized by NBC during the Super Bowl, which is a primarily white cast. There are a couple of non-whites in the background. I think it's just ridiculous that we can't find talented people of all races. I think that's part of the attraction for shows like Glee - it has everyone, nice mean, attractive, unattractive, and just overall different.

I also think it's partially the black community's fault for not utilizing their success to become more prevalent in the production arena, instead of the on-camera personas. When we do hit some of the wealthy spots in America - Oprah, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Will Smith, Jada Smith, Denzel Washington, etc. I know they aren't the richest of the richest, but they have enough knowledge, expertise and money to help those around them. But it doesn't happen. So, for now, black actors and actresses have to accept roles that don't portray us in the most positive light. Tyler Perry seems to try to break this chain, but the roles in his movies aren't much better.

> I'm uncomfortable with the subject
> matter of "The Help."

WTF? Of course you are. It was an odious set of social conditions. That's like saying you're uncomfortable with the "subject matter" of of war.

> do we really need to see a time when black
> women could only work as maids?

[1.] This was not that long ago. If these depictions are threatening to you, you're probably starting to remember that you had little to do with improving things.

[2.] You've been goofy about these matters before. Seeing this parodic poster called to mind a ludicrous comment from earlier days:

[I]t was, disproportionately, Jews, working hand in hand with blacks (Mississippi Burning is a movie about this), in the civil rights movement.

...Ludicrous. (As noted thereafter.) Hand-in-hand!

[3.] So we see that for better and for worse, Hollywood is in the business of making people feel good. Movies give silly people the sensation of being courageous, even when they're sitting in air-conditioned theaters chewing popcorn. That's how they make money.

Apparently, until blacks buy a majority of tickets, they're going to have to tolerate depictions of themselves as mere passengers in the journey to their own liberty.

This is the best thing I've read about Hollywood morality in years:

Penn has the right to an opinion, and, happily, the rest of us have the right to call him a morally lobotomized, infallibly irresponsible egomaniac. It’s quite fascinating to watch Penn roam the globe sucking up to dictators and personality cultists; 30 years ago he would have had the potential “excuse” of a higher loyalty to communism for speaking cretinous balderdash, but we learn from watching him now that some people are just loyal to brutality and stupidity, period.

> I also am not fond of Holocaust movies or war
> movies and generally avoid seeing them.

My point precisely.

"If these depictions are threatening to you, you're probably starting to remember that you had little to do with improving things."

Posted by: Crid [CridComment at gmail] at February 17, 2012 9:27 AM

Comment of the year. One of the (many) reasons I admire you.

This need to be clear: Hollywood movies at their best are fucking irrelevant. There's no moral coin to be banked from watching them, and there's surely no penalty for ignoring them, either. The people who make them are just trying to turn a buck through your amusement.

After Schindler's List had been out for a couple of weeks, I resolved to spit in the face of the next smug moviegoer who said "Oh, you really ought to go see this one...." It was blindingly obvious that these dorkbrains hadn't heard much of the holocaust theretofore, and certainly had made no study of it.


Neither going to the movies nor staying home earns you any credit.

(...Though I greatly enjoyed the Tchaikovsky sequence in Caddyshack.)

Hollywood's depictions of race relations is laughable at best.

Anyone see "Crash"? Can you tell me why it was lauded at all?

Seriously. It's crap.

"depictions ARE" not "depictions IS" - I really do need the coffee.

In tangential but thundering style, we are reminded that Cindy Morgan is perhaps the best-aging woman in the short history of our proud species. Keep me away from her at all costs... For I will take my comfort with that vixen at her own funeral, I swear to God I will... I'll take her at MY funeral.

Gogster: Welch, before he went native in DC, put a right proper bitchslappin' to Crash.

While reading this I was thinking that there is at least one genre of US TV show that has given up on most of the racial (and gender) stereotypes: SciFI. Sure they still usually go for the "pretty" people, but they often even have more normal looking people, of course some of them have alien characters too where they don't look anything like pretty.

Some shows like the Stargates, Star Treks, Firefly, etc have people of all races and they rarely match current stereotypes. They also often have smart/strong female characters, without falling into the hollywood PC trap of making the men nothing but bumbling idiots the women must regularly save.

Though they still often do very PC story lines like global warming.

The pic someone made up for this made me chuckle when I saw it:
http://dating.failblog.org/2011/11/07/dating-fails-i-think-youre-objectively-right-about-intelligent-anyway/

"Hollywood movies at their best are fucking irrelevant. There's no moral coin to be banked from watching them, and there's surely no penalty for ignoring them, either. The people who make them are just trying to turn a buck through your amusement."

Sadness, because there are lessons to be learned. I don't know what you do, but I suspect it has poisoned or vaccinated you against seeing the final product. Hollywood has major influence, regardless of what relevence you think they should have.

People at the Saturn V exhibit at Kennedy Space Center often do not know they are looking at actual flight hardware. They think that Apollo 13 was fiction, because it appeared in a theater.

Not only do people NOT believe that the beach assault scene in Saving Private Ryan could actually happen, some of the public actually believes the cartoon physics regularly depicted in Hollywood gun handling.

And of course there are people who think wars are conducted like they appear in books and the theater - and they vote based on that fundamental mistake.

Actors often appear in interviews suggesting that others do something about {insert issue here}. I find that amazing because they already have such a huge social presence.

> there are lessons to be learned.

Hollywood is paid to flatter and gratify ticketholders, most of whom are delighted to find that final exams aren't too rigorous. (Golly, it worked out just the way I hoped it would!) Cinema's powers are commercial and amusing, not didactic.

Seriously you fuckers, turn up your speakers and listen to the first sixty seconds. The worst part is that it was one of the last films to be released in monophonic.

Whole heart beating…

"Anyone see Crash'? Can you tell me why it was lauded at all?"

I saw it. Well, about half of it. That was as much as I could take. I was amazed at how an artwork of any type could simultaneously be so preciously politically correct, and so cartoonishly racist. Every single character was a cardboard cutout. I've seen Gumby episodes with more intellect.