Come on now. Don't act like you hadn't noticed. And I guess I have to say that Denzel killing his character off in Training Day significantly diminished my race card angle. Conversely the recent killing off of Warrick Brown from CSI, put me in a zone from which I'm not likely to recover for some time. I mean, really, killing off the black dude is one thing, but a cutey like Gary Dourdan (Warrick Brown) has to be close to a mortal sin or something!( I know that's a t.v. series and nothing lasts forever.)
But surprise surprise, this post is not about killing off the black dude. It's about about an even more agitating cinematic standard, the dumb white girl.
Lately I've discovered an inability to be horrified by horror movies due to consistent inclusion of a stupid white girl character. The horror factor is diluted by the you stupid bitch factor. I mean, seriously, fear and shock are overshadowed by the agitation with a character who is driven to do the opposite of that which one drop of common sense or rationality would dictate. I have developed a pretty good nose for identifying movies that are likel to suck, but I recently was cajoled by an associate into going to see a stinker. I don't want to mention the movie for fear the reader will be distracted with details, when the focus is on the convention of the dumb white girl.
Normally I deal with my disgust for these movies by trying to avoid going to see them. Sadly I heard a brother who had brought two youngsters with him to see this latest movie say very loudly "See she's stupid. She deserves whatever she gets." That got me to thinking that the stupid white girl might actually have some real sociologically or psychologically detrimental connotations. Whereas I was getting the message what a pathetic movie, those kids were getting the message the stupid white girl deserves what she's about to get. Now, before I bring this to an end, allow me to turn back briefly to the subject I used to lure you into this discourse, the black dude always getting killed off. In light of the potential effect of the stupid white girl phenomenon, what connotations might killing the black dude have on the psyche and society?
Saturday, October 25, 2008
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