Anywhoo, the movie surprised folks with its box office showing this weekend. They made it for 17 million and in one weekend it pulled in 30 million. I am guessing that a movie executive will take those numbers every time.
So anyway, as is to be expected, some clueless folks in the majority population chose to rain on the film's parade by how they approached writing about it.
"USA Today set off a social media storm Sunday with a headline on its box-office story that many found racially insensitive.
“’Holiday’ Nearly Beat ‘Thor’ as Race-Themed Films Soar” was the original headline that the publication put up online and sent out on Twitter. Universal’s romantic comedy sequel from writer-director Malcolm D. Lee did surprisingly well with $30.5 million this weekend, as it debuted against the Marvel superhero sequel, which took in $38.4 million.
When that headline drew a blast of complaints, it was soon changed, to “’’Holiday’ Nearly Beats ‘Thor’ as Ethnically Diverse Films Soar.” The original tweet was deleted, too." [Source]
Too late, your ignorance has already been exposed. And I am not really seeing the difference between "race themed" and "diverse", but hey, whatever.
People get mad at black folks when we emphasize the racial or ethnic angle in anything that we do, but the truth of the matter is, as my twitter fam Nerdy Wonka said, "If a cast is all white, it's a movie. If it's all black, it's a "race-themed" movie". So it's not black folks who are separating themselves from the society at large, society has separated from us.
The fact that we like to see people on the big screen who look like us and who are saying things that we can relate to does not mean that we want to separate ourselves, and main stream newspapers shouldn't label us that way.
I suspect that quite a few white folks watched Best Man Holiday because they wanted to be entertained for a couple of hours. News flash: Black folks watch movies and television shows with a majority white cast for the same reason.
Finally, the state of New Mexico has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons.
You all might have seen this video by now, but every time I watch it I have more questions than answers.
Mother was wrong for not complying with the police, but then the po po....all those kids in the car who they clearly saw..... I don't know.
Anyway, what do you think?
41 comments:
"So wifey wanted to see Best Man Holiday"
That movie sounds kind of 'Housey' to me. Why not go see a Field movie like "12 Years a Slave"?
It's a remake of a 1984 PBS movie, but it has way more whippings than the original.
It's being hailed by critics as a long-awaited breakthrough that finally dares to mention the subject of slavery after decades of Hollywood being controlled by the South.
Wesley Morris says the lesson is never run off to join the circus with two fast-talking white men without even leaving a note for your wife.
I think the lesson is that the cultural whippings of white folk for the sins of some of their great-great-great-great-grandfathers will continue until morale improves.
I think you'd love it.
Spike Lee makes (usually damm good) "race themed movies" BMH2 is a rom-com with black actors playing the characters.
FYI, Spike Lee didn't make this movie, his cousin did. And I LOVED the movie, it was better than the first!! Geez, I can hardly believe it's been 14 years!
As for the movie 12 years a Slave, I'll probably NEVER see it. I READ THE BOOK and don't need a visual reminder of the cruel foundation this "great" country was built on.
Now about the story of the black woman in a van with 5 kids, running from the police my question is, how could she have been so stupid? EVERYONE Black KNOWS that our lives aren't worth $hit in this country, so why risk the lives of your innocent children?
Like you said, to the lighter population this is a "race" film. Then again what's wrong with that? I won't criticize my Latino friends for watching a Latino themed movie ect. Tom Burrell hit the nail on the head in his book when he wrote they view us as dark skinned white people and place their views on us, paraphrased of course.
Ms.Nǚwáng said...
As for the movie 12 years a Slave, I'll probably NEVER see it. I READ THE BOOK and don't need a visual reminder of the cruel foundation this "great" country was built on.
-----
Reminds you of how long it took you to get that undergraduate degree, huh "Doc"?
PilotX:Then again what's wrong with that? I won't criticize my Latino friends for watching a Latino themed movie ect.
