HEY, YOU GUYS, LET'S TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH THIS YEAR'S OSCAR NOMS SUCK!

[bookshop]

*Best Picture 2010 nominations list*
- Avatar <-- racist, imperialist white liberal guilt fantasy (everyone, native peoples, mountains, animals, trees and tree-nerve-endings, get exploited by white people, awesome!!)

- The Blind Side <-- i haven't seen this, but true story notwithstanding the trailer just me cringe. It really, really seemed

Comments

[tangledtale]

Because Whip It didn't fuck over its 2 tertiary characters of colour (in an already hugely white ensemble) with in one case, little to no screentime and in the other, an emasculating relationship, what? I mean, I love the movie but let's not pretend that it's perfect.

[tangledtale]

Ugh, okay, so I'm sorry I was so quick to be defensive there (even though I maintain that Whip It is also almost homogeneously white and the relationship between Pash and Birdman still annoys me - for reasons other than the fact that clearly Pash/Bliss are OTP) I do agree with your views on Avatar (obviously), Pixar's gender bias, and that Hollywood in general is filled with the straight white man's POV. I haven't seen Hurt Locker, A Serious Man, District 9 or Up in the Air so I can't really comment on those but I'm wondering what you mean by 'smug pretentious violent white-guy "the enemy is us" "oh no, war movie" because you apply that to both The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds which have male protag/female director and (arguably)female protag/male director respectively, so I'm puzzled as to what overarching criteria makes a film feel 'white-guy', or if it's just a case-by-case sense you get from each?

[bookshop]

I am not pretending Whip It is a perfect film, I'm not saying that at all and I hope that hasn't come across. i think it's a wonderful film because it's so anti-gendered and so antithetical to all these, what I think of as white male narratives. And it's the narrative that makes it feel like a straight white man's story to me, not the directors/actors etc. It's, imo, stories that are played out in a traditionally masculine landscape - stories of war, stories of conquest, and violence - women can participate in these stories and act them out, but the narratives themselves are narratives of conquest, power, and finding meaning in an inherently (or necessarily) violent world. those are the kind of narratives that men have been telling from before the Iliad. It's not that women don't tell/participate in those stories too, but the other narratives that women tell, faith narratives and community narratives and peace narratives, get drowned out by these male narratives of violence/dominance/conquest, over and over again. Does that

[tangledtale]

No, that makes sense. I can see what you mean about how certain narrative-types that centre on violence and conquest as its mode of conflict do hold more traction for the (largely white, largely male) Academy and maybe the critical community in general. I remember doing a class on sport once where our tutor told us that the reason Raging Bull and boxing has a primordial fascination is because it tells the story of human history - one man against another - which is probably exactly what I should have expected from a class on sport

[spaggel]

The Blind SideSo, well, huh this might be well put together but here

[bookshop]

thank you! i do not even know what to think about this. just, wow. that's quite a difference in perspective.

[spaggel]

I do suggest reading this article. It's the author of the books smaller story that was published in the New York Times. It does give you a good insite to what the story is about. It gives a quick peak into the background of it all, like Leigh Anne and her being raised in an extreme racist household.

Leigh Anne Tuohy grew up with a firm set of beliefs about black people but shed them for another - and could not tell you exactly how it happened, except to say, “I married a man who doesn’t know his own color.” Her father, a United States marshal based in Memphis, raised her to fear and loathe blacks as much as he did. The moment the courts ordered the Memphis City Schools integrated in 1973, he pulled her out of public school...

What they show in the previews and the ads for it is really, well, it does put people off. The movie itself is better.

[faith_girl222]

i really did enjoy the blind side because i thought it was a startlingly faithful (ie. in comparison to most) adaptation of the book, but there's no denying it erased a lot of the complexity the book was careful to include. i can't tell from your comment if you've read the book, but my understanding from reading it is that while he doesn't have a learning disability, the level of educational deprivation up until then ultimately presented like one in terms of how they had to accomodate his situation at school. but, iirc when they re-tested his IQ it was measurably higher than on the first testing, which just goes to show how useless IQ tests are if they only function in relation to how much education someone has been privileged enough to receive. the book also juxtaposes michael's personal experience of the journey with what it looks like from the outside, and it's really unfortunate that the movie didn't do a better job valuing that

[radiobroadcast]

ohhhh Aja I so totally do not agree with you on some of these points, especially regarding Inglourious Basterds and Up in the Air

[bookshop]

Haha, your icon looks so unimpressed. :D

Thank you, thank you for making this point. Linking to your comment if that's okay.

[radiobroadcast]

Bobby is pretty much always unimpressed!

And of course it's fine! I'm glad you're receptive to it.

[bookshop]

I've actually gotten confused and turned around in recent years because I used to consider Jewish culture non-white culture, but over the years kept seeing the reverse in discussions. I think these are actually separate problems, but it honestly never even occurred to me to read IB as revenge fantasy, and now I'm wondering why that is.

[suere]

I saw A Serious Man and loved it. I would be interested to see what anyone else who saw it thought from a critical standpoint - it is a white man's story although he is Jewish (which as the commenter above me is rightly pointing out is only recently, if at all, a "white" subset), and I thought the notions of majority/minority and otherness that were explored by virtue of being told through the perspective of a Jew in a strong Jewish community (especially in terms of a crisis of faith), were very interesting.

Certainly I think (for better or for worse) it does get let off from a lot of the criticisms one could make of these other films due to its specificity and pinpointing in an exact time and place, and its refusal to engage in a sweeping global story, at least in any kind of obvious way.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't see why you are going to see Sherlock Holmes over and over again :O

[reserve]

On a wildly less intelligent note, any movie that begins entirely in Yiddish cannot be considered "white" in the traditional, mainstream sense. Talk about asserting otherness from the git-go...

[suere]

Yes - absolutely. And I thought the opening sequence was great; I didn't know anything about the film beforehand other than it was a Coen brothers project, and from the very beginning I was like :D :D :D

(ARTICULATE!)

ramblings about movies

[merrymelody]

I love Tarantino, although his stories usually have flaws. (With women, he seems to either make them central - Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Death Proof; or else tell entire male-dominated stories - Reservoir Dogs; which personally I'd prefer to them being shoehorned in as love interests/eye candy, but ymmv

Re: ramblings about movies

[bookshop]

i am thinking about this comment. will have a real reply later after i have slept. <3 but basically, thanks, it's awesome.

Re: ramblings about movies

[arboretum]

iawtc

I didn't find d9 nearly as horrifying as people told me it was going to be

i mean it was a really horrible and uncomfortable experience! BUT. I felt that for the most part that was the intended effect. I really believed that it was the moviemaker's intention to make us go, "omfg this is horrifying. omfg die wikus you're such an asshole crying how can i be the same species as you and would i be any better of a person than you help help help HORRIFYING. omfg."

which was my reaction exactly.

Re: ramblings about movies

[ias]

I think you've made some excellent points