Stare At The Sun

Alright, so, I recently got to thinking, in a lot of action movies, there seems to be a common theme, or underlying theme.

Take for example the two most infamous action series ever made.

Die Hard and Lethal Weapon. Both of these movies featured white racists, and had a lot of underlying vibe's of how evil white people are.
Die hard one- Main bad guy, German, Neo-Nazi type
Die hard Three- His brother

Lethal weapon 2- Neo nazi south american folk.

Now, those are the obvious ones, some of the less obvious fuck whitey messages comes in various ways. Perhaps i'm looking to closely, but take the matrix, reloaded/revolutions. In both of them, the majority of the people in Zion were not white, and they were the worlds "last hope".

Also, the movie Strange Days had a huge and blatently stated anti white message.

Varsity blues had a coach that just hated black people.

Other movies like "Falling down" offer mixed and skewed views.

There are other movies, like one I remember watching a long time ago, called "white mans burden". However, i think flicks like that are usually the exception to the rule.

All in all, its not in every movie, but more and more, it seems like if there isn't some sort of anti-white message, or racist bigot, then a lot of minorites get pissy.

Take LOTR for example, some people actually got pissed off because there were no black actors in it...

Anyways, I'm just wondering, does anyone else see this happening more and more? Just a lot of racism portrayed from all angles in the movies?

Personally, i'm just sick and tired of Hollywood playing the "white racist" card to make someone out to be a bad guy. Make him a sociopath that is powerhungry and greedy as Donald trump.

Basically, to end my rant, I just wish they would drop the with the making every badguy a Neo-nazi/KKK member,and get back to just making them bad guys instead.

Side note- I predict that in a few years, the bad guys will go from being anti white, to anti arab...just to try and be PC, etc

So discuss!

Kadath

Neo-nazis were the standard villain for a while, just like Russians and original Germans and so forth. If you want a pretty fair barometer of movie stereotypes just look at the Bond movies. "Tomorrow Never Dies" had a power-hungry villain.

I'm sorry, but I don't grant your premise. You listed one out of the four Lethal Weapons as having the "racist white guy" villain, and two of the three Die Hards. That's less than half of the total pictures. Strange Days was frankly awful and I really don't see the blatantly anti-white message, and Falling Down's view was not "skewed" unless you think white people can never snap and go on killing sprees. Finally, the skin color of Zion makes sense if you imagine that the population of the earth has been severely depleted and the survivors have been forced together instead of separated by borders. To quote "Fear of a Black Planet" "White man, black woman: black baby. Black man, white woman, black baby."

So, no, I don't see it happening all that much. Neo-nazis are a safe villain type -- no one will complain. Arabs are already cropping up as villains; see True Lies for a really offensive portrayal of stupid and evil Arabs. If you were of Russian descent you would have been complaining about this for 4 decades -- it is just Whitey's time to burn.

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Kostya

Well, I hate people, and so I guess the fuck whitey message fits into that, but then again, I hate all people equally, so it's uncool...

Then again, what about all the badass miority villains? Hmmmmm

Pachanga - The Man with the Golden Gun

That guy in Live and Let Die

The Rock - had a nice racial spread in the bad guy division, but all the good guys were white dudes.

I mean, frankly, I doubt the people who make action movies think about the political messages they send anyway, except in Robocop, that movie was mad.

Anyway, I end as I always do on race threads with good old Frank B. Livingstone - 'There are no races there are only clines.'

Bill O'Rights

It happens. But I don't think that it happens often enough to be called anything close to a trend. At least the racists are portrayed as villains. That alone should send a positive message. Although things are getting much much better all the time, racism does still exist. Why not portray it as "evil"?

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Charlatan

I don't buy this premise at all...

Kadath had nailed it as far as I can see... Pretty much anyone can agree that Neo-Nazi's are a safe villian.

Some notes:

Die Hard 1... a vaguely Germanic named but English accented "white" guy does not a neo-nazi make. He was a theif not a political terrorist... in fact he had a black safe cracker on his team. Hardly a neo-nazi

Leathal Weapon 2: The villians were Aparthied supporting South Africans... at the time it Racist South Africans were an agreeable target. Very few people in America would object.


