#racist #hollywood #film #movie #chrisrock #anthonyhopkins #blm
Bad Company (2002)
The description for this film reads, “...a streetwise punk is recruited by a CIA agent to stop an arms deal from going bad.”
Anyone want to guess which one is the CIA agent and which one is the “streetwise punk”?
@Pat A bit cheeky, but guessing Rock for both wouldn't be wrong - he has two roles in the film, one a CIA agent and one his twin brother the streetwise punk.
More seriously though, I suspect you could identify them as Hopkins (64 years old) and Rock (37 years old) and have people draw similar inferences with no mention of race at all.
Yes, Hollywood filmmakers are not only racist, but ageist, too. They are also sexist. My focus is in on racism in media, particularly against black people – and I don’t have enough resources to even began to do the research necessary to cover that limited topic.
I’ve touched on the topic elsewhere here on qoto. Here’s a thread where I had previously commented that 80% of films have bias, and another qoto user challenged me to find racism in ten randomly selected films. The result was that all of them contained racial bias.
https://qoto.org/@Pat/107140410303609143
Years ago racism in film used to be very apparent. First they didn’t include black people at all, (or very rarely). Then after the civil rights movement heated up in the 60’s they started to include black people in film but soon began to depict them as pimps, drug dealers, criminals, ignorant, or in menial occupations. Then when people called out filmmakers on that, they got more subtle about the racism, using techniques that promote racism unconsciously, in a way that people don’t really notice until it’s pointed out to them.
Here’s another example that I haven’t yet mentioned here on qoto:
Look at all of the titles of movies that use incorrect spelling or substandard grammar/pronunciation (e.g., Mo’ Money (1992), Gimme a Break! (1982)). An out-sized proportion of those films are about black characters or are targeted to black audiences.
There are literally scores of these subtle techniques that filmmakers use to promote racism, stereotypes and racial bias.
(You mentioned that Chris Rock actually played a CIA agent as his twin brother, but notice how that character was immediately killed off at the beginning of the movie, limiting the impression of that favorable depiction, and focusing on the unfavorable depiction. This is a very common technique used by filmmakers – kill off the black guy early to limit favorable screen time for black actors.)
@Pat
le shrug. you're probably right that there is racial bias in cinema, historically and today, but I don't think picking a few films somewhat at random and counting whichever uses of photographic techniques you find to support your point is an effective way to argue that case. to do something like that, you'd have to 1) ensure your movie selections were unbiased but popularity (if Hollywood is making films that's are more racially diverse in the principal cast, but Americans aren't going to see them, is that the fault of the movie makers?); 2) preselect the indicators of bias and count them for every film -- probably good to count the counterexamples too; 3) control for the fact that some actors are protagonists, so of course they get more lines, screen time, etc. -- basically, you have to make metrics like "black person in supporting role", "screen time for black person in supporting role" -- and somehow figure out how to do stats with that shit...
all that said, I guess I don't care that much about who is in movies as long as they can act. i like movies that tell a good story or make me think differently. beyond that, what matters is who's making them, who's profiting since that dictates the kinds of stories that I can hear and see in this medium... but that's more a concern for the industry, and I'm not an insider, so my only input to that process is the movies I watch.
>”you'd have to 1) ensure your movie selections were unbiased but popularity (if Hollywood is making films that's are more racially diverse in the principal cast, but Americans aren't going to see them, is that the fault of the movie makers?)”
Yes, that’s very important, because bias happens during the promotion phase, too – films that aren’t biased often get derailed by some racist in the marketing department, or by the producers themselves sometimes.
When those ten example films were chosen, audience size was considered – they came from a list of the top 100 (I think) most popular movies in that decade, so they are films that had a lot of impressions.
>”2) preselect the indicators of bias and count them for every film...”
Yes, I’ve done that. I have a list of dozens of those techniques that racist filmmakers use against black people. I compared those techniques against those films to determine if there was bias. (Some of the techniques are more qualitative, like if the filmmakers use a lighter-skinned black actor, or if they use lighting and makeup techniques to make the actor look more like a white person. But most of the criteria are quantitative, like “Are there any black people in the film at all?”, or “Are black extras placed in the back of the scene or the edges of the frame, or are they obscured in some fashion?”
>”...probably good to count the counterexamples too”
I do. Here are two films I’ve seen recently that I think are better:
Deja Vu (2006), Paula Patton, Denzel Washington – a major motion picture, well produced and seen by a wide audience.
American Warships (2012), aka “American Battleship”, Mario Van Peebles, Carl Weathers – an extremely low budget film, but the filmmakers did a terrific job with limited resources (except the CG, which sucked). The actors were better than you’d expect in a very low-budget film. Also, an original narrative.
