"Detroit"...I'm gonna rant a bit

So there is this movie coming out called “Detroit” that may be an Oscar contender. You may have heard about it. If not check out the trailers below.










When the announcement was made about the film going into production it was a big deal because Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal were behind it. The two had worked together twice before on “The Hurt Locker” and ‘Zero dark Thirty”, she as the director and he as the writer. Bigelow ended up becoming the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director and “The Hurt Locker” had won for Best Picture that same year. Zero Dark Thirty was nominated for Best Picture. So the two have a pretty good recent track record.

What also interested me was that the movie was supposed to be about some murder that occurred during the Detroit riots in the 1960s. Casting started coming out and a few of the first names announced were guys like John Boyega and Anthony Mackie. Then there was the announcement of two white actresses, then some white dudes, then so more black actors, etc. Around this time all the press and studio releases were describing this movie as if it was only about the riots. And that made me wonder where were the black actresses. If this movie was going to be about the Detroit riots certainly black females were involved. But I checked the IMDB listings and I couldn’t find any prominent role for black women. But I knew the inclusion of the white actresses must have meant something. So I did some quick research with Google and realized the movie must be about The Algiers Motel Incident. Would make sense because that involved controversial killings by the police during the week in which the riots took place. Sounded intriguing. But I thought about the lack of black actresses and I knew there was going to be trouble.

Months later the first trailer comes out. And BOOM. There was trouble. Black folks saw the trailer and didn’t see much representation of black women and HAD A FIT. Black women in particular were irate and awoke Black Twitter to slay some demons. Where are the black women? Why no sistas in this film? This movie is erasing black women and I ain’t here for that. Blah, blah, blah. To be honest if all the folks had seen were just black men and white men on the screen this would have been less of an issue. But the presence of white women, including quick shots of a black boy or two appearing to flirt with white chicks, meant this movie was an enemy to black women. And of course their chump black men rushed in to save their queens and demand answers! Some of us tried to point out that the film was about the Algiers Motel Incident. This incident didn’t involve black women. That the riot itself was just serving as a backdrop. But even those who stopped foaming long enough to listen to this explanation still weren’t satisfied. To them the next logical question became why did the filmmakers choose this particular story rather than other ones involving the riots.


So for the following months there has been a lot of talk on twitter by black women about not supporting the movie. Much of it was nonsnse. But what I came across yesterday even surprised me:



https://twitter.com/CatladyShazza/status/885650352195989504


So you have this tweet by SJW Movie Reviews who is apparently a black woman but a more honest description would be Latest Scumbag of the Earth. I guess she wasn’t all that thrilled with that picture of the cast of the film she was responding to, the one that included a bunch of black guys, two white chicks and one token white dude. The poor girl was triggered or was at least painfully reminded about this prestigious film coming out. That led her to make a comment beyond venomous:

A movie about Detroit featuring ashy niggas and the mediocre Beckies they cape for.


Shit. How toxic is that? How vile and despicable? In less than fifteen words she unpacks a lot of baggage and hatred. She’s definitely pissed that no black women are in the picture and thus don’t have a large role in the film. She is so disgusted she attacks the looks of the black actors in the film, guys who are paid to play the roles they are given. I’m certain they are more photogenic than she is but blind rage doesn’t allow for someone like her to look in the mirror. And of course she takes shots at the white gals, referring to them by slang (Beckie) , and describing their looks as being mediocre. Not to mention she demonstrates uninhibited anger that these black guys will be slurping over these girls in the film and her fucking fragile ego can’t take it.


I’ve been on these boards for awhile and those of you who are familiar with me know I don’t use certain words. But I’m giving myself a pass today in this thread. I can’t stand these bitches. Can’t stand them, fed up with them, hope they succumb to a disease and die. Seriously FUCK all of them.


The Algiers Motel Incident was an event in which three young black males were murdered by the police. It was a travesty. I don’t know of all the particulars but what I do know is that a best selling book was made about it as was a record by a folk singer. Which probably explains why the filmmakers were interested in making a movie about this in the first place. I have read that a couple of white girls whom the black guys may or may not have been hooking up with also got caught up in the madness and were treated like shit too. And all of us here are smart enough to realize that when trigger-happy, macho-postering white guys in authority with guns come across white women hanging out with black males that’s a formula for disaster. So this is no joking matter. Three black men were killed. And, no, it wasn’t their fault. And it wasn’t the fault of the young white women. It was the fault of the white police officers who went too far.



