Seriously, do the authors really need to tell us every time they are using words or phrases that they are attributing to the popular vernacular and not to themselves? Would any educated reader really believe that Stephanie Greco Larson came up with or would intentionally use the phrase "appear raceless" without the proper cultural context?
Also, like Lexi, I took issue with several examples Larson used. While I agree with the idea that large numbers of roles being shoehorned into stereotypical crap is bad, the author trying to shoehorn popular movies into categories they don't fit in is destructive to her argument. The two main ones I take issue with are her painting of The Bodyguard as bad because it ignores the racial issues of the relationship in the movie, and her criticism of Men in Black as being a Huck Finn-esque buddy movie. Really?
So every movie featuring a minority must become a commentary on their minority status or else it's not a valid film in Larson's eyes? Isn't that a pretty immense burden to place on entertainment?
Modern literary publishing is undergoing a big shift in thinking about equality in their writing, but the way they have gone about it is much different than this article. Recently VIDA (http://www.vidaweb.org/) made a comprehensive study of all book reviews published in 2012. They harvested the gender of the reviewer and the gender of the reviewee, and the results were pretty dismal. This has caused a lot of good discussion, including a male book reviewer who is pledging to do better. And I feel this approach is a much better one than Larson's blanket critiquing of individual works - show us the numbers, show us how insane it is. Because it is insane, but insulting Whitney Houston's work is not winning me over here!
I'm curious what the future of racism, especially in the movies, will look like as we move into a more mixed society. After all, if my wife and I have children, they will be both White and Hispanic, just as our president is both Black and White. Right now, we still shoehorn people of multiple ethnicities into whatever best suits us for the occasion (OH GOD SHOULD I PUT THAT IN QUOTES TO SHOW I DON'T REALLY THINK THAT?) but as the numbers become overwhelming, won't that have to change? I hope? Can we look at advertising, where women are airbrushed and made up to be generically ethnic, and that's the new thing to attain?
Speaking of my wife, reading this reminded me of an experience I had with her last year, when we went to a Spanish Mass at a local Catholic church when her mother was in town. Inside, I was one of maybe a dozen people who were obviously White, in a crowd of at least 200 (note, three of the others had parts in the Mass, out of five total). Yet, on the mural on the wall, in the painting of what heaven looks like, every single face up there was definitively European, definitively White. What does that say? Is it pointless to critique media when it's ingrained to that point in our culture?
That picture is actually from their site.
In the African American section, I'm surprised they left out the role of the "Magic Negro" that's all-present in film. See this list - Bagger Vance, Green Mile, O Brother Where Art Thou, Bruce Almighty. Also, holy crap, Fresh Prince is racist. There's a really good write-up out there about how racist it is, especially in regards to Will's mother, but I can't find it. Take my word for it.
In the Native American section, I found it HILARIOUS that Larson identifies Sherman Alexie SOLELY as "a Spokane" when talking about his role in Smoke Signals. It's not the like man wasn't a world-famous author with multiple best sellers or awards before then, no, instead she felt the need to zero in solely on his race as a measure of his contribution to the film. Both should've been listed.
Finally, for the Asian American section, it was the only section where I basically couldn't think of an example outside of the stereotypes presented in the chapter. It was amusing to think of the one Asian character from Twin Peaks though, a lady who basically alternates between the two roles Larson describes.
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