Frownie face.
Published by Sid February 10th, 2009 in Boooooo, OPP (other people's posts), movies, bitchery. Tags: No Tags.So I was over at Toldja’s blog catching up and I caught this post about that craptastic Renee Zellweger vehicle New in Town.
Essentially, New in Town was originally written by a black screenwriter, about a successful black businesswoman who moves to a small town and finds herself the only black person there. But! Things work out fine and she meets a nice man she wouldn’t have considered dating back in the big city and, hooray, happy ending. Successful black woman falls in love while living a successful, productive life. It does happen, you know.
Boooo, Hollywood, booooooooo.
The writer considers the change to Zellweger a victory because it shows that black writers can write “mainstream” stories, rather than hoodview 24-7. But it isn’t a fucking victory, because the idea of black people in the story - as PART of the mainstream - was unpalatable to those who brought his story to the screen. So I hope he’s happy with his money (I’m sure he is!) because he hasn’t proven a damned thing other than if you’re lucky enough, as a minority voice, to catch the attention of the mainstream with a good story, you’ll get a pat on the head, some cash, and then erasure, because good, “mainstream” stories can’t be about you.
Jesus.
And you know what? Hollywood isn’t wrong. Plenty of non-black people would skip a movie like this if the lead was black, because they would automatically assume it had no relevance to their lives. Gah.
America will have moved beyond race when every damn thing doesn’t have to be white-washed for “mainstream” (white) audiences to see it as worthwhile. When Ursula K. Le Guin doesn’t have to write articles bashing the miscasting of Earthsea (or indeed admit she has to be “wily” about writing characters of color so as not to alienate white youth right off the bat), when 21 can star Asian actors (reflective of the real-life Asian students it was based upon, whose very Asian-ness enabled them to get away with their scam for so long, because the casino security initially assumed they were all cash-cow tourist types), then we can all sit back and pat ourselves on the back for being a post-racial society.
do not even get me started on this. i found out about this a while ago and almost lost my shit.
AGAIN with the ‘oh, people of color aren’t marketable.’
the movie makes no sense with the lead being a white woman - no sense. i watched the trailer and thought, ’so what? city mouse comes to the country? tired.’
but a black woman coming to minnesota? interesting. and now the movie makes sense.
they aren’t trying hard enough if they can’t think of actresses who can do this kind of comedy - Sanaa Lathan, Gabrielle Union, the tall chick from Girlfriends. you know??
grrr. white people in hollywood make me *mad*.