Film's subtle racism and stereotypes.
-
Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — The Brave One
XcardfiendX — 18 years ago(February 09, 2008 10:05 PM)
No, I don't want this to be a generic racism thread but I haven't gotten so offended by a movie due to stereotypes in a while. I'm half Chinese and half Puerto Rican and was so annoyed at the crappy overdone portrayal of New York. My minds a lil mixed up right now so I'll just make bullet points for the things that bothered me. Race-related or not. (Spelling errors I know)
- Yep, everyone knows if you walk around anywhere in New York at night you're BOUND to get either shot, stabbed, robbed, jumped, killed, or offered sex with a prostitute. (and in the middle of the day, you're offered illegal guns)
- I love how Jodie buys a gun, spends 5 seconds learning how it works, and PRESTO! She magically turns into a supercop with incredible aim! Dark at night and a guy driving a fast car getting ready to run you over and another girl. Nope not a problem for this strong women, she'll manage to throw the girl out of harms way, instictively pull out her gun and "BOOM HEADSHOT" the guy in the car in the middle of the night, while of course holding a the gun in a badass one handed stance.
- All mexicans wear tank-tops.ALL WAYS.
- Black guys dont listen to radiohead!
- Another thing that made me just roll my eyes in disgust is when Jodie Foster is taking calls for her radio show and this one girl answers the phone. In the most obnoxious overdone hollywood "LATINA" accent, she says something along the lines of "yea ppl need to kno that NY aint no disneyland. We're getting our respect back!" Wow, just wow.
- "If you're gonna kill someone. Make sure the gun is legal." LOLOLOL WOW WHAT A FUNNY TWIST!!!
- I hate how everything in this movie just MAGICALLY seems to fall into place. Its extremely predictable.
- The two black guys in the subway scene was just so overdone and try-hard. I've seen every damn "ghetto" movie out there and this portrayal was so fake.
- Jodie can't play a straight women to save her life.
- Ugh, this movie screamed feminism so damn hard and obvious. Did they have to throw in "he" every single sentence when talking about the killings. You'd think they would "vigilante killer." But nope.
- This whole movie just seemed to be this drawn out stereotype filled borefest with "middle aged blonde hair blue eyed woman fights back against the big bad male minorities in NEW YORK!"
I think I'm pretty done so far. Thoughts? I'm from NY, btw.
-
Lizard51867 — 18 years ago(February 10, 2008 01:20 AM)
You have some valid points. I wish to argue a few.
-I don't know what the crime rate of NY is, but Erica found all those crimes because she went out looking for trouble. That's how she so frequently found it. I'd be willing to bet that if you continually ride the subway late at night, and go on long walks late at night, you'll find some interesting things. The first time she witnessed a crime, it just happened, at the mini-mart. And it wasn't so much general violence of NY, it was a crime of passion that happened to take place in NYC.
-Yeah, Erica's aim improved exponentially and unrealistically, especially since she never practiced in between killings.
-The portrayal of all Mexicans as "cholos" was quite blatant and obviously wrong.
-I don't think many black guys listen to Radiohead; it's not a racist thing to say, but they simply don't fit the major demographic, which is mainly composed of whiny, emo, melodramatic white teenage boys who feel that the whole world is a dreary, unfair place that would be better off destroyed, or at least filled with music that expresses the complete futility of existence. Black guys don't listen to Radiohead the way I don't listen to almost all rap.
-I didn't identify the caller as Latina; while the accent was exaggerated, I thought it was just supposed to be Brooklyn or the Bronx to show a "working class" type of person. Again, I'm not from NY, and am basing my knowledge of such accents on "My Cousin Vinny."
-The movie did have a truly terrible ending. It would've been one thing if Mercer hadn't been so resolute in his mission to bring the vigilante to justice; he did an inexplicable 180 in the cheesiest way possible.
-The black guys on the subway were also as appalling as the depiction of Mexicans; the only explanation is that they were extremely brief characters that had to pose a threat so Erica could kill them. It doesn't excuse it, it only explains it.
-I assume you think Jodie Foster can't play a straight woman because of the (probably true) rumors that she is a lesbian in real life. Sexuality doesn't automatically affect one's ability to play the opposite. You never hear someone say that an actor can't play a gay character to save his/her life. Perhaps they had so little chemistry on screen because they hated each other offscreen or something else. Perhaps it was just the wooden conversation that the script provided that made them unbelievable.