>”3) control for the fact that some actors are protagonists, so of course they get more lines, screen time, etc. -- basically, you have to make metrics like "black person in supporting role", "screen time for black person in supporting role" -- and somehow figure out how to do stats with that shit...”
Filmmakers decide who will play which parts, so if a black person is cast in a role that has less screen time, it’s no accident, it’s a choice made by the filmmaker.
>”all that said, I guess I don't care that much about who is in movies as long as they can act.”
I agree that bad acting is the quickest way to ruin a film. But I don’t try to be colorblind. If you are colorblind, you will be unable to see all the racism in film. I make a point to see the race of the characters and how the film treats them. It’s a real eye-opener once you are able to see how poorly black people are represented in film.
>”so my only input to that process is the movies I watch.”
You can also speak up when you see bias in films. Filmmakers are listening. It’s very competitive. If more people speak up, as well as boycott those racists films, they will change.
Let me preface this by saying I see it's your hobby and I don't want to minimise the work you've put into it.
But I think you could just as easily spin your example the other way - Rock was cast in the punk role to identify him with society at large, younger and more diverse than the gov't. The crotchety old white CIA agent gains respect for him over the course of the film, because that's the example Hollywood wants real crotchety old white guys in positions of authority to follow with black people in general. So I think you need to be very careful about interpretation - you and I can observe the same film but come to opposite conclusions on its role in movie racism.
I also want to point out that films set in the present are reflective of present society. If nonwhite people are actually overrepresented in menial roles/criminal activities/etc., is it worse on the filmmaker's part to cast his actors in ways that reinforce the audience's awareness of that, or to pretend the society in which his work is set doesn't have those racial disparities?
>”… I think you could just as easily spin your example the other way - Rock was cast in the punk role to identify him with society at large, younger and more diverse than the gov't.”
The vast majority of people are neither “street-wise punks” nor CIA agents, so I don’t think the film is trying in anyway to represent the average person’s experience.
>”... So I think you need to be very careful about interpretation - you and I can observe the same film but come to opposite conclusions on its role in movie racism.”
I agree, some of it is interpretation, but much of the bias can be clearly quantized. I’ve mentioned earlier here and elsewhere some other techniques that filmmakers use to promote bias which require virtually no interpretation at all.
>”I also want to point out that films set in the present are reflective of present society. If nonwhite people are actually overrepresented in menial roles/criminal activities/etc., is it worse on the filmmaker's part to cast his actors in ways that reinforce the audience's awareness of that, or to pretend the society in which his work is set doesn't have those racial disparities?”
Then the kid said, “But mom, Johnny’s parents let him be racist, so why can’t I be racist, too?”
Filmmakers make films about what they want, not what they see -- how they want society to be (unless they’re doing documentaries). They understand the influence that they have and that what they portray on the screen will nudge society in that direction. If they want people to fight among themselves, that’s what they show. If they want people to believe that black people have poor grammar or can only be employed in dangerous or menial occupations, that’s what they show on the screen.
Let me say that this particular film, Bad Company, is really not one of the worst. It’s actually pretty fair to black people, relative to many others. Rock’s character has a much higher-than-average IQ, learns very quickly in an impossible situation, and ultimately finds success. My main concern on this particular film was it’s marketing and casting. Many, many more people will see this movie poster/description than those who will actually watch the film. And after seeing the poster they’ll walk away with another negative impression about black people.
If you want to gain more understanding about racist techniques used by filmmakers, watch the film Hollywood Shuffle (1987). That was made 35 years ago, yet many of the techniques depicted in that film are still being used today by racist filmmakers. But a lot more suble techniques have also been added since then.
And if you want to watch some movies that demonstrate less bias, here are a few:
American Warship (2012)
2 Days in New York (2012)
Z is for Zachariah (2015)
Armed Response (2017)
Movement and Location (2015)
Black Coffee (2013)
Some of these have issues too, but they are much better than a typical major Hollywood production. There are race-positive movies out there, but you have to search for them, they usually aren’t promoted and they are a tiny fraction of the films produced each year.
@Pat idk. i tend to think it's less that Hollywood producers and executives, as a class, are racist, but more that they're cynical and think the public at large holds racialized stereotypes about people, so they play to those to make money.
I’m not sure of their motives. It’s probably a mixture of motives and varies based on the specific filmmakers.
Another, more generalized motive is that the wealthy and powerful (who finance movies) want to promote racial tension in society to try to keep the people fighting among themselves rather than allying together to oppose the injustices perpetrated by the wealthy against society. (So that the wealthy can maintain their privileged status.)
In case you missed it, the accessibility description I added for the movie poster reads,...
“movie poster showing portraits of Hopkins (a white man) and Rock (a black man) Rock's eyes are asymmetrical and slightly squinted, and his mouth is tilted. Hopkin's are neutral and even.”