racism in the movies

[liminalia]

Complex magazine presents The 50 Most Racist Movies (You Didn't Think Were Racist). I have to admit a couple of these are on my favorites list. Check it out--were you surprised by any of the movies included?

16 Candles was included because of Long Duk Dong, of course, but there's also the scene where the lead character and her friend talk about

Comments

[mariaklob]

I'm not sure how to feel about the fact that this points out "50 most racist movies" and prominently displays purchase links for all of them.

I'm also surprised at how few of these I've seen. I counted four. Surely other huge hits could go onto this list. Let's talk about Jesus Christ, Superstar, the movie adaptation in which the only black man is Judas.

[tylik]

...and the "didn't think they were racist..." bit, too.

Okay, I'd only seen a few of these. The only one that was at all a surprise was "Gremlins"... which I hadn't seen since I was twelve.

[pandorasblog]

Yeah... I find it kind of suspicious how obscure many of these are, and we're not even talking arthouse, multiplex-Kryptonite obscure, but "deservedly forgotten stuff from the past three decades".

Most of the list looks like what would happen if one or more companies were to transfer a bunch of their backlist movies to DVD and form a relationship with a web content producer. Not saying that's what did happen (or that we should stick to examining racism in better-known examples of pop culture; far from it), but these days I feel pretty cynical if I see a supposedly critical article that, in effect, works like advertising...

Not to mention that with comments like "Can't the yellow man get some?", and all those cracks that indicate they think disability and mental health stereotypes in those same movies are just fine, it doesn't feel like the article was motivated by a sincere desire to explore how bigotry gets propagated in pop culture...

[teaberryblue]

Of the ones I've seen, "Gremlins" was the only one that surprised me, also. I had forgotten about the Japanese curiosity shop, and it simply never occurred to me that the Gremlin monsters might be perceived as a racial stereotype. Some of them I have never seen, and would not see, based on the posters, so I don't think I would have ever thought they were not racist.

I think this list would be somewhat useful to a white person who is starting to learn about racism in the media and who doesn't believe that these kinds of portrayals really exist, and for me, it made me think about what I as a movie viewer forgive in films that I should not, but I agree with pandorasblog that the editorial commentary was frustratingly sexist, ableist, and fat-phobic in places.

[relmneiko]

I was kinda of surprised to see "The Last Samurai" on that list, actually. I haven't seen it myself, but I'm given to believe it was fairly popular in Japan, and multiple Japanese people have recommended it to me. A friend of mine said she went in expecting it to be total bull ("A white guy is the last samurai, WTF") but walked out loving it. So now I'm really curious about how racist it is... I gotta see it now. (Ironic, I know)