>>>>>>>>>>>
Isn't it interesting, that a film about a whole lotta' educated/well off Black folks is a "race" film, but the Madea movies are not?
Things that make you go hmmmmmmm.
"Things that make you go hmmmmmmm."
My polla make you go hmmmmmmm
Brother Field and FN Sisters and Brothers, The movie Best Man Holiday IS race-themed because it has all black actors in it with one 'token' White. That sucks because it smacks of racism.
Folks, as Black Americans, we need to be trying to fit in with main stream America. However, that becomes impossible when you make all-black films like BMH. It casts a shadow on us. I am really surprised that Hollywood would allow such a movie to be made esp around the holidays. I am even more surprised that the actors would put themselves in such a movie.
Field, you need to upgrade your posts. You need to 'integrate', not separate. A post like this has influence on black racists like PilotX and Purple-ass Cow. We should be striving for interracial couples not all-black couples.
Brother Field, you know as well as I do that Whites don't like seeing all-black couples on the screen. But they enjoy seeing mixed couples. So let's mix it up and continue to move America to the land of equal opportunity FOR ALL, not just for Blacks. What the hell is wrong with you folks? You are thinking like PC...which will take you nowhere except a tiny apartment in the UK.
Btw, PC has married a WW. You see, PC understands the importance of mixed marriages. GO PC! Now if we could just get these Negroes here to follow suit.
If all it takes it to label my neighborhood an "ethnic enclave" so I can ....
...see people ... who look like us and who are saying things that we can relate to....
then sign me up ....
as far as "separation", that's not allowed. White Northern Europeans are the only group that are not "allowed" to self-segregate because they prefer being around people who "look like them" and "say things they can relate to" and share similar cultural values. For everyone else, that's a positive, but for WNE's it's not.
And X, don't fool yourself. The only people who think blacks are chocolate coated white people are DWL's. Everyone else is a realist.
From the previous thread:
Anonymous said...
Anonymous, 10:03 a.m.
"I have repeatedly and respectfully aske for a link that I could clique on which would take me to the site to prove your case. You have kept me waiting for days, you inconsiderate jackass.
Now you give me 10 points which are illogical in the extreme. Furthermore, it's not me who is insane, it's you who is insane....purple-ass creep! Yeah, I do live in the ghetto, and have a mouse on the blink and a keyboard that doesn't work right..so what?"
Leaving aside your spelling and grammatical errors, is is clear you are an idiot. You have asked PC for a link you could "clique" on (I assume you mean "click"), but in the next sentence you say your mouse and keyboard don't work. Thus, there isn't a link in the world that you CAN click on. PC hasn't kept you waiting. He provided a link. The fact that you allegedly can't click on it but are blaming PC for it just demonstrates the depth of your idiocy. Grow up. Get a mouse and a keyboard. Learn to read and write.
------------------------
Can you all believe that anon took the time to check an idiot's logic and spelling? WTF? How smart is that? ROFL.
PC, where the hell is that link? I'm still waiting for your proof about brother Orville. What's the matter, you can't back up your shit? Wikipedia doesn't count, you fool. I can't klick on that. I'm going to assume that you didn't know WTF you were talking about.
And X, don't fool yourself. The only people who think blacks are chocolate coated white people are DWL's. Everyone else is a realist.
11:22 PM
---------------
Can somebody tell me what DWL stands for? Anyway, I am Black and I don't think we are chocolate coated white people...that is absurd.
DWL
http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/2009/07/47-disingenuous-white-liberals.html
I saw it too and it was a very good movie.
Looks like Vick is done in Philly. Foles is lighting it up.
"Looks like Vick is done in Philly"
He could always go back to dog breeding.
Dr. I will be watching 12 Years A Slave from the comfort of my home. Don't need the public interaction after I see it.
Anon@11:22 PM, did u always want to be troll when u grow up? Your cousin/wife must be so proud of u.
I can't wait to read your next comments after the next batch of moonshine.
