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Black Presidents in Hollywood
Comments: 0
12.Jun.08, 09:40 EDT
The other day I was standing on a rainy beach chatting with a disgruntled beach bum, and he said something profound. The guy was cradling a Bud Light in one hand and mashing a cheap cigar between his lips. He looked out at the water, as if looking for one of those go-fast boats that routinely deposit Cuban refugees on the sands of Key Biscayne, where they walk over the bridge toward Miami and pretend to have just washed up on a raft.
"It's the end of times," he said.
"What is?" I asked, sizing up the largish French bulldog sitting on his tailgate and eyeing my six-week-old baby as if he were a particularly delicious squirrel.
"Barack Obama," he replied. "If he's president, that's it for America."
I asked him what he meant by that.
"Haven't you ever noticed that, in the movies, whenever there's a black president, the world's about to end?"
Then ensued a discussion of all the fake black presidents we could remember. Let's see, Morgan Freeman in that movie about the asteroid hitting the planet. There's the guy (Dennis Haysbert) from the Allstate commercials as one of two black presidents in the terrorist-hunting series "24". Don't know if this counts, but what about that big guy with the crazy eye from the Friday movie, who was president of the galaxy in The Fifth Element?
Was Eddie Murphy a president? We couldn't remember. (No, as it turns out, but he did play a conman turned Congressman and has a hilarious bit about the first black president from his early Eighties "Delirious" tour, in which he mimicks Jesse Jackson having to duck sniper fire at each press briefing.) Chris Rock played a black president, but that movie sucked.
Right around the time Obama entered the race, NPR ran a segment on Weekend America called "Black Presidents Elected Regularly on TV, in Movies," which examined the issue.
"The joke I used to make [was] that you could only have a black president if the Earth was about to be destroyed," noted film critic Elvis Mitchell. "He would never get to complete his term."
Other media outlets, like the Jerusalem Post, have also given the question some thought, but come to a different conclusion. The article posits that perhaps Obama should watch a movie called Idiocracy, which features Luke Wilson as a dumbass woken from cryo-sleep to find that he and this similarly frozen prostitute are now the smartest people on the planet. The black president in that movie is a pro-wrestler with a penchant for machine guns. The Post feels that Obama could learn how to beat that elitist rap he's always getting.
The first movie to feature a black president is 1972's The Man, starring James Earl Jones. The plot involves Senator Jones becoming president only because one guy has a stroke and two others are killed. The character tries to establish his independence from control by either white or black interests and doesn't really get much of anywhere. It's a creature of its time, running around the same time as more powerful cinematic offerings in the blaxploitation genre.
Taken as a whole, it all seems so quaint and silly. But I'll bet if Obama becomes president, there will be those checking the night sky for meteors.
http://www.moli.com/p/blog/v2_qSO4g...UdVvixQkyFn8CIajL5otws_eSVrE5pRmyQ../NTU0Ng==
And look at this new upcoming movie starring Danny Glover!
http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/06/02/danny-glover-thandie-newton-and-oliver-platt-join-2012/
Prophecy or B.S.!?
Nevertheless very interesting!
Black Presidents in Hollywood
Comments: 0
12.Jun.08, 09:40 EDT
The other day I was standing on a rainy beach chatting with a disgruntled beach bum, and he said something profound. The guy was cradling a Bud Light in one hand and mashing a cheap cigar between his lips. He looked out at the water, as if looking for one of those go-fast boats that routinely deposit Cuban refugees on the sands of Key Biscayne, where they walk over the bridge toward Miami and pretend to have just washed up on a raft.
"It's the end of times," he said.
"What is?" I asked, sizing up the largish French bulldog sitting on his tailgate and eyeing my six-week-old baby as if he were a particularly delicious squirrel.
"Barack Obama," he replied. "If he's president, that's it for America."
I asked him what he meant by that.
"Haven't you ever noticed that, in the movies, whenever there's a black president, the world's about to end?"
Then ensued a discussion of all the fake black presidents we could remember. Let's see, Morgan Freeman in that movie about the asteroid hitting the planet. There's the guy (Dennis Haysbert) from the Allstate commercials as one of two black presidents in the terrorist-hunting series "24". Don't know if this counts, but what about that big guy with the crazy eye from the Friday movie, who was president of the galaxy in The Fifth Element?
Was Eddie Murphy a president? We couldn't remember. (No, as it turns out, but he did play a conman turned Congressman and has a hilarious bit about the first black president from his early Eighties "Delirious" tour, in which he mimicks Jesse Jackson having to duck sniper fire at each press briefing.) Chris Rock played a black president, but that movie sucked.
Right around the time Obama entered the race, NPR ran a segment on Weekend America called "Black Presidents Elected Regularly on TV, in Movies," which examined the issue.
"The joke I used to make [was] that you could only have a black president if the Earth was about to be destroyed," noted film critic Elvis Mitchell. "He would never get to complete his term."
Other media outlets, like the Jerusalem Post, have also given the question some thought, but come to a different conclusion. The article posits that perhaps Obama should watch a movie called Idiocracy, which features Luke Wilson as a dumbass woken from cryo-sleep to find that he and this similarly frozen prostitute are now the smartest people on the planet. The black president in that movie is a pro-wrestler with a penchant for machine guns. The Post feels that Obama could learn how to beat that elitist rap he's always getting.
The first movie to feature a black president is 1972's The Man, starring James Earl Jones. The plot involves Senator Jones becoming president only because one guy has a stroke and two others are killed. The character tries to establish his independence from control by either white or black interests and doesn't really get much of anywhere. It's a creature of its time, running around the same time as more powerful cinematic offerings in the blaxploitation genre.
Taken as a whole, it all seems so quaint and silly. But I'll bet if Obama becomes president, there will be those checking the night sky for meteors.
http://www.moli.com/p/blog/v2_qSO4g...UdVvixQkyFn8CIajL5otws_eSVrE5pRmyQ../NTU0Ng==
And look at this new upcoming movie starring Danny Glover!
http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/06/02/danny-glover-thandie-newton-and-oliver-platt-join-2012/
Prophecy or B.S.!?
Nevertheless very interesting!
That's actually an interesting perspective.
t:
