This movie was prophetic
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Hollywood Shuffle
worc508 — 14 years ago(September 14, 2011 07:36 AM)
I liked how towards the end of the movie it showed The Bobby Taylor character playing different kinds of roles that were non-stereotypical. If one was to look at those scenes now and compare today the predictions came to pass. Blacks playing superheroes (Wesley Snipes as Blade), blacks winning the Oscar (Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Forrest Whitaker) and Shakespeare (Laurence Fishburne and Denzel Washington). It may have taken a couple of decades after Shuffle for the prophecy to pass, but Townsend was definitely ahead of his time.
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Yanyawa — 11 years ago(May 13, 2014 02:26 PM)
You are definitely right and though I know some will have a problem with me pointing this out, the sketch where the guys sneak in the movies and rate them. I forget what it's called but it showed how we as blacks love those stereotypical movies even without realizing it. I mean don't get me wrong, it's nice to be able to laugh at ourselves here and there but when it becomes excessive, that's a problem.
Blacks will go out and support movies where we are shown in stereotypical roles but anything less, we don't seem to have an interest in. -
Carycomic — 9 years ago(June 17, 2016 12:12 PM)
Unfortunately, Worc, he was wrong in one respect. There is NOT always a job at the Post Office! And that's even truer nowadays than it was during the Reaganomic Eighties. Because, for me, those were lean years. I spent half that decade, between the awarding of my associate and bachelor's degrees, taking one civil service exam after another at my hometown post office. But, evidently, I didn't once score well enough to even be hired as a janitor! Let alone, a mail carrier.
So, I'm forced to assume that Mr. Townsend's epilogue, to this otherwise on-point film, was done as a propaganda piece strictly for the LA branch of the Postal Service. -
Top_Shelf — 9 years ago(September 16, 2016 05:32 AM)
While you've mentioned the exceptional from a decade ago, the clock has been turned back today.
American television is inundated with slaves, thugs, drug pushers, addicts, dolts, sinful preachers, prostitutes, prison inmates and sissies. But what's even sadder is those fictional portrayals are prodigiously better than the way folks are conducting themselves on
reality
shows. -
Yanyawa — 9 years ago(December 01, 2016 12:50 PM)
The only thing I have a problem with is you using the term "sissies". Is there a reason for this? Personally, I feel gays and lesbians in cinema should never be included with thugs, prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers etc. Those are all negative stereotypical roles for blacks however gays and lesbians aren't stereotypes. That's how they were born.
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Top_Shelf — 9 years ago(December 01, 2016 02:58 PM)
When the movie came out almost thirty years ago, I didn't know anything about LGBTQ. Did it even exist? People had sex with one another. That was that.
I agree there shouldn't have been laws criminalizing any adult from loving another adult in the 20th century. I don't understand anyone's need to control anyone else's personal or family life.
However, isn't it presumptuous to call an effeminate cross dressing man "gay" when I don't know his predilections nor do I care?
And are all homosexual men effeminate? Do they all speak with that same affectation and a lisp? NO. Don't you find it strange that a man from Mississippi talks exactly like a man from Massachusetts? Shouldn't they speak using the accent, dialect and phonology from the region where they learned language? But they don't. And today, too many people are eager to play the stereotypical version even in real life.
Just like suburban kids from Vermont speaking like they grew up in The Bronx. It's put on.
And women from Pittsburgh trying to speak sing-songy as if they're from The South.
Like the movie, we're discussing "roles" blacks are cast in. Today there is a trend to emasculate the black man. It fills two quotas for "representation" and helps another group reclaim their sense of superiority.
Regarding potentially offensive terminology: There's no standardization of personal characteristics. I have a homosexual male cousin who is offended when called "gay." He asserts he's homosexual. Flashy flamboyant effeminates, he calls them Flames. Personally, I'd think being called
queer
would be offensive. Yet queer is the Q in LGBTQ ?? but there's no H for homosexual.
Some have such a low esteem they create reasons to hate everyone else.