No black people
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paccon4 — 18 years ago(February 09, 2008 03:11 PM)
As a black woman (American), I was not put off by the lack of color in this charming movie. I've been to London once, staying chiefly in the Mayfair district and didn't see a lot of color there so I thought the movie realistic until reading some of the blogs here. Looking at the movie again through this lens, I noticed people of color in some of the street scenes outside the bookstore. More than anything, I appreciated the infusion of diversity into the great soundtrack, especially Al Green and Bill Withers. That more than makes up for the paleness of the main characters.
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fctiger — 19 years ago(January 22, 2007 01:46 PM)
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter THAT much. We are fans of the movie (I'm Black myself) and its not like people were boycotting it, but its a FAIR question, not just about Black people, but minorities in general in these movies. Why AREN'T there more minorities in sitcoms like Friends or movies like Nottingham when they take place in some of the diverse multicultural cities on the planet, but yet, if you were to watch certain movies or tv shows, you would never know there were anything but White people. It's a little disheartening, but it doesn't take away from the movie either, at least not for me.
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little-miss-chocolate — 19 years ago(February 07, 2007 11:30 AM)
There are actually a lot of ethnic minority people in Friends. I never really looked until some PC do-gooder started banging on about it. Remember that they are minorities, that white people are in the majority.
LMC xxx
Therapy is expensive; bubble wrap is free! -
jetlag31 — 19 years ago(February 15, 2007 12:13 AM)
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It depends what you mean by "minorities". I notice that nobody complains about the dearth of Australians or New Zealanders in British movies. Or Spanish or French people come to that.
Assuming, that is, "minority" and "multicultural" are not being used as a euphemism for skin colour.
Come to that where is the lobby demanding to see more stutterers, soccer hooligans, or people with mental disabilities up on the big screen? All are minorities too, albeit not multicultural ones. Shouldn't they be jumping up and down and demanding better representation on the screen, big and little?
At the end of the day each movie is nothing more than some writer's fantasy. The idea that those in charge of those fantasies should be under some obligation to make them a closer match to real life is about as realistic as expecting the "Notting Hill" moviemakers to have cast (say) Hugh Bonneville and Emma Chambers as Will Thacker and Anna Scott rather than Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts (on the ground that chubby-faced guys and plain janes are rather numerous out in the real world and so ought to be entitled to a certain quota of starring roleswithout having to first undergo the sort of plastic surgery Julia Roberts' character implies she had to in "Notting Hill").