Brazilian fantasy action flick Besouro available to watch at this link

If you need a reminder… the story goes… As essentially an action movie set in 1920s Bahia, and based on the life of a legendary capoeirista from Bahia who uses the power of Candomble to fight the harsh conditions which, even post-abolition, the black population endured in Brazil, Besouro, tells the fantastic story of a young Afro-Brazilian man who became a symbol throughout all of Bahia for his bravery and loyalty, in defending the persecuted and oppressed.Watch Besouro now

Via the same blog Shadow and Act comes news of this webseries OSIRIS

“OSIRIS” Series Teaser Trailer (HD 1080p)

“Osiris” is a new 10-episode action/thriller Web Series featuring mystery, espionage and gritty crime fiction. The series follows the title character “Osiris”, a man with an eternally extended warranty on life. He can never stay dead. If killed, he resurrects in EXACTLY 37 minutes, every time. Each episode features a jaw dropping cliffhanger in the vein of classic shows like True Blood, Lost and 24!

They got vlogsPart One: Introduction, Part Two: Influences, Part Three: Casting, Part Four: Questions

And: xposted from racebending

Future states tv has a web series in which people make short films based on what they think the US will be like in the future. Tons of poc as actors AND directors.

From Season Two:

Digital Antiquities Directed by JP Chan

By 2036, data loss has become a thing of the past. All digital media is instantly uploaded to the internet and permanently stored in the cloud, safely backed-up on servers scattered around the world. Only a handful of small businesses in the world have the expertise to recover data from pre-cloud devices. On a hot summer day, a young man named Kai visits Digital Antiquities, a store in eastern Pennsylvania specializing in data recovery and sales of vintage electronics. He shows Cat, the store’s only employee, an old compact disc left to him from his deceased mother and asks her to recover its contents. Will Cat help him find a working CD reader? And what will they discover among the contents of the disc?

Spring of Sorrow Directed by Suzi Yoonessi

Sisters Lily and Isabelle live a nomadic life, displaced by global warming. Trapped in the desert in the midst of a water shortage, Isabelle offers hope to her younger sister by telling a whimsical fairytale that allegorically explains how this tragic world came to be. When Isabelle falls ill, Lily embarks on an imaginative journey in a magical paper cut-out forest to find the mythical Spring of Sorrow, an everlasting spring of fresh water. Along the way, she forges a friendship with an eccentric florist, creates flowers and animals, and learns a valuable lesson about environmental responsibility.

Beholder by Nisha Ganitra

Beholder takes place in the biosphere-protected Red Estates, a gated community with a socially conservative political majority. At a clinic where patients can genetically engineer their children, Sasha, the wife of rising political star Bobby Aryana, is informed that her baby carries the genetic marker for homosexuality. By the laws of Red Estates, this is an aberration that must be dealt with immediately, and Sasha must decide between staying faithful to the love of her life or risking everything. Touching on issues of race, sexual orientation, and conformity, Beholder examines the notion of identity and the costs of belonging.

That Which Once Was Kimi Takescue

In the year 2032, Vicente, an 8-year-old Caribbean boy, has been displaced by global warming and fends for himself as an environmental refugee in a hostile Northern metropolis. Orphaned and without connection to family or friends, Vicente now lives in a children’s shelter on the fringes of the city, and struggles with anxiety, rage, and disturbing memories of the tragedy he fled. On a hot summer day, Vicente sits outside the shelter and sees a mysterious man smashing large chunks of ice against the pavement. Thus begins an unexpected friendship between Vicente and Siku, the ice carver: two people from different worlds who have both experienced tremendous loss. Through their bond, Siku ultimately helps Vicente confront his past and understand the value of memory.

Remigration Directed by Barry Jenkins

Upon returning to their countryside cabin one day, Kaya, his wife Helen, and their daughter Naomi are confronted by two suited men: representatives of the San Francisco Remigration Program. The men explain that San Francisco is now occupied entirely by the wealthy class. But stoplights still burn out and trains occasionally jump their rails. Blue-collar labor isn’t obsolete, but it’s scarce. The city has created a program to “remigrate” long-gone working class families from their inland homes back to the city that once pushed them out. Kaya, Helen, and Naomi return to San Francisco and join a handful of other potential remigrants for a tour of what can be expected in their new lives. But can they learn to trust their old home once again?

White Directed by Sayeeda Clarke

It’s another 120-degree day with five more days to Christmas and hot is the only season left in New York City. Global warming has accelerated and the sun has become a tangible threat to survival. Bato and his wife Gina are expecting a baby, but they weren’t expecting it so early. Although they planned to have the baby at home, Gina now requires the services of a clinic for the premature delivery. With no money for the clinic, Bato enters into a race against the sun, the birth, his community, and even his own identity to save his family as he is forced to sell the new currency of this world.