Stare at the Sun... I think you are way over analyzing this "apparent" trend.

Hollywood likes to have villains that are easy to identify and usually rather one-dimensional. Posters have indicated the evil soviets in the Bond series... Who are Bond's enemies now? Media moguls, running amok, former cold-warriors that want to see the cold war continue, in the latest film... North Korea. They would have used Iraq but to close to reality perhaps.

In short they look at cotemporary culture for indication about who is easy to villify. Pretty much everyone can agree that racism is bad and hence racists are bad.

I suppose we could make things simpler and just go with giving the villain a black hat.

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Moobie

And on the flipside if you remember from Die Hard 3 Samuel L. Jackson's character Zeus was a racist. He hated white people. Heheh and that was funny. It's the movie maker's job to be able to convey as much information about a character to the audience as quickly as possible. The easiest way to do that is to use archetypes and generalizations. If the audience is supposed to hate someone the easiest way to do that is to make them iconically evil. Does it bother anyone that if you slap a goatee on someone they're automatically evil. I don't hear anyone goatee clad people complaining about being stereotyped.

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KnifeMissile

First, I would like to make a small criticism on your composition style and say that it would have been really nice if you had stated your point before offering your evidence. As it is, I actually can't make out exactly what you're trying to say. It's also good to conclude with your point but, in my opinion, it's more important to state it first so that I can see why you're bringing up the evidence that you are and how that evidence is relevant.

Secondly, I think we can all agree that Die Hard and Lethal Weapon are famous but why do you say that they are infamous?

Again, I'm not exactly sure what your point is. Is it that there is a new trend of white antagonists in movies today? Or that it is a trend of white racist antagonists? If so then isn't it a little weird that all the movies you stated had white protagonists? I mean, the villain may be white but so is the hero, so what's the problem? It's hard to see any "anti white" messages here...

Mr. Mojo

The most recent "hate whitey" movie has to be <b>The Sum Of All Fears</b>
If anyone read the book, the bad guys are Arabs. But for the movie it was changed to Neo-Nazies so not to offend Arabs. Ask yourself, in today's world who would be a more believable threat?

Their are peaceful arabs who just want to get along with everyone, and then there are the evil fucks who should die. Why is ok to have White Nazis but not Evil Islamofacks?

Just another observation: Ever notice in movies with courtrooms, the opposing lawyer is almost always white. And the judge, if he's going to be against the star of the movie, is white. the bonus is that white judge is overturned by a black judge or a woman judge later in the movie. that crap "Bicentennial Man" is a great example of this.

It seems like old white men are great to use as evil bad guys who are afraid of change.


I ain't never seen no Brother on the Death Star!

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Stare At The Sun

Nice points.

Kostya

Whoa whoa whoa...

Lando Motherfucking Calrisian totally fucked UP the Death Star!

Moobie

Oh come on man, that was totally Wedge all the way.

Hehheh.

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Kadath

I think we're sufficiently off topic now. Stare At The Sun, way to acknowledge the only post that agreed with you.

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Charlatan

I think I sense another trend...

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...ghlight=HITLER

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Stare At The Sun

Ohhhh yes, make assumptions charlatan. You know me so well by the topics i choose to start on a forum. All I said is hollywood needs to get a new badguy scheme going on, and you jump my ass.

Meh, think what you will. I'm a democrat, and a huge civil rights advocate, however, I loathe discrimination in any form.

I still back up my comments on the Hitler thread. and I still backup my comments here. Holywood is unoriginal, and needs to get a new type of badguy, or just make a badguy that makes sense for the story, not some typical cop out.

Oh, and I watched "Bulletproof monk" yesterday, main nemisis, you guessed it, a Nazi. Freaking great.

KnifeMissile

Are you saying that Democrats and civil rights advocates don't "loathe discrimination"? Are you trying to say that they support discrimination? If not then I suggest you look up the meaning of the word "however"...