Katheryn Bigelow decided to tell this story, a story that is quite fitting considering the times we are living in the USA. But instead of respecting what Bigelow is doing or at the very least respecting those that died in that incident, we have certain black women on twitter acting like petulant children making a mockery of themselves and our people in general.

I’m not claiming all black women or even the majority of them share these same attitudes . But there is enough of them out there to shape discussions and attitudes going forward. And it is clear these women want to put black men in a box and limit their romantic options both in real life and especially on screen. They like crying about the rare glimpses of white women and black men on screen while simultaneously basking in the glory of Spiderman: Homecoming or creating sites dedicated to Rick and Michonne. It would be easier to ignore if it was just them but they have a bunch of black male dupes who buy into it, a progressive and conservative media who overlook their blatant hypocritical bigotry and an entertainment industry who, unintentionally or not, does their bidding.


It is really….REALLY important for people, especially black men, to push back against this bullshit. There is nothing about this Detroit movie that insults black women, there is no justification for black people to ignore the movie simply because black women don’t play a major role in this particular story. Would black women anywhere have traded places with the victims of that motel just so they could have a movie made about what happened to them fifty years later? I don’t fucking think so. I expect white folks from racist site to direct blatant racism towards black people so far as movie and films are concerned. But black women and black people in general who demonstrate such bigotry think they are justified and don’t have to hide behind any phony excuses explaining their hatefulness. They pretty much have mainstreamed prejudice within Black Twitter and other races outside of white people are picking up on this. This nonsense has to end because while I’m aware of racism that affects me, I don’t prescribe to the level of intolerance that some black folks feel justified in promoting. Those bastards don’t represent me, they don’t speak for me. So, yeah, I’m paying money when ‘Detroit” comes out. And if its good enough I’ll play to see it again.

 

....

 

Wow at the replies to this tweet:

https://twitter.com/DetroitMovie/status/883901368737476608






EDIT:
Also the tweet @JamalSpunky meant to post in the OP:

https://twitter.com/sjw_movies/status/885571685604372480


at SJW Movie Reviews' ranting in that twitter thread. Just straight up shitting on BM & WW for no reason.

 

Great job JS. You hit that on the head on the hypocrisy of BW like that writer.

 

Where there is hate there is also LOVE, two sides. John Boyega posted a preview for the movie on his twitter where he has over a million followers and promotes this movie strongly! And A LOT of positive feedback followed

https://twitter.com/JohnBoyega/status/885692240156385280



Granted the noticed very few black women in these screenshots, but I have seen support there as well just go to his twitter https://twitter.com/JohnBoyega

So here is what I think, first of all I find it VERY TELLING that one of those females has Aaliyah when she portrayed that vampire in Queen Of The Damned in her avi, because if we all remember Aaliyah has a steamy make out scene with a white guy in that movie. But something tells me that with this movie coming out in a few weeks after Spider-Man and in the same week that The Bachelorette will air it's finale... the HYPOCRISY will be noticed big time!

We are already seeing some brothas waking up to Hollywood's double standard and putting it out there on social media. If these black women try and come for this movie, which BTW racist are already coming for it labeling racist against white men...


Which also BTW shows how stupid some of these black women are not noticing racist white people are upset about this movie. I mean YOU'RE ON THE WRONG SIDE!
But if they come for this movie 1) I expect the cast including Katherine Bigelow to defend it and call out the hypocrisy 2) I believe the brothas that aren't brainwashed and not afraid to speak out against these black women to show up big time. and 3) The double standard WILL speak for itself.

We need to make sure this movie that this movie does well and they don't try and destroy it like they did with that Nat Turner movie. Critics will already be on our side, because this movie is getting Oscar buzz and it is acclaimed, so I don't believe that they can have a fighting chance. I believe all they will have is speaking out against the IR that is in this movie and call out the lack of black women in a movie about a story that doesn't feature many black women in the real life incident. They don't have a leg to stand on and we have to make sure they don't give an illusion that they do.

 

I'm certain no woman has ever described you with the words "too long" after they got you naked. Pretty sure they had no use for those words either in rating the duration you were able to "keep it up " in bed.

 

Wasn't suggesting all black women are taking this particular stance. As you noticed yourself however the amount of positive feedback you see on his account from black women regarding "Detroit" is small. That's very telling. When black women approve of something like a movie or a TV show they go all out on twitter. Think about how black shows are almost always trending more on twitter than rival shows airing at the same time that get larger ratings. Black folks disproportionately use twitter when it comes to commenting on the entertainment industry. And black folks ain't blowing up twitter about Detroit the way they did for something like Hidden Figures.

By the way Boyega is lucky in that Star Wars gave him a fanbase that goes well beyond black people and thus black women. Most of his followers seem to be non-black. He didn't have to start off in a Tyler Perry picture so he was able to gain a pretty wide base early on. Cool thing about him is that while he appears to prefer black women as his girlfriends, he isn't walking away from roles that pair him with white women nor does he seem uncomfortable with being very close to white females as friends and colleagues. Which is why I like black British actors like him so much.

This post I wrote was initially longer and I touched upon the whole hypocrisy angle. But I exceeded the word limit so I decided to get rid of some of my points. Not saying the movie deals with this but problem is that black males showing any interest in white women or showing any intimacy with them on screen (such as touching hands in a stressful moment) is a red flag to many black ladies, particularly those who are African American. It is 100% completely unacceptable to these ladies and their strung-along men who support them to see any trace of intimacy between a black male and a white woman. Now these same women don’t have any such issues when they see intimacy with black women and white men on screen. They don’t get worked up if there are gay black characters paired with white gay characters. They only get upset over one type of iR representation and we all know which one that is. I swear their attitudes and lack of tolerance towards black men and white women would rival those of Southern white men of the slavery days and the Jim Crow era.

This gonna sound awful but I have no faith in black men collectively finding their balls and snapping out of their sheep state so quickly. I just hope, at best, that many of them will take their first steps in understanding the truth. And perhaps later....after being inundated with Thor, Flash, Wrinkle In Time, etc., more of them will stop and think...."hey, why are all these movies having white men with black women and never black guys with white chicks...and why am I supporting this stuff with my hard earned money. I also hope even white women get sick of it. And that even Latinos and Asians get sick of diversity equaling only a black girlfriend of a white lead.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. In this case the true enemy for black women is the movie itself, so they won't mind if white racist men reject the film too. It just helps their cause which is to see the film fail. Didn't they take advantage of the same equation for Nate Parker's "Birth of A Nation?"

The main problem here is that there aren’t any main parts for black women in this film. Everything has to be about them, the must suck the oxygen out of every project. Go on social media and they've already made the Black Panther movie to be about all those "glorious, beautiful darkskinned black queens" instead of it being about the Black Panther himself. That’s what black chicks do. I recall during the Oscar campaign for 12 Years A Slave they spent ten times as much energy talking up Lupita Nyong'o than they did the film's star, Chiwetel Ejiofor. If Detroit had a couple of prominent roles for black actresses then most of the naysayers would be on board. If it was about some other incident that didn’t include black men at all and the movie was dominated by black actresses, all of the people hating on this film would be running a goddamn countdown on twitter leading up to its release. Take that as fact.

 

I've mentioned this before, it's harder for BW to sabotage the career of Black male celebrities if they have a sizeable to large non-black fanbase. The Weeknd might be #1 example of this. If The Weeknd was an R&B star with a mostly black fanbase his career would be done based on the stuff he's said & done about not being into bw. But since he's a crossover Pop star, they can't do shit to him. Not only that, The Weeknd has NEVER had to apologize.

 

^^ You both make very good points. But Remember @JamalSpunky we do have some IR movies and shows coming like

DETROIT (Movie)

Life Sentence (TV Show)

A Mountain Between Us (still being dubbed as a romance. We will see if that isn't cut.)