Worker drone Directed by Sharat Rajue

Rahul’s days blend together. GlobeCom India, his employer, specializes in remote systems operation. When Rahul leaves his dungeon-like GlobeCom office, he goes to his dungeon-like living quarters in Technology City. But things change when an American contractor announces a new partnership with GlobeCom — Planet Dogstar, a massive multi-player online flying combat simulator where players shoot down targets on an alien planet. GlobeCom is hired to operate and manage the game. To decide who will lead and manage the operation, the company organizes an office showdown: whoever shoots down the most targets wins the promotion as well as a one-week furlough to leave Technology City. Can Rahul beat his coworkers to win the game?

Exposure By Mia Trachinger

Roxanne is a government agent who works as a live body contagion to immunize urban populations. Jesse is an anti-contagion activist, whose office is breeched by Roxanne’s team. Led by Roxanne, the contagions try to contain the workers inside the building, chasing them down in an attempt to mass-inoculate, while Jesse, caught in a cycle of fear and illness, soon learns that there are no easy answers.

And of course go watch the other two: Asparagus which has gorgeous cinematography, and Dig and then when you are done, go check the First Season and watch all of those too!

So there you are! Cool stuff to watch all over the place!

Entertain us!!! -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Tyler Perry’s little outburst at Spike Lee has shown up so many times in my newsfeed that I finally broke down and read about the press conference and then this letter he posted on his website called “They Are Trying To Kill Madea!”¹

My first thought: Well, I certainly hope so.

But, you know, I don’t want to be a “hater” or anything, so I actually read the whole thing. Most of it is just whining about how folks out there are trying to stop his audience from seeing his movies by going on and on about how they’re terribly written, misogynistic, crap² instead of seeing what’s good in the movies. To wit:

They don’t get the spiritual side of this, they don’t get the folks that not only laugh, but also get something out of it that they can use to make their lives better. They don’t get that this is about more than making a movie and telling a funny story. They don’t get that it’s about uplifting and encouraging the soul.

Really, Tyler Perry? Is that what your movies are about? You could have fooled me, because from the small sliver I’ve seen in passing or been forced to watch by my family members (who have unfortunate bad taste), I haven’t seen much that’s spiritually uplifting or been imparted any wisdom that might make my life better. Perhaps it’s because I have not sat down and watched any of these films in full that I’m not experiencing the full effects.

Perry is on a serious “poor, poor me” trip right now, which is surprising since his newest movie just hit theaters and I haven’t seen any inkling of his next movie not getting made because of the world’s haters. I would have a lot of empathy for his sensitive artist bit — being one myself — if I didn’t have the impression that his movies aren’t just bad, they are bad for you. Not just You in general, but for the American black community as a whole.

But again, I havn’t watched them all. Maybe it’s time I did.

Thus The Angry Black Woman’s Tyler Perry Project:

I will watch every movie made by this man in an attempt to offer critical analysis based on actual experience and viewing. As I watch each, I’ll liveblog it, then I’ll write up my thoughts after it’s over and I’ve had time to settle. The movies on my list:

• Diary of a Mad Black Woman
• Madea’s Family Reunion
• Daddy’s Little Girls
• Why Did I Get Married?
• Meet the Browns
• The Family That Preys
• Madea Goes to Jail
• I Can Do Bad All by Myself
• Why Did I Get Married Too?
• For Colored Girls

I just added all of these to my Netflix queue³ — oddly, only Madea Goes to Jail and I Can Do Bad All by Myself are available for instant viewing. As I’m on 1 DVD at a time right now this might take a while, but I plan to start with Diary of a Mad Black Woman this coming weekend. If you all would like to join me in this endeavor and maybe hang out in a chat room all watching the movie together, let me know in the comments. As it is, I’ll let you know when I plan to watch each movie so you can bring the popcorn.

ABW’s The Tyler Perry Project -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Footnotes

1. The second link goes to a text-only version of the message. In the full website view, you can’t link directly because it’s a Flash-based website. Siderant: How is it that Tyler Perry is this successful and still has a website from 1996? This shit is terrible. Just because you came from the ghetto doesn’t mean your digital home has to still be one.
2. At least, this is the impression I get from the critical analysis I read
3. And now my recommendations are messed up forever.