Stare At The Sun

^ What i'm trying to say is that i loathe discrimination against all. Affirmative Action, something democrates seem to love, is discrimination. I think everyone should be EQUAL. nothing more.

Also, the point i'm trying to make is that i'm not a KKK member, a backwater hick, or some ignorant republican that hates black people.

And yes, to confirm what you said Knifemissle, democrates do support discrimination, as Affirmative action is such, against white people, and males.

Moobie

I think the big question is whether "life imitates art" or "art imitates life".

Movies are a limited medium. You have maybe two hours to tell a story to the widest audience possible. In order to do that you have make concessions with reality and use tricks of the storytelling trade. Unlike in a book where you can spend as much time as you want exploring every aspect of a character, in movies you're limited by what you can show the audience visually. There's only so much exposition you can have in a movie before you lose the audience.

Also you realize the movies that we're talking about here are predominantly action movies. What's to be expected? The iconic characters in these movies are meant to be that way. It heralds back to the days of the Lone Ranger, the old westerns where the guy with the black hat was the bad guy. I'm sure it goes back the beginning of storytelling but that was the best reference I could think of.

Yes there is discrimination in the world. No it's not fair. In my opinion there's no such thing as reverse discrimination, there's just discrimination. Plain and simple. But what you're asking for in movies is some sort of Affirmative Action, or quota system for bad guys.

"If Lethal Weapon 1 had an evil white guy in it, then Lethal Weapon 2 has to have an evil black guy in it. And number three has to have an evil Chinese guy in it. Ah crap, all our villains are men...." See? It doesn't work.

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Charlatan

I don't know you at all... I am simply pointing out that your interests seem to have a common theme. No judgments made (OK the rolling eyes may be judgemental).


What ever gave you the idea that Hollywood should be original? They make mainstream films that cater to a wide audience. I remember reading the memoirs of an early filmmaker and he pointed out that when introducing a villain in film it is important to be clear with your audience that some one is evil (or bad). In literature you can spend time exploring the inner workings of both your antagonist and protagonist. You can deal more readily in shades of grey.

His solution to translating this to the film medium, which mostly deals in black and white achetypes, was to have his villian kick a dog within the first few minutes of his first appearance on screen. It made it crystal clear that he was the bad guy.


Hollywood, while a tad more sophisitcated these days, still follows the same premise. Being a Nazi is indefensible. Nazi = evil. There is no disputing that unless you are a Nazi. Add to this that there are few organizations left (i.e. no more commies) that would neccessarily be looking for world domination (a common plot in Bond films, for example).

Yes, you could use Musilms but there has been a lot of criticism of late that we should take steps not to demonize them any further than they already have been. This is clearly politicized. Not long ago. as was pointed out above, True Lies used Arab Muslims in this role... it would not happen today. Given time there will be opportunity to use either Taliban or Al-Qaeda as villians but it is a bit close to home in the shadow of 9/11... people don't want their villians to be *that* true to life.

You can use aliens but that only works in sci-fi.

The problem with common everyday villians is that they are often too small in scope for the plot in question. A bank theif only wants to steal money, and while this can drive a plot like Die Hard, the fact that he was just a bank robber and not a terrorist as first assumed, was a clever plot twist.

What would be interesting is if you were to take a poll of all the films released by major studios over the last 10 to 20 years and make a study of villian achetypes. You would then have something to truly back up your assertion that "Fuck Whitey" is trend...

The truth of the matter is that the vast majority of heroes are white and male... why is there no representation of other races and genders on the protagonist side of the equation?

Don't blame Hollywood. Blame those who continue to shell of big money at the boxoffice. If they were shelling out the $$ for exciting foriegn films and independant productions where there heroes and villians were more complex you would see a change in trends.

Until that happends the forecast calls for more big budget sameness.

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Moobie

Yeah, what he said.

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Obscenity is the crutch of inarticulate motherfuckers.

We like money. Give us your money you stupid consumer whore.