No african americans in the film
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Prelude-in-C-maj — 10 years ago(January 07, 2016 09:07 AM)
The mother's best friend and, I believe, co-worker, was black.
There are also other ethnicities scattered throughout the movie; hispanic kid among the group of friends hanging out, other hispanic side characters.
Would you really want a "token" anything "inserted" into anything? This movie actually needed MORE ethnically non-white people as the places in central Texas where they live have a more mixed general population than shown, in schools and workplaces and among people's circles of friends. -
Mamabadger56 — 10 years ago(January 13, 2016 08:06 AM)
Unfortunately, it probably represents the reality of most white Americans lives. Communities are not all that racially diverse in real life. If "token" non-white actors were not included on purpose, many American movies would be totally and relentlessly Caucasian.
I don't like the idea of tokenism, but I also don't like a segregated movie industry. I'm not sure what the best solution is. Maybe, unless there is a very specific reason that a character has to be a particular race, actors should be chosen for their acting ability alone, even if we end up seeing a diversity that is greater than we would see in real life.
Basta, basta, basta. -
infracaninophile — 10 years ago(January 29, 2016 08:30 AM)
Unfortunately, it probably represents the reality of most white Americans lives. Communities are not all that racially diverse in real life.
It depends on the community. I grew up in a very diverse city and now work in another one that is similarly diverse, or more so, with many races, languages and cultures everywhere. But when I moved to a rural, not suburban, area, the opposite is true. You never see anything but Caucasian faces in stores, shops, on the street, anywhere. When i first moved here and went to a grocery store in the nearest suburban mall, the same thing was true, but I've noticed in the past 4 or 5 years that the store now caters to South Asian and Middle Eastern/North African customers and I see women in hijabs or saris shopping there. I never see that in my village, which is still 100% white.
Thus, i found the racial makeup in the film quite believable. While the cities may have been more diverse, the particular neighborhoods where Mason Jr. grew up could well not have been. My neighborhood in my home city is still almost entirely European white even though the city itself is most emphatically not. -
kkgrant-241-110161 — 10 years ago(January 25, 2016 10:48 AM)
I didn't even notice until you pointed it out. I'm actually surprised now. Let me go back and thoroughly look through the cast. Honestly if there's no black cast members I'd be shocked. They did at least have some minorities. And there was nothing wrong, but actually breathtaking iin casting of Cinderella.
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twominds79 — 9 years ago(May 03, 2016 06:26 PM)
The movie follows a mother , son and daughter primarily over 12 years. I don't think that's it's totally unreasonable to not have any black friends in that time . I had no black friends in my teens . It comes down to where you live also . I'm not American but maybe the cities like Houston , texas are white majority .
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Prelude-in-C-maj — 9 years ago(May 05, 2016 06:20 AM)
But there were black friends. The mother had a black best friend who was also her co-worker, and we saw this woman at the graduation party. It's been a long while since I've seen the film and I can't recall others, so I guess it's a bit sad there's only one black friend, but she was there.
However, in Texas cities there are plenty of black people in the populations. For Houston, around a quarter of its population is black.
This particular movie's characters probably were mostly in a white world but there were other races to be seen in the side characters, such as the bunch of boys Mason hung out with.
They could have used more non-white characters to be truer to the real life statistics. But then again, it's also realistic that some white people live in predominantly white neighborhoods and there are fewer black people in their particular circles. You do get neighborhoods that tend to have one demogrpahic or another more heavily, and others that are more mixed together. -
sonofbeach-sheet — 9 years ago(May 08, 2016 03:36 PM)
Where exactly was Mason supposed to have lived, outside of Houston and an apartment in San Marcos? I thought he lived in a lower-middle class section of Austin at the beginning, but it was supposed to be an anonymous Texas town. And the home in the country with Jim I guess was San Marcos. So yes, there should have been a sizable black population in the movie. But the small towns in the Hill Country west of them are like only 1% black, maybe 10-30% Hispanic, and the rest white.
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Prelude-in-C-maj — 9 years ago(May 25, 2016 07:17 AM)
If I'm recalling correctly, I believe there were three main places where the family made their home at various stages Houston or a suburb of Houston was one of them, then they also lived in San Marcos, and Austin was another place, though it may have been just the dad who lived in Austin, either way we saw scenes there.
So, Houston at least could have theoretically had a few more black characters, and Austin also, but I agree with you that in the Hill Country locations, not so much it's more heavily white and Hispanic.
I kind of feel like the balance was about right; it's one thing to under-represent an ethnic mix that would be likely in a work of fiction, but to me it's almost worse to try to shoe-horn in characters just to force a balance.