Tempy wrote:Tin, do you reckon kid's exposure to. ore diverse and female created cartoons and shows means WW is less of a deal for them? I ask because lots of ladies I know around the 21-28 age group liked it a lot, but only a few of them are looking at cartoons or comics in their day to day entertainment. Kids media tends to handle inclusivity and diversity much better on the whole. As with Black Panther, its status is almost more important than its quality. I've not seen Moonlight or BP, but i'd argue the fifth largest opening weekend ever makes BP as important as Moonlight, regardless of quality. Plus Coogler has already done two excellent films that are focused on black people, so I'm down for Panther whenever I can manage it.
monkey wrote:Cue DCs Cyborg movie flopping and a million ‘Is diversity in films dead?’ think pieces.
tin_robot wrote:I don't have a handle on whether it's a film that's really any old white guy superhero movie just with a black cast, or a film that explores and is sensitive to themes that would only ever work with a black cast. If you see the distinction? Is this a film that will inspire black kids, and girls, because it resonates with them - or is it another film that plays to white male fantasies, whilst allowing us to think we're doing better because of "representation"? I fear I can't meaningfully comment on the first and am likely at least partially blind to the second.
Also nailedTempy wrote:Grief is universal, blackness is not.
JRPC wrote:tin_robot wrote:I don't have a handle on whether it's a film that's really any old white guy superhero movie just with a black cast, or a film that explores and is sensitive to themes that would only ever work with a black cast. If you see the distinction? Is this a film that will inspire black kids, and girls, because it resonates with them - or is it another film that plays to white male fantasies, whilst allowing us to think we're doing better because of "representation"? I fear I can't meaningfully comment on the first and am likely at least partially blind to the second.
But I think you totally can get a handle on that if you’re paying enough attention. Now I have been paying attention to BP (because I’m a nerd), and feel pretty confident that it’s the latter. This is from someone as white and middle class as they come (my main regret in emigrating to Australia has been the loss of Waitrose).
I think we probably are a bit blind in the ways you mention, but no more than any other scenario in which we don't have a first-hand lived experience.
Could you not meaningfully relate to a film about grief because your own family is alive and well? Maybe not fully, but well enough to get an idea about how sensitive it is to those themes. Plus, I doubt you'd ever feel the need to voice those limitations in quite the same way.
Why is this different with race or gender?
I don't think it probably is.
Just thinking out loud.
I'm possibly a bit ranty here and on my high-horse about this because I'm still riled up from a podcast I listened to the other day where Russel Brand declined to condemn generations of Afghani women being forced to live in bags for similar reasons. Who are we as middle-class white men to have an opinion really?
Can’t stand Russel Brand.
tin_robot wrote:I'm suggesting that I don't really know whether BP represents "the black experience" (I hate that phrase, but seems the quickest way to express what I'm getting at)
JRPC wrote:If your view of how the world works prevents you from condemning the way the Taliban treats it's women then there's something seriously fucking wrong there.
If you listen to the whole thing his position is clear and clearly deluded.
He bangs on endlessly about the need for more love and compassion towards our fellow human beings but couldn't muster much of the same for the most subjugated and abused people on the planet.
Cultural relativistic nonsense. And deeply harmful nonsense at that.
Escape wrote:Just further to what I wrote up there, I wouldn't change anything about Black Panther out of my disdain for rich whites profiting from it. I've seen those clips of excited black kids and they're great, and the idea of an African society in a sky city (presuming that's where they live) is a cool one. I also imagine that lots of African-American academics would be against the potentially stereotypical adoption of their accents over the current ones. Anti-colonialism's the right move for me.
But I do agree with that petition because I feel that Disney should pay forward some of their ludicrous gains to black causes.
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