Endemic film racism: "sweet home Alabama"

[sweetheart]

If you have not seen this film starring "reese witherspoon", don't bother, but if you have, perhaps you noticed the incredibly sick racism in it.

Firstly, there are only black characters as servants to the rich white folk... and they made this film post 2000... what crap.

I hope some serious director decides to remake the film, casting a black actress as the lead. Then it would better suit modern america... but likely the film is only supposed to sell to white racists... and hence the leaving out of black people.

How does anyone take hollywood to task for their UGLY racism?

[slor]

1. It looked like...

it would be a stupid movie, I guess it apparently was. I do want to say that as an African American, what bothers me most about hollywood is the utter lack of movies with other people of "color". No people of Asian or Arabic heritage, or at least not very often. I'm not suggesting that African Americans have made it to the "promised land", but I do get tired of the debate focusing on Black and White. There is a rainbow of people out there and I want to see and learn from them as well. Anyway, that is my take on it.

[La_Serpiente]

2. As an Asian American myself

I can of understand where you are coming from. You see Asians in all the Kung Fu movies, but that is the limit.

[sweetheart]

4. Yea, really

Name 3 actors and actresses starring in hollywood films.... i can't think of an asian.. and even that's simplistic... perhaps:

japanese
korean
vietnamese (south)
chinese
Indian

I believe the reason we make war and denegrate the asian peoples and races is because americans are so incredibly ignorant of them, largely due to omission... sadly. The war of ignorance starts at home.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Asian-Americans portrayed as *Americans* are rare

There are still a lot of Euro-Americans who expect anyone with an Asian face to have trouble speaking English--despite the fact that the first Chinese came to this country in the 1860s.

During my last teaching job, I was on the search committee for a professor of Asian history. One candidate had a Chinese name, and committee members worried about whether he'd be able to speak acceptable English--yet his c.v. clearly stated that he had been born in the U.S.

It's true that *immigrants*, especially those from China and Vietnam, can have impenetrable accents, but really, the second generation people usually speak English much better than their ancestors' language.

It's odd. No one looks at African-Americans and expects them to speak anything but English. Yet in Minneapolis today, there are probably as many Somali, Ethiopian, and other African immigrants as there are African-Americans, so you may hear heavily accented English coming from an unexpected source.

[sweetheart]

3. Indeed, the rainbow

Although film making is free speech, i wonder if it is not perhaps appropriate to assign a racism rating to them... like U=realistic, PG=Subtly not, R=Racist, X=Inciteful and racist... it just pisses me off that film media pawns itself off as reflecting american life and culture when in fact it often is a gross and derogatory distortionn.

I remember the multicolour alabama i have visited, and surely hollywood could make some effort to reflect it... noticably, the film i mention leaves out any stars-and-bars, while including a bunch of "yes mam" servants.... the new republican "soft" racism... or perhaps its always soft.

[SoCalDem]

6. ..."We treat our black folks real nice"...

I heard those words come out of the mouth (and on TV) of one of GWB's talking head brigade after the 2000 election..

He was being interviewed about the voter purge, and he was some government official in Florida..

There's plenty of racism still in effect.. It's just more muffled these days..