Yesterday I was asked to justify my claim that capitalism was founded on slavery.
PART ONE
”The accumulation of capital pre-supposes surplus-value; surplus-value pre-supposes capitalistic production; capitalistic production pre-supposes the pre-existence of considerable masses of capital and of labour-power... The whole movement, therefore, seems to turn in a vicious circle, out of which we can only get by supposing a primitive accumulation... an accumulation not the result of the capitalist mode of production, but its starting point"
(source, Karl Marx, Kapital Ch.XXVI, p.667)
What Marx is talking about here, is the origins of Capitalism. Where did the capital come from to seed capitalism? The answer is largely from slavery.
Marx again…
”"The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief moments of primitive accumulation"
(source, Karl Marx, Kapital Ch.XXXI, p.703.)
PART TWO
The global industrial revolution began in the U.K. in the late 18th century. The historian Robin Blackburn has noted
”Working on figures for 1770, triangular trade profits may have provided anything between 20.9% and 55% of Britain's gross fixed capital formation.”
(source: The Making of New World Slavery: from the Baroque to the Modern, 1492-1800. By Robin Blackburn, Verso, 1997 (Pbk, 1998).)
In other words slavery was the venture capital that the global industrial revolution was built on.
In the USA early plantations struggled to make a profit, even when employing white prisoners and indentured servants. When word got back to UK about the horrific working conditions and short life expectancy of servants, the supply started to dry up. The planters had to look elsewhere for their supply of cheap labor. Indeed white servants and black slaves worked together in rebellions against their horrific conditions (of which the ‘Bacon Uprising’ was the most famous). Though these bi-racial rebellions were relatively rare, they so terrified the slave owners they brought in the segregation legislation that would last through to the second half of the twentieth century. This had the useful side-effect of eventually giving a burgeoning racial identity to the indentured servants. The servants knew being white meant they could not be slaves, and gave them limited civil rights. This is how capitalism divides and conquers the proletariat in it’s search for profit.
As for slaveries role in early American capitalism, Eric Williams pointed out..
”The early industrial processes involved a lengthy turnover time. In other words a capitalist might have to wait a long time to realize the profits from an investment. In such circumstances credit was vital. The profits of slavery helped to lubricate this process. Financial bills, drawn on plantation products such as sugar or tobacco, began to circulate as a form of money. In the absence of sufficient institutional sources of credit, plantation funds helped to fill the gap.
(source: Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery 1944. London Andre Deutsch p. 19)
So Purple, what you are saying is that to get our economy going, what we need is some slavery.
This isn't going to go over well with black folks.
"This is how capitalism divides and conquers the proletariat in it’s search for profit."
-----
This is how Obama does it:
https://www.academia.edu/854201/The_Cloward-Piven_Strategy_Welfare_Manufactured_Crisis_and_the_Fundamental_Transformation_of_America
http://www.activistpost.com/2013/10/obamacare-is-it-divide-and-conquer.html
Anonymous Carl Marks said...
"So Purple, what you are saying is that to get our economy going, what we need is some slavery."
I said no such thing. I'm saying slavery provided the start-up cash for capitalism. The problems that capitalism faces today are infrastructural, and are far greater in scope than those that could be helped by venture capitalists.
"The problems that capitalism faces today are infrastructural,"
I would say they are governmental, with far too much regulatory distortion and crony capitalism practiced for the obscene profit of the new elite at the expense of the middle class.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/03/the-rich-get-richer-obama-style-crony-capitalism.html
It is fascism-style economics practiced by limousine socialists.
dear me field, what's happening? Just thought I'd say "hello" to a good brother who, from time to time, calls me White.
BTW, could you do something about PC? From his comments, I think he is ON pc.
William P. White, the D.C. Insurance Commissioner, was fired 24 hours after he pointed out what everyone with a brain knew to be true about Obama's healthcare fix:
~
In a statement issued Thursday, White hinted strongly that he opposed the idea.
