[Discussion] On Television, Cinema and the Under Represented

Thread for race issues in media.

Birth Of a Nation
This movie isn't do so good. I think this is because black people are tired of slave type movies, white people don't want the white guilt, and everybody else is turned off by the rape case. I mean this in general. This is just a perfect storm for the downfall of the movie.

Surviving Compton
Straight out of compton left out the ladies. This lifetime show means to correct that. I believe all of the production was done by women.

Mulan live.
All Chinese cast. Maybe the dumb choices of Gods of Egypt are over.

There's a problematic history of commentary on the eloquence of black writers, particularly in the United States, I think it would be good to be aware of that in general around these parts. Lynette Clemetson has a good article here, though while old, illustrates why there's a historical subtext to consider, especially if the commentary comes from someone who is not Black or not from the US and may not be aware.

EDIT: copy/pasta'd the article below, spoilered for length. Sorry about that!

Spoiler:

The Racial Politics of Speaking Well
By Lynette Clemetson
Feb. 4, 2007
WASHINGTON

SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN’S characterization of his fellow Democratic presidential contender Senator Barack Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” was so painfully clumsy that it nearly warranted pity.

There are not enough column inches on this page to parse interpretations of each of Mr. Biden’s chosen adjectives. But among his string of loaded words, one is so pervasive — and is generally used and viewed so differently by blacks and whites — that it calls out for a national chat, perhaps a national therapy session.

It is amazing that this still requires clarification, but here it is. Black people get a little testy when white people call them “articulate.”

Though it was little noted, on Wednesday President Bush on the Fox News Channel also described Mr. Obama as “articulate.” On any given day, in any number of settings, it is likely to be one of the first things white people warmly remark about Oprah Winfrey; Richard Parsons, chief executive of Time Warner; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Deval Patrick, the newly elected governor of Massachusetts; or a recently promoted black colleague at work.

A series of conversations about the word with a number of black public figures last week elicited the kind of frustrated responses often uttered between blacks, but seldom shared with whites.

“You hear it and you just think, ‘Damn, this again?’ ” said Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of humanities at the University of Pennsylvania.

Anna Perez, the former communications counselor for Ms. Rice when she was national security adviser, said, “You just stand and wonder, ‘When will this foolishness end?’ ”

Said Reginald Hudlin, president of entertainment for Black Entertainment Television: “It makes me weary, literally tired, like, ‘Do I really want to spend my time right now educating this person?’"

So what is the problem with the word? Whites do not normally object when it is used to describe them. And it is not as if articulate black people do not wish to be thought of as that. The characterization is most often meant as a form of praise.

“Look, what I was attempting to be, but not very artfully, is complimentary,” Mr. Biden explained to Jon Stewart on Wednesday on “The Daily Show.” “This is an incredible guy. This is a phenomenon.”

What faint praise, indeed. Being articulate must surely be a baseline requirement for a former president of The Harvard Law Review. After all, Webster’s definitions of the word include “able to speak” and “expressing oneself easily and clearly.” It would be more incredible, more of a phenomenon, to borrow two more of the senator’s puzzling words, if Mr. Obama were inarticulate.

That is the core of the issue. When whites use the word in reference to blacks, it often carries a subtext of amazement, even bewilderment. It is similar to praising a female executive or politician by calling her “tough” or “a rational decision-maker.”

“When people say it, what they are really saying is that someone is articulate ... for a black person,” Ms. Perez said.

Such a subtext is inherently offensive because it suggests that the recipient of the “compliment” is notably different from other black people.

And such distinctions discount as inarticulate historically black patterns of speech. “Al Sharpton is incredibly articulate,” said Tricia Rose, professor of Africana Studies at Brown University. “But because he speaks with a cadence and style that is firmly rooted in black rhetorical tradition you will rarely hear white people refer to him as articulate.”

While many white people do not automatically recognize how, and how often, the word is applied, many black people can recall with clarity the numerous times it has stopped them in their tracks.

Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University, said her first notable encounter with the word was back in high school in Chester, Va., when she was dating the school’s star football player. In post-game interviews and news stories she started to notice that he was always referred to as articulate.

“They never said that about the white quarterback,” she said, “yet they couldn’t help but say it about my boyfriend.”

William E. Kennard, a managing director of the Carlyle Group and a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, recalled that in his days as partner at a Washington law firm in the early 1990s written reviews of prospective black hires almost always included the words, “articulate and poised.” The characterization was so consistent and in such stark contrast to the notes taken on white job applicants that he mentioned it to his fellow partners.

“It was a law firm; all of the people interviewing for jobs were articulate,” said Mr. Kennard, 50, who is also on the board of The New York Times Company. “And yet my colleagues seemed struck by that quality in black applicants.”

The comedian and actor D. L. Hughley, a frequent guest on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher,” says that every time he appears on the show, where he riffs on the political and social issues of the day, people walk up to him afterward and tell him how “smart and articulate” his comments were.

“Everyone was up in arms about Michael Richards using the N-word, but subtle words like this are more insidious,” Mr. Hughley said. “It’s like weight loss. The last few pounds are the hardest to get rid of. It’s the last vestiges of racism that are hard to get rid of.”

Sometimes the “articulate” moniker is merely implied. My colleague Rachel Swarns and I chuckle wearily about the number of times we have finished interviews or casual conversations with people — always white, more often male — only to have the person end the meeting with some version of the statement, “something about you reminds me of Condoleezza Rice.”

Neither Rachel nor I look anything like Ms. Rice, or each other for that matter, so the comparison is clearly not physical. The comment seems more a vocalized reach by the speaker for some sort of reference point, a context in which to understand us.

It is unlikely that whites will quickly or easily erase “articulate” and other damning forms of praise from the ways in which they discuss blacks. Listen for it in post-Super Bowl chatter, after the Academy Awards, at the next school board meeting or corporate retreat.

But here is a pointer. Do not use it as the primary attribute of note for a black person if you would not use it for a similarly talented, skilled or eloquent white person. Do not make it an outsized distinction for Brown University’s president, Ruth Simmons, if you would not for the University of Michigan’s president, Mary Sue Coleman. Do not make it the sole basis for your praise of the actor Forest Whitaker if it would never cross your mind to utter it about the expressive Peter O’Toole.

With the ballooning size of the black middle and upper class, qualities in blacks like intelligence, eloquence — the mere ability to string sentences together with tenses intact — must at some point become as unremarkable to whites as they are to blacks.

“How many flukes simply constitute reality?” Mr. Hudlin asked, with amused dismay.

Well said.

Amoebic wrote:

There's a problematic history of commentary on the eloquence of black writers, particularly in the United States, I think it would be good to be aware of that in general around these parts. Lynette Clemetson has a good article here, though while old, illustrates why there's a historical subtext to consider, especially if the commentary comes from someone who is not Black or not from the US and may not be aware.

Not sure if that's in response to my post but it's gated.

And my meaning/intention behind it was that I find Kareem extremely easy to read and it just flows as if he's directly talking to me.

jowner wrote:
Amoebic wrote:

There's a problematic history of commentary on the eloquence of black writers, particularly in the United States, I think it would be good to be aware of that in general around these parts. Lynette Clemetson has a good article here, though while old, illustrates why there's a historical subtext to consider, especially if the commentary comes from someone who is not Black or not from the US and may not be aware.

Not sure if that's in response to my post but it's gated.

And my meaning/intention behind it was that I find Kareem extremely easy to read and it just flows as if he's directly talking to me.

Sorry about that! I edited my previous post.

I liked your post because I totally get that. I thought I'd share some context on why even well-intended statements can look very much like ones that are not, and I'm aware you're not in the US so it's possible the perspective on this can be different.

I'm also aware that people often note when athletes are "well-spoken" or "eloquent." It's mentioned in the article, but what often prompts us to note those things is that our expectations can sometimes be based off of a stereotype where, similarly, some may not expect a basketball or football player to be well-spoken. There are people who also do the same things towards black folks, so I wanted to share some context, esp when the writer of the article is a black athlete.