Life In A Year (Movie)

Murder On The Orient Express (Movie)

Midnight, Texas (tv show)

Friends From College (tv show)

(and others I can't think of.) When or If the voice get loud enough against ANY of these IR pairings(something tells me that DETROIT and A Mountain Between Us will generate that backlash.) I think the hypocrisy will be too transparent for people NOT to notice the double standard. Black women by ways of social media are helping Hollywood display BW & WM pairings out there in mainstream, IR between black women and white men are MORE mainstream than any other Interracial pairing, so they are exposed if a voice against IR pairings involving white women and black men gets that loud. I believe some black people AND even some white women will put the double standard out there in mainstream. Katherine Bigelow doesn't shy away from controversy judging by her films, I don't think she fears them. They come for her, something tells me she knows about the double standard.

 

You see that's just it. The Weeknd has never said anything negative about black women. It is urban legend by some paranoid folks that he's done that but there's no evidence of it. Some black women just throw it out there simply as an attempt to sabotage his career but it hasn't stuck and most people dismiss those claims because they know its garbage.

Its funny you brought up the Weeknd because I was going to type up pretty much the same thing before I told myself I was going too off topic. But you are right about his fanbase. It is so damn diverse. Post MJ and Prince black male singers who can fit into the R&B/Pop categories have a fanbase dominated by black women. The problem with that is that this typically means you have to cater to that base to the detriment of everyone else. Over a decade ago I recall reading something about how Nelly was doing a GQ photo shoot with Kylie Minogue. I believe Minogue had chosen him to be in the photoshoot with her. When time came to have pictures taken Kylie was putting her hands on him suggestively as she posed. This led to Nelly's sister (who was maybe his manager too) bringing the shoot to a halt. Apparently she and maybe Nelly were worried that he would be hurting his position with his base if he had a white woman draped all over him. Is that some bullshit? Black men lacking such control over their careers that they have to worry about insulting black women if they posed sexy with some white chick. A black male star having his sister tell him that he can't be seen with a white woman like that even though its the 21st century. I mean why did he even agree to pose with Kylie in the first place? Could you imagine Rick James in the 80s giving a fuck if he was seen posing with Olivia Newton John or Blondie? Fuck no. Rick James was fucking white female stars and was very public about it. Black women didn't control his dating choices no more than white females controlled the dating choices of white male stars. But now we have black guys who let others dictate not only what they do in their personal lives but in how they take photoshoots too. Its ridiculous. That is why that story about Tupac and Madonna ticked me off. That's why I knew I hated Usher as soon as he set up concerts for female fans only. I'm sure more than black women showed up but I'm also sure that black women were far more represented than anyone else.

The Weeknd is never going to do concerts for women only. He is the rare sultry male singer whose male fanbase is as large as his female fanbase. Fans of hip-hop like the Weeknd's music, they can bump to it in a way they never could with Usher. Hip-hop artists like his music too and want to do songs with him. But what is most cool about The Weeknd is the racial diversity of his fanbase. Whites. Hispanics. Asians. Middle-Easterners. And, yeah, black folks. That diversity has been there from the very beginning, back when all he had put out were mixtapes. It may have helped that for a while no one had seen his face so people weren't sure of his race. It may have helped that wasn't influenced just by black artists alone and therefore did't think of himself as an R&B artist. It may ahve helped that he was from Canada. Whatever it was it made him attract fans from all across the racial spectrum. I don't think his fanbase is even 20% black. Not that black people don't like him, he just reaches a wider audience. I don't think black women make up 10% of his fanbase, I think he has more black male fans than black female ones.

Because of this black women can't control him or dictate who he caters too. And some of them are downright pissed about this. The only thing they can do about it is throw shade. And why? Has he said shit about black women to the press or on social media? Nope. But he has dated non-black women. Most of his videos don't include black women as "the love interest". The images he used on YouTube for his mixtape songs as well as for his earlier concerts used to be of white and Asian women. He has the exact same vibe as Drake and they've collaborated but black women never took issue with Drake. That's because Drake dates black women almost exclusively and use them as his video hos in his music vids. This explains why the non-black Bruno Mars win the BET awards even though the Weeknd had bigger hits on urban stations this past year, black women weren't going to vote for the Weeknd. That's fine. He doesn't rely on their approval. And young black male artists coming in to the business should follow his lead. Not in who he dates but in how he built a fanbase that wasn't limited to a mostly black following.