-This movie was NOT feminist. I am a feminist, and take offense every time someone says that this movie is feminist. This movie promotes the victimization that some "feminists" cling to; rather than showing Erica suffer that horrible ordeal and show her struggle to heal as a dynamic character would, they show her become Velma Vigilante and shoot up all the things that threaten, as you said, a white woman. It would be one thing if they showed her transform into a true monster, an emotionless, soulless killer who did so methodically and with a sense of purpose. It could've ended with her killing herself rather than going to prison for what she so strongly believed in. That might have been interesting. They could have completely changed the movie as I previously suggested; that could've been soppy, but it might've worked. They could have showed her seeking revenge on those who committed the pointless violence against her, and her personal struggle about whether or not to follow through. But no, they turn her into the willing "perpetual victim", who is torn apart by what she does every time. The reason the cops assume the killer is a man has nothing to do with feminism, either. The movie makes brief mention of the reason: statistically, women usually kill for personal reasons, rather than some warped sense of justice. The statistics are changing to be more equally dispersed, but murder is still generally a man's crime, especially when it comes to serial killers, as one could argue a vigilante is. Also, the pronoun "he" can be gender neutral; if you don't know the gender of someone, you usually say "he" rather than "he/she" or "vigilante killer".
-This movie certainly has social panic, escapist overtones. A woman is wrenched out of her idyllic perception of NY, and thrown into the brutal reality of its underbelly. Only the reality is accurate; it's a facade invented by rich screenwriters in LA. -
mjfoshee — 18 years ago(February 13, 2008 06:54 PM)
you guys are acting like she was getting all shots with fantastic grouping. she jsut hit the target, and from only a few feet away. Its completely possible for an inexperienced shooter to easily hit a target from a good 10 feet away i know ive doen it. her sloppy hits on a human torso from 3 or 4 are beleiveable. The black guys on the subway were not that far fetched it would be pretty easy to find some guys just like that. You act like by showing a few mexicans ( pricks that attacked her and at that one mexican bitches house)that means that they are showing all mexicans that way. alot mexicans act that way, about half my beep school acts that way.
-
nickegeorge — 18 years ago(February 17, 2008 02:38 PM)
You dum**** they were puerto-rican, where do you think this movie takes place in California? I hope the Mexicans in your school kick your dum**** every day or else they are missing your ass.
you are a dumbass as well , what makes you think they were puerto ricans ? -
tawdry_hepburn — 16 years ago(November 02, 2009 01:01 PM)
They wereinNYC. I suppose there coulda been some Cubans as well, but realistically, the Latin culture in NYC is Puerto Rican.
,Said the Shotgun to the Head
Saul Williams
www.myspace.com/ohhorrorofhorrors -
xerxerxex — 16 years ago(November 08, 2009 11:35 PM)
to Lizard:
I don't think many black guys listen to Radiohead; it's not a racist thing to say, but they simply don't fit the major demographic, which is mainly composed of whiny, emo, melodramatic white teenage boys who feel that the whole world is a dreary, unfair place that would be better off destroyed, or at least filled with music that expresses the complete futility of existence. Black guys don't listen to Radiohead the way I don't listen to almost all rap.
Thats not fair, I listen to Radiohead and I'm hardly emo, whiny, and melodramatic, and it makes me wonder have you ever even listened to Radiohead? You just stereotyped, way to go.
Don't worry, I saw Lord of the Rings. I'm not going to end this 17 times. -
mjfoshee — 18 years ago(February 19, 2008 06:17 PM)
ok because the difference from mexicans and peurto ricans is beep huge with them both coming from native central americans and the spanish. the only difference is cultural and its not that big a difference, and yes i forgot a little bit, beep yourself. or else they are missing my dumb ass? what the beep does that beep even mean.
-
Moondrop_C — 17 years ago(May 19, 2008 11:59 AM)
You're sooo right. There's not that big a difference between Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. Aside from the following:
Food is different
Music is different
Customs are different
Holidays are different
History is different
Indigenous populations are different
Climate is differentone's desert-y and attached to the southwest U.S., the other's a tropical island in the Caribbean
There are language differencesyes, both speak Spanish, but there are words and phrases that are very much not common to both and to a Puerto Rican, some Mexican words and phrases are very foreign and vice versa, I'm sure.
The accents are different
In addition, from Wikipedia (yes, I know, but this doesn't seem to be in dispute there so far):
"Puerto Rican culture is a mix of four cultures, African (from the slaves), Tano (Amerindians), Spanish, and more recently, North American."
The genetic breakdown gets rather convoluted due to all the people who visited/moved to the island.
The Tainos are believed to have been from the West Indies. BTW, they were also made slaves by the Spaniards.
Notice, no Mayans or Aztecs, etc. The Tainos are believed to have been from the West Indies.
I won't even get into politics, as that gets rather involved, other than Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizensmany people seem to forget or be unaware of that fact.