“The action today undercuts the purpose of the exchanges, including the District’s DC Health Link, by creating exceptions that make it more difficult for them to operate,” the statement said.
He also pointed to a statement issued by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners that said the Obama order “threatens to undermine the new market, and may lead to higher premiums and market disruptions in 2014 and beyond.”
“We concur with that assessment,” White said Thursday.
White’s statement was removed from the department’s Web site sometime before Friday morning. Asked about the removal Friday, spokesman Michael Flagg said the department’s statement had changed.
~
Can you imagine being a state Insurance Commissioner right now? How much pressure is being put on them to enact a fix that they know can't work and may very well be illegal?
Things are spiraling out of control.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-insurance-commissioner-fired-a-day-after-questioning-obamacare-fix/2013/11/16/b88eaea0-4f17-11e3-9890-a1e0997fb0c0_story.html?hpid=z1
Man, I hate it when I'm forced to sound like a right-wing bigot wingnut conservative, but . . . let me preface what I think by saying "this is not racist":
I think there's practically no way to discuss race anymore.
I saw a brilliant video piece recently about race at UCLA in which a young black guy very eloquently and effectively poses the question, "How in the hell am I supposed to be proud to be a Bruin?" Maybe some of y'all have seen it?
In that piece he uses a metaphor - black letters written against a white background - to describe the situation of a very thin minority of black males attending UCLA. Like I say, effective. Well done.
Now, maybe it's because I have Asperger's Syndrome and my brain can be a real douchebag about details, but two seconds after the video ended, I thought to myself - "Wait, self, what about blackboards? Those have white letters written against a black background."
I think there are actually two metaphors there. Two metaphors in a situation that maybe has two sides?
Then there's the whole n-word thing. Who is right? Charles Barkley or Jeffrey Wright? One black guy who says the n-word is okay sometimes among "black people" (whoever they are) and one who says it's not right among any people ever?
Of COURSE there are various opinions about this, just as there are various opinions about everything.
I'm going somewhere with this, I just know it, so bear with me.
Then there's the Iraq War. Did we invade or were we begged by the international community to go help those poor Iraqi Kurds? Did we wreck the place, or was it a wreck before we ever got there and we just failed to fix it?
Now, back to point - is there any way for a so-called white person to discuss race at all? Does it exist as an issue and is the white person merely discussing an issue that existed before they ever came along? Or, is the white person CREATING the issue by discussing it?
If you ask me, what makes it legitimate to discuss a film as a race-themed film would be two things -
1) Is there a disproportionate number of ethnically-diverse people in it?
2) Is the premise of the movie literally about race?
I don't even know if that dumbass date movie qualifies. What I do know is I'm becoming damned confused. The message I'm actually taking away is - if you have the NERVE to discuss race, then go ahead and discuss it at the risk of pissing some folks off. Note - folks get pissed off anyhow, by everything.
I've said it before I have a disfigurement, I look like Quasimodo. All I can tell you is, if I saw a movie review of "Mask" or "The Man Without a Face" I wouldn't get all bent out of shape if it were described as a "disability-themed movie".
It's not actually a disability in many, many ways. In many wars it would be wrong to describe it that way.
But we have to discuss it, and that means it's going to be discussed MOSTLY by people who don't actually have a facial disfigurement. Some comments are going to SEEM insensitive from my point of view, but there's a bigger fact to consider -
The discussion is being had, and that's important.
So, I don't actually CARE if that dumb movie is racially-themed. I want to know how we discuss one that is. Please tell me that.
Off-the-cuff, if it has more than the real-life 12% of black people in it, it just might actually be "racially-themed" - or at least "ethnically-diverse". Maybe that's wrong, please feel free to let me know.
Just goddamn stop getting pissed and understand it's a little tough to discuss inequity itself equitably. There are some innate challenges there.