Whenever you read something about how black male singers should concentrate on satisfying their black fans, recognize it as the trap that it clearly is. You don't come across such directions for black female singers. Beyonce and Rhiana wouldn't be nearly as huge if their fanbases were mostly made up of black people.

 

There is actually a lot more out there than what you listed but it is still much smaller than what we see with WM/BW. I mean stuff like Midnight Texas is small potatoes. The lead is a white male. Too many of you are focused on a black male supporting character and the white woman he's with. You can't say how big their roles will be. Meanwhile you have a #1 rated show like The Walking Dead that went against the storyline in the comic by making Michonne the love interest of the lead character, Rick (in the comics Andrea never dies and ends up with Rick and Michonne never dates a white man at all in the comic books).

In the meantime check out what the Asian American male directors are up to. They've been sneaky about it but whenever they get a chance to make movies they make sure to pair Asian guys with white chicks . James Wan takes over the Fast and the Furious Franchise and not only brings back Han but pairs him with Gal Gadot's character. in Insidious he sneaks in some small flirtation between one of the daughters of the targets family and the young Asian specialist who helps to rid the house of its haunting. In Aquaman he has an Asian male lead whose wife is a white babe, and he makes Aquaman's father Asian who mated with a white mermaid (played by Nichole Kidman). He even cast the young good-looking Asian guy from the new Power Rangers film in a major role. Don't know if that guy will have a love interest but the important thing is he is giving the guy a platform to help him get possibly to leading man material in the future. That's how you do it if you are a man of color who gets an opportunity to shape the narrative and who is considered to be an ideal romantic love interest. Compared that to when African American Tim Story got a foot in the door with Fantastic Four and he race-bended Alicia Masters by picking Kerry Washington, whom would get paired with Ben Grimm. What the heck did that do for black men on screen? Story also cast Jessica Alba as Sue Storm which meant he pretty much got rid of all the major white female characters by casting women of color in their parts. Ass backwards but typical of black male directors.

I saw The Big Sick the other weekend. Not only was it very good but it made me envious that a Pakistani male has gotten the type of major Rom-com with a white female that I'm STILL waiting on a black guy to get. This is how far behind we are on this front.

 

Insightful thread and opinions once again from @JamalSpunky. No shock that it was TL;DR for Mo1stside. The thread doesn't uplift his black queens.

 

Well some of them has the lead in IR romances like with Life Sentence and The Mountain Between Us. And earlier this year A United Kingdom and Little Boxes. Small films in compared to blockbusters, but fans have came out for A United Kingdom and Little Boxes. A United Kingdom made over 14 Millions dollars in total for it's very limited released and broke records for an indie film on it's opening weekend for it to open in such small number of theatres(It never opened anywhere close to 1,000 theatres or more.). Like some of the experts say If they gave that movie more theatres to open in it would've done BIGGER. Little Boxes was one of the top trending movies on Netflix when it debuted for about a week, and was promoted on netflix's twitter page to it's over 3 million followers. Little Films found BIG audiences. I said this before, but the public is ready, which is why being afraid of the "backlash" of angry black women is ridiculous not for just the double standard reasons, but I believe at least some of these upcoming films and TV shows will do great with audiences and trounce the voice of them. This isn't like Nate Parker where they could dig up dirt on someone, Idris doesn't have that. But I'm not stupid I know they will probably still come after him, they have to for the BS they believe about black men and white women falling in love.

But I said this before, we need more film makers like a Annie J. Howell who is A LOT more familiar with Interracial between black men and white women. Part of the problem as to why we see don't see that much of it or when we do see it it seems to be a doomed relationship is that some of these filmmakers aren't familiar with IR between black men and white women. It's a shame that has to be that way, but as you pointed out sometimes you need those that are familiar and willing to go there. We need more those filmmakers that are in IR relationships and Black men with balls and White women that aren't brainwashed by the white men in the industry.

But the jury is still out with Midnight, Texas, Life Sentence and The Mountain Between Us, and others. They aren't hear yet, so I will wait until it comes out and when the stars especially the biggest stars like Lucy Hale, Idris Elba and Kate Winslet starts promoting them. Hasn't really started yet, hell people are still saying Finn and Rey might get together. But when it begins like I said it will ALL come to the light. Will these angry black women get called out finally for their double standard? Will the industry get called out for how the way they do IR relationships if they make a romance novel like The Mountain Between Us platonic and delete that kissing scene that is ALREADY all over the internet? We already see a little bit of it happening, so the only question is will it get bigger. Jury still out.