Amoebic wrote:

He was laughing from the previous joke it looked like.

Jada seemed very annoyed so didn't appear to me he was laughing about a previous joke. To be fair, the camera cuts from them to Chris so we can't see the "turn".

slazev wrote:
Amoebic wrote:

He was laughing from the previous joke it looked like.

Jada seemed very annoyed so didn't appear to me he was laughing about a previous joke. To be fair, the camera cuts from them to Chris so we can't see the "turn".

That's one of the three things out of this I have any interest in knowing about at this point. That and what was said in the production truck/backstage as it happened and what was going through the minds of the accountants who knew Will Smith was going to win not a half hour later.

If the Academy didn't want stuff like this to happen, they'd have large stagehands standing tastefully just off-camera ready to have soft words with anyone from the audience who attempted to take the stage without permission. That would certainly have become S.O.P. after Kanye "let Taylor Swift finish" if it wasn't before.

The Academy can say whatever they want about not condoning violence, they LOVE shit like this.

Absolutely.

...

That video has already been debunked by snopes, 2 days ago.

Stele wrote:

That video has already been debunked by snopes

thank you! Removed.

hbi2k wrote:

If the Academy didn't want stuff like this to happen, they'd have large stagehands standing tastefully just off-camera ready to have soft words with anyone from the audience who attempted to take the stage without permission. That would certainly have become S.O.P. after Kanye "let Taylor Swift finish" if it wasn't before.

The Academy can say whatever they want about not condoning violence, they LOVE shit like this.

Well, they did have large stagehands back in 1973 when it took six of them to hold John Wayne back from beating the shit out of Sacheen Littlefeather as payback for her daring to speak out about the treatment of Native Americans in American films.

Yup. Apparently sometime in the last half-century their strategy on violence prevention changed from "large stagehands" to "mildly-worded statements after the fact."

It is kinda bonkers that in a room full of gowns and tuxes, a man walked up and -- unscripted -- assaulted another man and nothing happened. That shit doesn't even happen at events where the point is to assault other people, like professional wrestling and UFC.

edit: please don't read this as me considering the possibility that this was planned by the Academy. I don't think anyone at the academy is smart enough or organized enough to pull that off. Danny Ocean is a fictional character.

Oh, I don't think they planned it, they just created an environment conducive for it to happen and then did nothing to prevent it.

Nor were there any post-slap actions. There was nothing at all.

It looks like they asked Will Smith to leave, but he refused.

IMAGE(https://i.redd.it/9k60mjc9rpq81.jpg)

Amoebic wrote:

There's a problematic history of commentary on the eloquence of black writers, particularly in the United States, I think it would be good to be aware of that in general around these parts.

To bring it back full-circle, let's bring in Chris Rock!
(CW: language, r-word)

The Slap:

It has been interesting side reading for me to get the backstories behind each party. You have the childhood traumas experienced by Smith and Rock; Rock's teasing of the Smiths in years past; and the extramarital entanglements of Jada Pinkett Smith. All of this context ultimately did nothing to distract me from the plain fact that you do not commit battery (or is it assault? or assault + battery?) upon another human for telling a joke. It's been disturbing to see people coming to the support of Will Smith and rationalizing his unjustified violence. There were plenty of people in the audience laughing at the G.I. Jane joke that night: would it be appropriate to line these folks up for an A-list drubbing as well?

The way he sauntered up to the stage, clubbed Rock with that slap and then turned around with almost a self-satisfied smirk on his face and walked back to his seat. Then later with that awful award acceptance speech. He was apparently asked to leave the ceremony after the slap but he refused. And so he got to stay put. Absolutely no teeth by the Academy. Gross. And herein lies the difference between us normals and those with wealth and influence.

