“white audiences prefer to see white characters, while black audiences want to see black characters.”
Ok, is this inherently wrong? I don’t think so.
“The higher the percentage of black actors in the movie, the less interested white participants were in seeing the movie,” Weaver reports. “Importantly, this effect occurred regardless of participants’ racial attitudes or actors’ relative celebrity.”
Funny they didn’t run the same test on a group of black subjects. The above statement indicates the results would be similar but I guess that just wouldn’t help support the agenda.
The main thing that I get from the article is that white people avoid black movies because they don’t feel they are the intended audience. Why would that be? We live in a world where it seems black people, while wanting to be accepted into and have access to anything a white person would simultaneously want their own organizations and institutions that proudly proclaim they are for blacks only. We live in a world of FUBU, BET, Black actors guild, Black Caucus, etc. Imagine ANYTHING in this country that was actually labeled ‘No Blacks Allowed’ and perhaps you start to see how one-sided this inclusion/exclusion might appear to be to a white audience. So perhaps the black community, in its desire to establish itself so separate from anyone else, is inadvertently responsible for this reaction by white audiences.
If there was some other point you were hoping to make with this piece, please indicate it.
It was simply to add perspective and subtext to the discussion. On the points you contributed, black people as whole have never sought to establish themselves as separate, they simply have made the most of being separated, and if anything, tried to integrate. Saying the black community is responsible for being separate is pretty preposterous in the face of American History. Especially since many things blacks have established have been shared by the rest of America, from Blues to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
You said: “race causes Hollywood to make poor films with black or female leads”.
Here is one of the problems someone has with discussing anything with you. Let’s break down what you said. First, race – is this the race of the actor, the person making the decisions about the film, the race of the people the film is being targeted at or a combination of any or all of these? Next, causes – does this mean influences, forces, coerces, fools? And is this cause accidental, incidental or deliberate? Hollywood – is this the director, the producer, the head of the studio itself or a combination of any or all of these? Poor – is this the lack of skill of the filmmaker, the result of under-budgeting, the audience’s perception of the film or a combination of any or all of these? Applying each of these variables in all of their possible combinations leads to literally dozens of different possible meanings for your statement.
Exactly. That suggests that sometimes one thing happens, sometimes another, sometimes none of these things happen. There are dozens of ways for race, and perception thereof, to lead to a poor film.
So let me try one that seems likely – Race (Will Smith being black) causes Hollywood (Shamalan) to make a poor film (after earth) with a black lead (Will Smith). Does this sentence fall in line with how you meant your statement?
It falls in line, yes, but it's not what I was saying. It happens not to be true as well. I'm not entirely sure what role race played in AE, if any.
Perhaps if you’d read the entire post before going off half-cocked…
I read your entire post to me, I had to read your reply to someone else to get your point.
Your scientific method leaves MUCH to be desired. I could just as easily use your list to say that the causal relationship shows that black actors aren’t as talented as white ones and therefore their films are perceived as more poorly made. Try again.
Here’s another one: from your article above – “nonwhite actors played major roles in only two of the 30 top-grossing films of 2010” – If I were to use your faulty scientific ideology, I could easily apply a causal relationship to this statement and say ‘well, it is clear that if I want the best chance to make my movie a success, I better not have non-white actors play major roles in it.’ Silly.
That does seem to be the logic that movie execs use, incidentally. But no, you again have omitted the note about co-effect relationships, which would apply to the example you gave, but not to the one I gave.
I crave appeasement from you as much as a sunbather seeks a fur coat. To disagree with you I would have to know you, which I don’t. I disagree with your weak insinuations. You insult yourself with faulty logic and convoluted statements. Again you have no proof to back up what you claim, just your own ‘observation’ which is far from exclusive.
My statements and logic are just fine. Just because you assume a statement is absolute and general does not make it convoluted, you just are not able to read it properly for some reason. Just because you omit part of my statement and then apply that part of my logic to a separate case, doesn't make my logic faulty.
But race causes Hollywood to make poor films starring black actors. I’m sure you don’t think that poorly made movies making money is the rule rather than the exception. So how would you make odds anyone making a Black Panther film would think it would make money since a) they will make it poorly and b) white people (the majority of the movie-going audience) won’t want to see it?
‘Trying to make a movie poorly because the lead is black’ and ‘trying to make money’ don’t sound like complimentary statements.