You're right, there are hardly any differences between the two.
Disclaimer: if it appeared that there was a bit of a Puerto Rican slant to this list, it's because I'm Puerto Rican and not Mexican, though I could hardly tell the difference either way, right? I'm not, however, trying to suggest that one is better than the other. Just pointing out the teeny, tiny, insignificant differences between the two. Don't get me started on Cubans, Dominicans, Spaniards, Guatemalans -
jimbob-50 — 16 years ago(August 29, 2009 04:53 PM)
I'm Irish and Italian and I figured they were Puerto Rican. Can the average American of any color tell the difference between a Pole and a Czech or a Swede and a Norwegian or an Welshman and a Scot? Can Most people from anywhere tell the difference between an American and a Canadian?
-
Lizard51867 — 18 years ago(February 18, 2008 02:01 PM)
The subway was realistic, she was really close to them, and prepared to shoot as well. But the fact that she managed to shoot a moving target who was behind glass and almost completely obscured so severely that he completely lost control of the car and at the same time trying to push the girl out of the way seems a bit far fetched.
I have never known a black person to act so ludicrously "gangsta", and I went to a high school that was about 45-35-15-5 (white, black, Hispanic, Asian) and the people who acted that stereotypically were usually white suburbanites who had never even taken public transportation, never mind a subway train late at night.
I personally believe that the racism of the Hispanic characters comes not just from their depiction, which was quite stereotypical, but from their lack of depth. Here they were, people who managed to totally ruin this woman's life, and the filmmakers made them one-dimensional villains; if they had had mustaches, they would've twisted them evilly. They make them just "bad guy 1" and "bad guy 2"; there is literally zero characterization. The director doesn't even bother to make a point about the crime being tragically random or pointless. It happens in the first fifteen minutes and no more is said about it. I realize that it is a film about Erica and her coping process, but I think a great deal more depth could've been given to her character if they had spent more time on the nature of the crime and all the people involved, especially when the climax of the film and the closure she gained came from going after the guys who personally hurt her and made her what she was. -
nickegeorge — 18 years ago(February 17, 2008 02:36 PM)
don't think many black guys listen to Radiohead; it's not a racist thing to say, but they simply don't fit the major demographic, which is mainly composed of whiny, emo, melodramatic white teenage boys who feel that the whole world is a dreary, unfair place that would be better off destroyed, or at least filled with music that expresses the complete futility of existence. Black guys don't listen to Radiohead the way I don't listen to almost all rap.
did not know you took a poll of black men to know what they listen to , dumbass -
Lizard51867 — 18 years ago(February 18, 2008 01:48 PM)
Just because you disagree with someone or believe them to be wrong doesn't make them a dumbass. And no, I didn't take a poll. Quite simply, black people don't fit the target audience that the record company and MTV try to reach with Radiohead. I didn't say that there has never been a black person who has ever listened to and enjoyed Radiohead. I said they don't fit the major demographic of Radiohead enthusiasts, which is true.
-
nbbrix — 18 years ago(February 23, 2008 12:43 PM)
OP Xcard: Maybe or maybe not a dumbass, but a few coins short of the right change for sure.
It's a frackin' movie - get a life FFS.
You're probably the sort of person who would claim that the Death Star would only rotate like it does if it were controled by a Unix based opperating system which you noted, they didn't seem to have.
Mmm Xcard, Tell you what, why don't you pop down to some project housing areas in the 5 disricts, round up 100 African American males between the ages of 17 - 23 and get back to us with the results of a simple survey: How many of them & how much did they pay, for 'In Rainbows' -
sharkykt — 18 years ago(February 25, 2008 04:09 PM)
Oh my freaking g*d.
Would it have made you, those screaming racism, would it had made you all happy if every single bloody person, ALL OF THEM, all those in the crime scenes as well if they were all white? Yeah that would be realistic wouldn't it in the most multicultural city in the world.
Everyone is always screaming racism this racism that, no one is ever stinking happy has to blame something else.
As for the black people and Radiohead, well then Howard's character Mercer is a racist cop because with Katt's character is running down the list of names on the iPod, Mercer makes a comment about Wu-Tang Clan. So what is he a racist too for basically saying black guys only listen to Wu-Tang Clan.
Give the racist crap a break it is so old. -
a-j-smith — 17 years ago(April 16, 2008 08:44 AM)
It also called 'cross cultural communictions' too. All races have different cultures including music and thats a fact. Of course there are exceptions to sterotypes, but I would think that black cultures do not listen to Radiohead, and a good detective would notice this piece of evidence, of course its not hard evidence, but a good lead to start the investigation