So I guess the context that I do care about is the racial and socio-economic aspect of the incident. This could have only played out the way it did because a slap was delivered to a smaller Black man. My thoughts on this also reference back to that editorial by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. This was the first Academy Awards show put on by an all-black production team. And this is how it goes down?

mudbunny wrote:

It looks like they asked Will Smith to leave, but he refused.

TMZ sources claim differently:

As you know by now, the Academy said Wednesday they had asked Will to leave the Dolby Theater after the slap but he refused. Three sources who were at the ceremony and witnessed various conversations tell TMZ ... yes, after the slap Academy officials were backstage with Will's reps and there were heated conversations about what had gone down.

We're told there was a split among the officials ... some did want him booted, but others did not. There were various discussions during several commercial breaks, but they never reached a consensus.

We're told Will was aware there was talk about asking him to leave the theater. During one of the commercial breaks, we're told Oscars producer Will Packer walked up to Will and said, "We do not want you to leave" ... this according to our sources.

Will Packer walked up to Will Smith just after 8 PM, around 35 minutes after the slap. That's when he told Will he could stay, according to our sources. Will won the Best Actor Award around 5 minutes later.

Did the accounting firm of Whomever chime in and say during these debates, "Uh, you didn't hear it from us, but let's just say you're talking about booting the winner for Best Actor."

Yeah it already came out from CNN report on Monday that they were discussing asking him to leave, but couldn't reach a consensus in the 30 minutes before he won the award. At that point, they weren't going to make him leave, or he might be leaving on his own.

Now they are trying to save face by saying they asked, when in reality they just asked each other if they should ask him to leave and ran out of time.

Maclintok wrote:

All of this context ultimately did nothing to distract me from the plain fact that you do not commit battery (or is it assault? or assault + battery?) upon another human for telling a joke.

It wasn't "just a joke" though, it was a cruel insult about of his wife's medical condition, and the latest in a long line of public jabs Rock has taken at them. I'm not going to say Smith did the right thing, because from both a "be the bigger person" standpoint and a legal one he didn't, but I don't fault him for how he reacted either. If anything's going to get me to slap someone else, using a loved one's illness to make fun of them would do it.

Stengah wrote:
Maclintok wrote:

All of this context ultimately did nothing to distract me from the plain fact that you do not commit battery (or is it assault? or assault + battery?) upon another human for telling a joke.

It wasn't "just a joke" though, it was a cruel insult about of his wife's medical condition, and the latest in a long line of public jabs Rock has taken at them. I'm not going to say Smith did the right thing, because from both a "be the bigger person" standpoint and a legal one he didn't, but I don't fault him for how he reacted either. If anything's going to get me to slap someone else, using a loved one's illness to make fun of them would do it.

If so, then I wholly disagree with that opinion and value; and I highly advise against trying to justify this or fail to preempt it because you already know you can’t handle it. It isn’t noble and it isn’t good. Getting shot or slashed in the face isn’t worth the brownie points you give yourself for being “honorable.”

I fault Smith not only for what he did, but for acting as a role model and advocate for unnecessary and ill-advised violence.

LarryC wrote:
Stengah wrote:
Maclintok wrote:

All of this context ultimately did nothing to distract me from the plain fact that you do not commit battery (or is it assault? or assault + battery?) upon another human for telling a joke.

It wasn't "just a joke" though, it was a cruel insult about of his wife's medical condition, and the latest in a long line of public jabs Rock has taken at them. I'm not going to say Smith did the right thing, because from both a "be the bigger person" standpoint and a legal one he didn't, but I don't fault him for how he reacted either. If anything's going to get me to slap someone else, using a loved one's illness to make fun of them would do it.

If so, then I wholly disagree with that opinion and value; and I highly advise against trying to justify this or fail to preempt it because you already know you can’t handle it. It isn’t noble and it isn’t good. Getting shot or slashed in the face isn’t worth the brownie points you give yourself for being “honorable.”

I fault Smith not only for what he did, but for acting as a role model and advocate for unnecessary and ill-advised violence.