You're still making an absolute statement out of cause. "Radiation causes cancer." Is true. But you can't turn around and say "If you get radiation, you *will* get cancer."
There's no 'odds of anyone' there are specific people making such a decision. They've expressed their concern, which is one of perception, closely related to marketing. Once they overcome that, which they can, and Disney has in the past with Princess and the Frog and stuff, the movie will get made and both of those issues will be just as relevant as they were for Django Unchained.
‘Absolute’ might not be the best term. Maybe ‘so vague as to be capable of interpretation in so many different ways as to render it nearly meaningless without further clarification from the author’. Yeah, that’s better.
You yourself say that race causes Hollywood to make these films poorly. Again I ask, what sense does it make to infer that someone who, according to you, wants to make a film to make money, would make that film ‘poorly’ just because there is a black lead.
Let’s go back and look at your statement once more - “race causes Hollywood to make poor films with black or female leads”. Again, as you’ve left it so open to interpretation, it could be read with this meaning – Race (actor being black) causes (motivates) Hollywood (racist white exec) to make poor (intentionally sabotage) films with black or female leads. So with you being so ambiguous about the exact position you take behind that statement, something you do in every discussion we have about race, it could easily read as I just interpreted. So I didn’t just pull the terms ‘intentional’ and ‘sabotage’ and 'racist' out of nowhere.
Yes, you did pull them out of nowhere. You, and you alone, have stated that this statement has to be absolute, that it has to describe a specific chain of cause and effect instead of a large group of similar chains, as intended and elaborated upon by me. That is entirely of your work, and stands in contrast to the statements I've given. A responsible reading might be inclined to ask for examples (I have actually given a couple already), but taking your perception of "race," "cause," and "make" and saying that *I* said them is poor communication. If you believe non-specific statements are meaningless - that's fine, don't bother responding then.
Good article.
After Earth would render this statement false. And are you saying that this statement - 'We don't know how to market this movie’ – applies to any big budget black movie? And lastly, you still never explained (big surprise) how a black writer is ‘incapable’ of writing black characters.
You never asked. You said it was sad. I agreed. I'll see if I can find such a statement on record, and edit it in here.
But you're right, perhaps Lucas was wrong, there are parts of Hollywood, obviously, that want to make a big budget black movie... clearly the parts he was talking to did not. Unless he's a bold faced liar, and that's not completely outside the realm of possibility.
So let’s try interpreting your statement again and see if this is closer to your intended meaning – Race (actor being black) causes (due to filmmaker being incapable of writing for and not knowing how to market) Hollywood (writer, director, producer, studio) to make a poor film with said black actor. If this is the case, and Hollywood knows this is the case, if they KNOW they are incapable of writing black characters and KNOW they don’t know how to market a big-budget film with a black lead, WHY would they even TRY to make a Black Panther film?
Please be more clear about the meanings of your statements and perhaps you won’t leave yourself so open to ridicule and misinterpretation (if that is in fact the case). In the absence of you doing this, perhaps it would save you future embarrassment if you did cease your efforts in this debate.
It sounds like my efforts are slowly paying off, and you are starting to take my general statement as just that, as well as speak respectfully. I don't fear embarrassment, but I genuinely fear having to deal with people who mentally edit my statements and then make arguments against things that have not been said, especially when they use their edited version of my statements to draw conclusions about me. Facing that fear with you is something I am proud of.
On your variables, the race of the director or maybe even other parts of the cast and crew, or perhaps even just the subject matter, could play a role as well. The causes could include poor script, limited director power, decreased funding, increased executive meddling, stuff I haven't thought of, or indirectly put a filmmaker in a position to be legitimately exposed to any of these things.
The penultimate piece is removing the idea of 1 to 1 correlation. A strong correlation does not suggest "incapability," quite the opposite, in fact. The fact that, from behind the scenes, with a specific case study, the cause and effect can be crystal clear, and overcome, as it was with Django, for instance. And that was an R rated movie with a lot of negative press behind it, and it still topped all of Tarantino's other films. So that prize is something worth striving for. The potential reward matches the risk, especially since the risks can be controlled. See, the question of why they would want to make the film is pretty much moot... they've expressed that want to make the film, the challenge is overcoming those obstacles that usually result in bad films. In Marvel's case, they've said they are waiting for a great filmmaker with a strong vision to come to them with something fresh and exciting and unlike what they've done before.