BTW are you talking about Aquaman as in Jason Momoa? If so he isn't Asian, he's Samoan.

 

You had black women going after Elba because he was executive producer of that Showtime miniseries Guerrilla which was about the black civil rights/revolution movement in the UK in the 1970s. They were mad that John Ridley who wrote and directed the series, used an Indian actress as the lead female who was a former lover of Elba's character but had moved on to be in a relationship with another black male who was her co-lead. Just by being associated with the miniseries a number of black women went after Elba along with Ridley and the two stars of the show. While their overreaction was once again despicable, at least this time black women had more of an argument. I though was more upset that Ridley chose a, no offense, fugly-looking black dude with a bloated face to play the co-lead in this romantic pairing. The guy is a very good actor but for a story like this in which the romance was so important his casting was a terrible decision, especially considering Elba could be seen on screen as such a stark comparison. Lesson to all black male directors : in such situations cast black men who have a chance to be leading men in the future with the right push and opportunity; don't cast guys who are essentially character actors in terms of looks. Every other race of men understands this except black men.

Actually independent directors, whether they are familiar with IR or not, do a much better job overall at making such casting choices. The problem lies mostly in mainstream motion pictures. The guy who directed this latest Spiderman? He is a friend of Donald Glover because his white wife is not only Glover's manager she is also an executive producer of his show "Atlanta". Glover is in a relationship right now with a white woman or a very white-looking Hispanic or Asian woman. They had a baby together although we know little about her and how she met Glover. So the Spiderman director knows of an IR between a black man and a white woman right there. He is a champion of diversity. He is one of the strongest proponents for a Miles Morales movie. So why can't people like him ever go the BM/WW route instead of going down the same road of WM/BW (in this movie three damn times).?

Ummm...its complicated. Samoan are part of the Polynesian tree which many consider to be part of the Asian family tree. I can give you links to sites in which views may differ but instead I'll provide a link to a message board in which a great conversation was started by someone asking if Samoans were black.



http://www.forumbiodiversity.com/showthread.php?t=9828

 

Quick question: Are there any black men in the movie A Wrinkle In Time?

Ava Duvernay is abotu to debut the trailer at the Disney Expo and I noticed people are talking about how diverse the cast is and Ava said this on stage:

"Make a film with a cast that look like you"

I know that there are black women and white men in the film like Chris Pine, GuGu Mbatha-Raw, Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey.

 

Was it successful despite everything?

 

No, it was a flop. The ratings were low because BW successfully sabotaged it on social media & truthfully it was mediocre mini-series.

I do think John Ridley made a mistake casting a non-bw as the female lead (Ridley said he casted a non-bw as the female lead because he's personally in a IR marriage to an Asian woman). I wouldn't have done that shit, if it was me I would've just casted a half-black biracial chick as the female lead & be done with it.


Here's a good video of pro-black YouTuber Professor BlackTruth going in on John Ridley:

I like this video because unlike other articles, thinkpieces, & YouTube videos that criticized Ridley for casting a non-bw as the female, PBT actually took the time to call out BW for their double standard.

 

You are giving black women much too much credit. The series got bad ratings but it got them for likely other reasons. First of all while it got good reviews overall critics said that the show was kind of slow, especially in the first half. Audiences often don't have patience for stuff like that. Next it hardly got any buzz and the promotion for it was third rate. How many people on this board heard of it? Also it was on Showtime whose shows always have an uphill battle in generating the same attention as HBO's. Previous shows on Showtime got crappy ratings like Guerrilla and were also canned after a season. Then let's get real that as a show that takes place in the UK in which white people take a backseat is going to have to have some type of hook to get the ratings it needs to survive. Finally you just can't do a period show in which at the center, its heart, is about this amazing romance that blossoms during this madness and cast THAT guy as the male of that romance. Period. Let me put it this way....in an alternate universe in which Denzel Washington did not exist but this actor had Denzel's talent, judgment, mentality, etc and started his career roughly around the same time Denzel did in the 80s, would his career had been as successful? Would he had become the representation of the black leading man for over two decades? The answer is hell no. Because despite Denzel's acting abilities a major draw has been he had the type of good looks that attracted audiences to his movies.