Stengah wasn’t excusing or justifying the action, just recognizing where it came from. Personally, I agree with him; it wasn’t a good thing to do by any measure, but I can understand how it came about. Talk shit, get hit. Just because the people involved are famous, or because there venue was a very public one, doesn’t magically make people heroes or remove the fact they are _people_.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

Just because the people involved are famous, or because there venue was a very public one, doesn’t magically make people heroes or remove the fact they are _people_.

No, it just removes the consequences of their actions.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:
LarryC wrote:
Stengah wrote:
Maclintok wrote:

All of this context ultimately did nothing to distract me from the plain fact that you do not commit battery (or is it assault? or assault + battery?) upon another human for telling a joke.

It wasn't "just a joke" though, it was a cruel insult about of his wife's medical condition, and the latest in a long line of public jabs Rock has taken at them. I'm not going to say Smith did the right thing, because from both a "be the bigger person" standpoint and a legal one he didn't, but I don't fault him for how he reacted either. If anything's going to get me to slap someone else, using a loved one's illness to make fun of them would do it.

If so, then I wholly disagree with that opinion and value; and I highly advise against trying to justify this or fail to preempt it because you already know you can’t handle it. It isn’t noble and it isn’t good. Getting shot or slashed in the face isn’t worth the brownie points you give yourself for being “honorable.”

I fault Smith not only for what he did, but for acting as a role model and advocate for unnecessary and ill-advised violence.

Stengah wasn’t excusing or justifying the action, just recognizing where it came from. Personally, I agree with him; it wasn’t a good thing to do by any measure, but I can understand how it came about. Talk shit, get hit. Just because the people involved are famous, or because there venue was a very public one, doesn’t magically make people heroes or remove the fact they are _people_.

“I don’t fault X for doing Y,” sounds like excusing the action. Of course, Stengah can speak for himself, so we really shouldn’t be talking about that without his further input.

Not resorting to violence for jokes isn’t heroic. That’s the standard I expect for everyone around me. There is extremely provoking language, but hair jokes are definitely below that line, especially for alopecia, for which men are mercilessly stressed and joked about all the damn time. I won’t say the pressure and social penalties are the same for women, but this is a hair joke. In fact, I wouldn’t expect people to throw punches at hair jokes thrown at people who are undergoing chemo for cancer. Social death is the proper penalty for that kind of insensitive humor.

Ironically, if the Smiths had just quietly walked out of the hall, the Academy would have had a much bigger problem and Rock would have likely come off a whole lot worse. This isn’t about being the bigger man. This is literally the best thing and the most effective attack they could have done to Rock.

Larry's analysis is the correct analysis.

Again, I’m not trying to excuse or justify or validate. I’m saying that people have breaking points, and I understand that this was a display of a man reaching his. That doesn’t make it ok, but neither does it make Will Smith any more or less than what he was before The Slap: human.

EDIT: I’m also not suggesting that other people should have the same or different breaking points, nor am I suggesting that it was a good way to handle the situation. We are having two separate conversations; “was it reasonable/good/acceptable” and “was it understandable”.

EDIT2: I agree with Larry’s analysis of what would have been a much better course of action.

I’m much more open to “He’s human and he made a mistake.” Given the length of provocation Rock has given them and the kind of pressure he’s under, I can understand making that mistake. I might have made the same mistake, myself. It’s not like I’ve never thrown a punch in anger.

But all of those punches were mistakes and I regretted each and every single one, especially the ones for which people praised me. It was the wrong action and the fact that people praised me for initiating violence only shows me that I’m having a negative effect on the society around me.

I do think there are jokes for which violence is an appropriate response. The kind of jokes immediately adjacent to violent intrusions and violations of other people is the most obvious, and especially jokes that threaten or coerce abusively. These are the kinds of words that curdle my heart so much I can’t even suffer to describe the situation. These are jokes that involve truly heinous crimes.

Rock made a bad joke. But the whole "talk shit, get hit" is not how it works in society. Sure, there are other consequences for speech but anyone should be able to say whatever the f*ck they want, good or bad, without fear of physical violence. Personally I would've pressed charges.