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The First Black President
(And Other Subjects Hollywood Finds Amusing)

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by Jason Roth

When is the world going to get sick of movies about black guys who "don't fit in" with "white society"?

It seems like every comedy and action movie starring a black actor since Trading Places has had a comedic theme along the lines of:

"Wouldn't it be absurd to imagine an inner-city black guy as a [Blank]?"

The poor black guy running the corporation. The smart-ass black guy trash-talking the police captain. The black guy from the ghetto getting some major damsel-in-distress ass in King Arthur's Court.

When is this shit gonna stop?

Are audiences ever going to tire of Hollywood laughing at the stereotype of the poor, underachieving black minority who Hollywood believes can never amount to anything in reality, so therefore looks completely fucking ridiculous when he's put in any kind of position of power?

Here's just a few examples from recent years:

• Black Knight stars Martin Lawrence as Jamal, a black guy who "breaks the rules" by being his usual black self while the stuffy, white Sir Lancelot-types walk around with proverbial swords up their asses.

• Down to Earth has Chris Rock as a reincarnated rich, white guy. This is basically Trading Places with the Eddie Murphy character as a corpse. Or like Heaven Can Wait, if Warren Beatty was born on 125th Street.

• Bad Company also stars Chris Rock, this time as the street-talking black guy who can't help but "keep it real" as he and the white boys from the CIA fight crime. Rock applies those wacky, unconventional "everyday black guy tactics" to situations when we anal-retentive white guys would be overly concerned with our appearance. As far as I'm concerned, there's really nothing as funny as seeing a black guy "stir shit up" at the CIA.

I bet these movies appeal as much to the KKK as they do to black audiences. It's sad that so many people can't imagine a black person performing any kind of noble activity without an assumption of irony.

It's time to stop treating black people in American society as a repressed underclass. With all the examples proving this myth wrong, the neurotic fantasies that come out of Hollywood come across as embarrassing propaganda. The difference being, of course, that propaganda seeks to change attitudes. The Hollywood garbage relies on existing prejudices.

As much as I hate to bring "the children" into any debate, here goes nothing. Imagine what's going on inside the brains of black (and white) kids, who are constantly bombarded with fictionalized black people who don't fit in, will never fit in, and the mere thought of them having positions of authority or holding any responsibility is presumed to be a joke with no questions asked. How can anyone legitimately bring up the thought of a black president, when the idea is still far more likely to be made into a Hollywood comedy starring Martin Lawrence?

Even a cartoon like Shrek follows the same old pattern, with Eddie Murphy as the voice of the jive-talking "donkey with attitude". Sure, Murphy was funny. But the movie still relies on audiences to get off on seeing the juxtaposition between the voice of the ghetto and the image of an animated Donkey in the Land of Make-Believe.

I might be crazy, but I actually think that the voice of an educated black man with proper diction can be entertaining, too. I don't need every white actor I see to talk like Biff the Hollywoodized private-school WASP, nor do I demand that the Asian ones sound like Pat Morita telling me to wax on, wax off. I actually think that people don't need to be forever tied to their "roots". They can actually be unique American men and women of independent character.

But of course, having such a character in the movies would require that Hollywood go to the trouble of creating some.

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