If Ridley was to restrict his choices to someone who had or could do a British accent he should have gone with Elliot Knight, Chiwetel Ejiofior, David Ajala, O.T. Fagbenle, Malachi Kirby, or a Rege-Jean Page. Idis Elba is a no-brainer but perhaps he couldn't fulfill duties as a lead because he had other projects to film. I would have gone with a David Oyelowo too before the guy that actually got the role. Colin Salmon would have been perfect fr it fifteen years ago but he is too old now unfortunately.

But let me point out once more that the controversy started by some black women didn't have a huge effect on this project. To tell you the truth the only time the show got some real publicity was that controversy which started after a screening in the UK. The Q&A which followed was dominated by angry black British ladies asking where were the black women and this got picked up by Black Twitter. But it never became a huge deal. This is no different than the Birth of a Nation situation. Black women on Twitter put a dent in that film but the huge issue that movie faced was that the stupid company that released it thought a movie about a slave uprising which involved black people killing white women and children was mainstream entertainment. It should have been released at a few hundred arthouses and allowed to make a profit (it was very low budget) over a period of time but the studio released it in over 2000 theaters alongside Disney cartoons and superhero films. When I heard about those plans, long before the Nate Parker controversy, I knew the movie was doomed. It wasn't Django for God's sakes. It wasn't meant for mainstream consumption. So when it opened that first week and couldn't fill the seats in all those theaters, the theaters started pulling the film immediately. And that is the major reason why that film "failed" at the box office.

Thanks for the link.

 

She's been dead to me ever since this casting.

So here's how it goes. Disney wooed Ava to work on a movie of her choice. She chose A Wrinkle In Time. Now in the book all the characters are white. But Ava being a black woman you knew she was going to race-bend and make the lead character, the young daughter, black. Question was who else would get to be black. Well, she ended up casting a black actress to play the mom. Then she chose Chris Pine to play the dad. And I was pissed. Why not make both parents black? Or if it had to be a mixed couple why not for once make it a BM/WW as father and mother? Ava would still be able to keep the lead character as a black female. Of course Ava wasn't going to go down that road. Pay attention, folks. Black women in these positions of being the driving creative forces almost never set a setting in which a black man and white woman have any relationship at all. This is the case when they are writing novels, running TV shows or directing/casting for films. They may pair a black guy with an Asian or a Hispanic but not white females. But they won't hesitate to pair black women with white men. They rush to the opportunity in fact. These ladies get their feet inside the gates of power and in the first opportunity they put those types of pairings together.

There's an interview Ava did with EW this week and she is slurping all over Chris Pine. She talks about how he is the first heartthrob to appear in her movies, pretty much shitting on black guys like Omari Hardwick who had appeared in her earlier motion pictures.

Ava also gave that same ol' talk about diversity, representation and seeing oneself reflected on the big screen. But when black women say these things they don't mean black people, they only mean black women. That's their priority. Guys like Ryan Coogler are tasked to make sure black women are as well represented in Black Panther, if not more so, as black men. But women like Ava shows that all she cares about in this case are black females. Black boys have had just as little representation of themselves in animation and movies as black girls. But no one cares about them or takes the time to consider that they will constantly be bombarded with reinforcement on the big screen that they are not good enough to be princes, or love interests of females of any race. Not even their own. So, fuck Ava. I even sent a tweet to her expressing my disappointment of her casting choices. It wasn't mean or filled with foul language but I called her out. I didn't notice until about 8 months later that she had blocked me on twitter.

Are there black men in the film? Andre Holland plays a teacher in the movie. The lead character has a little brother who joins her in the adventure but to be honest I'm not even sure he's black. Didn't look like it from his picture during his casting. If he's adopted that is one convenient way to keep the number of black males low in the movie. There's a white boy who is the classmate of the lead girl who goes on the adventure too. Ava could have made him black. Could have made him anything but white. But she didn't. And black twitter for the most part is silent about it. There was one absurd complaint I did come across on twitter about this movie but I'll share that later.