The headline by USA Toay was simply an attempt to steer movie-goers in the opposite direction of the Best Man Holiday movie. Nothing more than a shallow attempt to retitled the as something other than what it really is. Nincompoop writers do such things because they are cognizant of the fact that Amerikkka isn't mature enough as a nation to deal with the complex issue of, never have been ready and they never will be ready.
When the tel-lie-vision show " Friends", starring Jennifer Aniston was still running, no one stated the it was a racially themed show, although its entire cast was white.
In any event, I'm happy to see that folks still went out to see the movie and paid wing-nut writers no attention!
Dammm STEPHEN... you will post anything to distract...
I cant believe people actually commented on this....SMH
Seriously...Racially Themed Movies????
Is this part of your work to set up a "Black Agenda" ...
From Your side bar...
To African Americans, he is part of a growing army of black Internet amateurs who have taken up the work once reserved for ministers and professional activists: the work of setting a black agenda
quantum0d0 said...
Now, back to point - is there any way for a so-called white person to discuss race at all?
----
No. To broach the topic is to invite condemnation. The purpose of the concept is to assert control through moral intimidation.
A lecture is not a discussion.
This wasn't quite as stupid a mistake as it first appears, in context. The article references movies such as "The Butler" and "Fruitvale Station," which are fairly categorized as "race-themed."
But it was still foolish to apply that label to "Best Man Holiday." If they'd taken a moment to think harder, I'm sure they could have found a better descriptor to connect them all, like "movies with a majority-black cast."
Those cops in NM look crazy!!!
What are they under severe stress, or have no supervision, or what kind of marching orders are they getting???
All that trauma for a speeding ticket for a mom that was going 71 in a 55mph zone? Who hasn't done that and more???
Those kids will never forget those cops! Traumatized forever!
They could have just gotten her license plate number and mailed her however many tickets they wanted!!!
What a bunch of BULLY wimps!
"To broach the topic" from a position of white privilege would probably "invite condemnation." To approach the subject with an open mind would not.
The only person trying to "assert control" is you.
A discussion will always seem like lecture to u because, god forbid, someone would question your moral authority.
@ Field, Your wife has excellent taste! That man is superfine!
You...not so much ;)
I mean as far as your taste is concerned. Cos let's face it, you're superfine too :D
Did y'all here the Killerman was arrested today AGAIN!
He's jailed!
And it's not like this "The Best Man Holiday" is going to get any awards at "race-themed" awards shows like the BET awards or Black Movie Awards (BMAs) etc etc
Blogger Desertflower said...
Did y'all here the Killerman was arrested today AGAIN!
He's jailed!
5:01 PM
----------------
As I repeatedly have asked PC, but never got it..."LINK PLEASE". You can't, because your hatred toward a man who Whites supported, runs deep. You and your FN Negro buddies must learn how to forgive..
Desert, what do u have against Nia Long? :)
Anon@7:13, never question Desert's authenticity.
That story is true.
Anon@7:13, never question Desert's authenticity.
That story is true.
7:39 PM
-------------
Link please. I happen to know Desert can lie.
field negro7:39 PM
Anon@7:13, never question Desert's authenticity.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That's right, don't ever question it! Cos I never lie,.... Well... almost never... well...maybe a couple of times... But that's it just a couple... well....oh all right, so I lie sometimes, but it's always for a good cause! But this is true I just forgot to post the link but its all over the news. He put a shotgun to his new girlfriends head! Boy is she lucky he didn't pull the trigger! I told youse he'd kill again!
Needs to be locked up!
field negro7:39 PM
Desert, what do u have against Nia Long? :
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh.........(looking down and shuffling feet) nothin'
field negro said...
"The only person trying to "assert control" is you.
A discussion will always seem like lecture to u because, god forbid, someone would question your moral authority"
------------
See what I mean?
Push notifications are always useful I am using it ..Thanx for sharing this info!You got a nice post as you always do.
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