#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”?
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.”
@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.
