Hollywood Racists

Last week, we saw the biggest collection of racists in Hollywood since The Birth of a Nation, where the Klu Klux Klan rode to the rescue (reviewed by President Woodrow Wilson as "History written with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true" -- partially explaining why I hate Wilson).

The week started with the second round of bitching about Iron Fist.
For those of you who don't know who and / or what Iron Fist is, it's another Marvel property. The premise is that Danny Rand, billionaire, has the power of the Iron Fist -- the ability to focus his chi so that his body is like iron.

Obviously, someone at Marvel really likes that element. That and mercury (quicksilver).

Anyway, the entire premise is watching him deal with racism. Yes, really. He learned martial arts as a child, growing up in Asia. He was actually adopted by a Chinese leader in a Shangri La knockoff, raised to be as much of one of their own as possible. He was the outcast, the minority. He had to overcome the same obstacles of every child, compounded and made concentrated even more by being the wrong race. Handled well, it is a powerful, moving thing.

Then you have the "in" crowd bitching that it sucks that Iron Fist is white.  No, no, not that he's too white. But that he's white at all.

Yes, really.

The key paragraph?

Yes, it’s true that the comics character Iron Fist is white, and thus it is indeed technically accurate for a white guy to play the role on TV. But technical accuracy does not equate “the right thing,” for lack of a better term. Because as with so many superheroes, there is nothing about the character of Iron Fist that requires him to be played by a white person. Nothing. It is fundamental to no aspect of his personality, his origin, his powers.

I think we call that completely missing the point. In fact, not only is that missing the point, I think that's someone who googled Iron Fist, skimmed the Wiki page, and discovered nothing that said the word "race" or "racism" and decided that meant that they could go forward.

And, wait a second -- The character of Iron Fist was a nod to the Hong Kong, Wire-Fu exploitation movies of the 70s, and would pair him up with Luke Cage as a pairing with Blacksploitation films of the same period.  These schmucks would demand that the character be rewritten so that ... surprise, they can put Chinese people back in their place as martial artist characters.

Strange, I thought that making him white would remove stereotyping the character, but apparently, the good leftists would rather the stereotypes be put back into place.

However, that was completely overshadowed in the mainstream community by Nina,  It's a biopic about black singer Nina Simone. The complaint? The actress isn't black enough to play the part!

The actress?  Zoe Saldana.

So, let me get this straight: A character who is an outcast because of being white shouldn't be played by a white guy because "it has nothing to do with the character," but Saldana isn't black enough.

I'm sorry, I haven't seen this level of racial purity regulations since the Klan.

But then again, what do we expect from the party of both President Wilson and the KKK?


As the post I linked to (Gibbs-slapping this stupidity) said,

"Some of us don’t want to be racially aware. We don’t want to judge people according to their skin colour. And when Nina comes out, we will see, not a ‘half-black person’ mimicking a ‘real black person’, but a good actress doing her very best to capture the soul and life of another human being. That’s what humans do — we reach across made-up racial and cultural boundaries in an effort to understand and feel what other people feel."

Then, by the end of last week, we had what USA Today called the "movie that breaks the patriarchy" Ghostbusters....

Yes, really.

No, they weren't kidding.

Ghostbusters ... and politics.

Seriously, what are they smoking?

I liked as I went through the article that they were wonderfully contradictory.

This is their first point.

This isn't "female Ghostbusters," it's just Ghostbusters. Director Paul Feig said as much at the launch event for the trailer. "The first movie worked because it had four of the funniest people," he said. "And honestly, I just want the funniest people. And the funniest people I happen to know are these women.  It shouldn’t be about that (that they are all women). Ghostbusters are for everybody."

This is their second point.

Talk about all women all the time. The trailer is entirely composed of ladies (save for Chris Hemsworth, but more on him below) from the get-go, including the first ghost we get to see (also, great joke from Kristen Wiig just after this).

Uh ... huh.  So, let's get this right, it's sooo great that they're not "female Ghostbusters," but it's soooo great that they're "female Ghostbusters AND GHOSTS!"

First of all, the trailer ripped off the opening of the real Ghostbusters (oh yeah, which was a female ghost).

It looks like this.

Versus the original.

But the director is claiming that misogynists are hating on this film because "womyn!" Not because the effects are bad computer game-level, but because womyn!  Right.

Wow. Talk about stretching The effects are crap -- full-on, Haunted Mansion-level, overly-colorful CGI crap. This is only a step above the CGI in Spawn. I'm playing Batman: Arkham Knight and it has better graphics. I've seen cut scenes in 8-bit video games that look better than this.

And the trailer is filled with nothing but copy and paste garbage from the 70s -- "Hey, let's link name and narrow specialty because the audience is too stupid to get it otherwise." Or "Let's have someone lick their guns, because..."  Yeah, I don't even have a reason for that. That's just gross. And kinda creepy. Something I've only really seen bad guys do. The comedy is just "lowest common denominator" generic.

And of course, the punchline? They then got a large black woman to play, well, a large black woman. If you've seen this trailer, you know what I mean: screaming all the time, shrieking, and "urban" .... no, really, she's on the team because she "knows New York." And no, couldn't be a scientist, apparently.

Seriously, I haven't seen this level of racial stereotyping in decades. Old 1940s movies were more racially forward-thinking than this, even when they had Jews and Italians playing Hindus in Gunga Din.

But hey, it's unfunny, has cruddy effects, and cardboard cutouts for characters. And the subpar nature of it is "good" because once again, "Feminism!!!!!!!" takes center stage. Even though the actresses all look like complete and total freaking morons.  But claim feminism, and that apparently forgives all ills.
This is some of the most idiotic, stupid crap I've ever seen, and Hollywood has the gall to bitch about a white character in Iron Fist being played by a white actor, while at the same time trying to do purity tests on Zoe Saldana and condoning a racist stereotype in Ghostbusters because "womyn."

It's sad and distasteful to think that of all the media news of last week, that horrid train wreck of a film is the one lauded by critics, while racist hypocrites lambaste and abuse projects that seem to be of better, higher quality, all because they're not playing politics.

Dear Hollywood -- George Clooney's "smug storm" speech boasted about how Hollywood was "out of touch," and that somehow made them superior. Guess what: it makes you look like proof that evolution is reversable.