Isn't That a Bit Racialist?

The other day, I wrote a response to a Salon editorial about Wedding Crashers. A black woman wrote that she felt slighted by the film's failure to send its two heroes to a black wedding, despite the fact that they went to several other multicultural weddings. Starting with this point, she built a case that black women are consistantly slighted in our society and made to feel less attractive, that they are "invisible" to white men who are constantly paying attention to women of other races.

Now, I felt her article was, essentially, bunk. Not because I enjoy discounting personal accounts of racism. I get no pleasure out of denying the hurt feelings of others. I felt her article was bunk because she was accusing a movie of racism, quite a serious charge, that I felt was not racist at all. And she then went on to essentially accuse white maledom as a group, and Hollywood as a small subset of that group, of an even greater racism that made the filmed racism possible.

As to whether or not black women really are slighted day in and day out by white men...Well, I have no idea. I'm not a black woman. I am a white man, and I can confess that I have never approached a random black girl on the street or in a bar and started hitting on her. But I don't do this with any women. Ever. In fact, I dare say that, in my entire life, I have never approached a strange woman I didn't know and started small talk with her in an attempt to convince her to have sex with me.

If I'm going to make a pass at a woman, I have usually already gotten to know her, so that I'm comfortable talking with her. This usually takes between about 5 years and infinity.

So I'm not a good person to discuss whether or not guys are prejudiced against hitting on black women. If they are, well, it sucks, but I'm not sure there's a lot anyone can actually do about it. I mean, I'm an overweight guy, and I'm depressed that beautiful, leggy Australian swimsuit models don't hit on me all the time. And in fact, I can't think of a single movie in which a beautiful leggy Australian swimsuit model hits on an overweight Jew...

Man, why are movies so anti-Semetic?

Anyway, that was my only point...Not that the woman doesn't have a fair complaint, but that it's misapplied when discussing Wedding Crashers. And that, even if it is a function of racism, and I don't doubt that it is, Hollywood is not to blame for white guys not finding black girls sexy enough. Hollywood, near as I can tell, is all about sexy black girls.

So imagine my surprise today when an alert reader named Nichelle came on to the blog today and really let me have it. This is perhaps the angriest comment I have yet received on the blog, and the other day Horsey called Mark Cuban dry and boring to his face.

I'm going to reprint her response here in its entirety, because she really lets me have it and I respect that:

Don’t worry. We (Black women) are used to having our concerns and, God forbid, complaints dismissed as “odd” “silly” whining. No sweat.

Every 10 Seconds, do you see an ad for a major Hollywood film “reveling in Negro Culture?” Absolutely! Usually male oriented films like “Hustle & Flow.”

And, it was very uh, “enlightened” of you to note, but Owen and Vince could have gone to a black wedding without “pretending to be down.” They could have made a few balloons for the kids and danced to the Electric Slide (as Dickerson mentioned in the article) without “wigging” out.

There is a stigma in Hollywood (perpetuated by whites and blacks) that black women can't be sexy. Even you conceded that black women are often “depicted in our culture frequently as cruel, loveless matriarchs”, but yet the idea that racism is connected to that is “ridiculous” to you.

And by the way, the women you named, with the exception of Halle Berry, do not make lots of films. When they do, they are generally portrayed as sexy if they are already famous (Hollywood likes to hedge its bets with black faces) like singers Christina Milian and Beyonce Knowles. Or, if it is a black-themed film, such as any film where Vivica A. Fox gets top billing.

Apparently even “enlightened” white people refuse to go see a romantic comedy with a black man and a black woman (Gasp! That would make it a black film!) Thus, a black woman could not be cast as the lead in “Hitch” opposite a black superstar like Will Smith. And there are loads of articles about the lack of black people in positions of power and the poor material and tiny budgets talented black actors get in Hollywood.

Are you kidding or what? People, Entertainment Weekly, Black Enterprise, Essence and a ton of other magazines have done articles on the topic. And you ask, “why can’t we get an article about that?”

A lot of what she says is dead-on. White people often won't go to see films where the majority of the cast is black. Black women really are seen as cruel taskmasters, folksy minstrel-ish Southern stereotypes or asexual harpys in many mainstream films. And most films with "urban" characteristics are male-oriented films.

Also, Hitch sucks and has no good reason for not providing Will Smith with a black female co-star.

But I disagree with a lot of the ideas here as well.

First off, I really resent the idea that any time a black woman has a complaint, we should all treat it as sacred and unassailable. I think you should listen to thoughtfully-expressed complaints, but that part of having a dialogue is accepting that sometimes people are oversensitive, or are seeing intentional slights where they do not appear.

So though I agree that racism in a general sense is a problem, and in Hollywood is a large problem, I don't agree that Wedding Crashers is racist or that Hollywood fails to promote the notion that black women have sex appeal.

Also, the implication that black actresses with the exception of Halle Berry don't make lots of films is wrong on its face. Christina Milian was already in two major release films this year, neither of which is a so-called "black film" - Be Cool and Man of the House. Beyonce will be seen next year in both the new Pink Panther movie and the new Bill Condon film Dreamgirls. Kerry Washington has recently been seen in Spike Lee's She Hate Me, Oscar-nominee Ray, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Fantastic Four.

Again, to Ms. Dickerson, Nichelle and all the other black women worried about how they are represented in film and television...I submit the problem is not sexiness. The problem is quality. Most films with mainly black casts are rushed into release, written and directed by whites who are unable to communicate anything meaningful about the black experience and hampered by low budgets and poor marketing.

Plus, like most big studio movies, the vast majority of them are stupid.

You want to see more diverse, uplifting and truthful stories about black women? You need to get more black women making movies. It's as simple as that.

Which got me thinking...When was the last time I actually watched a film that had been directed by a black woman?

Now, I see a lot of films, so you'd think it would be within the relatively recent past...

The most recent one I can think of (and there is a slight chance I'm forgetting a film) was 2000's Love and Basketball, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. Before that, it would probably be 1997's Eve's Bayou, directed by Kasi Lemmons.

That's inexcusable. In the time since I watched Love and Basketball, I have seen many many films by white women, gay men, black men, and men of a surprising variety of nationalities. I have even seen a film co-written by a 13 year old white girl , and a staunchly anti-American polemic made by a guy who has never been to America. I have seen documentary films made by teenagers about themselves, reality shows that recreate actual reality through scripted sequences, and a blockbuster documentary about a corrupt sitting president who was then re-elected for another four years.

But since 2000, I have not seen a single film directed by a black woman. That's a much much much larger problem than the lack of black weddings in a dumb summer comedy.