So apparently this month is LGBT Pride Month. I therefore snagged this from ontd political which gives the info that it was first put together by students of Earlham College and then link-enhanced by the current poster. Do I need to mention the part where ‘phobic assholes of any kind will be summarily deleted and banned? Oh who am I kidding? Homophobic, transphobic, any ‘phobic assholes of any kind will have their comments summarily deleted and be considered for banning depending on the severity of the offense. That having been said…on with the show.

I can be pretty sure that my roomate, hallmates and classmates will be comfortable with my sexual orientation. (Example: “Gay bulling in schools ‘common’” – BBC | Campus Climate for LGs – The Task Force).

If I pick up a magazine, watch TV, or play music, I can be certain my sexual orientation will be represented. (Example: More gay characters on TV now than before – Variety | LGBT Character Shows May Lose Tax Credit – SD G&L News).

03. When I talk about my heterosexuality (such as in a joke or talking about my relationships), I will not be accused of pushing my sexual orientation onto others.

04. I do not have to fear that if my family or friends find out about my sexual orientation there will be economic, emotional, physical or psychological consequences. (Example: PFLAG Rejection Statistics – PFLAG)

05. I did not grow up with games that attack my sexual orientation (IE fag tag or smear the queer). (Example: From Bullies to Heroes: Homophobia in Video Games – Student Pulse.)

06. I am not accused of being abused, warped or psychologically confused because of my sexual orientation. (Example: “Camp that ‘cures’ homosexuality” – Times Online.)

07. I can go home from most meetings, classes, and conversations without feeling excluded, fearful, attacked, isolated, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, stereotyped or feared because of my sexual orientation. (Constance McMillen Wanted to Take Her Girlfriend to the Prom, So the School Board Canceled it – CBS News.) It’s also worth noting that CBS probably chose the worst picture of her to pair with that article. It’s hard to say if that was motivated or not.

08. I am never asked to speak for everyone who is heterosexual.

09. I can be sure that my classes will require curricular materials that testify to the existence of people with my sexual orientation. (Example: Banning Gay Books – Alternet).

10. People don’t ask why I made my choice of sexual orientation.

11. People don’t ask why I made my choice to be public about my sexual orientation.

12. I do not have to fear revealing my sexual orientation to friends or family. It’s assumed.

13. My sexual orientation was never associated with a closet.

14. People of my gender do not try to convince me to change my sexual orientation.

15. I don’t have to defend my heterosexuality.

16. I can easily find a religious community that will not exclude me for being heterosexual. (Example: Homosexuality and Religion – Religion Facts).

17. I can count on finding a therapist or doctor willing and able to talk about my sexuality. (Example: Rekers and the Barbarism of Anti-Gay Therapy.)

18. I am guaranteed to find sex education literature for couples with my sexual orientation.

19. Because of my sexual orientation, I do not need to worry that people will harass me. (Largest Ever Study on Anti-LGBT Harassement – GLSEN).

20. I have no need to qualify my straight identity.

21. My masculinity/femininity is not challenged because of my sexual orientation. (Examples: Are Gay Stereotypes true? – ABC).

22. I am not identified by my sexual orientation.

23. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help my sexual orientation will not work against me. (Example: ‘Doctor Shock’ – Huffington Post.)

24. If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has sexual orientation overtones.

25. Whether I rent or I go to a theater, Blockbuster, an EFS or TOFS movie, I can be sure I will not have trouble finding my sexual orientation represented. (Example: Before ‘Bruno’: A brief history of gay characters in movies and TV – NY Daily News).

26. I am guaranteed to find people of my sexual orientation represented in the Earlham curriculum, faculty, and administration.

27. I can walk in public with my significant other and not have people double-take or stare. (Example: Kiss Off: A gay couple cited for holding hands on Main Street Plaza – Salt Lake City Weekly).

28. I can choose to not think politically about my sexual orientation.

29. I do not have to worry about telling my roommate about my sexuality. It is assumed I am a heterosexual.

31. I can remain oblivious of the language and culture of LGBTQ folk without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.

32. I can go for months without being called straight. (I suppose this depends on where you are and who your friends are.)

33. I’m not grouped because of my sexual orientation.

34. My individual behavior does not reflect on people who identity as heterosexual.

35. In everyday conversation, the language my friends and I use generally assumes my sexual orientation. For example, sex inappropriately referring to only heterosexual sex or family meaning heterosexual relationships with kids.

35. People do not assume I am experienced in sex (or that I even have it!) merely because of my sexual orientation. (Example: GLBT Stereotypes – GLBT Social Sciences).

36. I can kiss a person of the opposite gender on the heart or in the cafeteria without being watched and stared at. (Example: Is Main Street USA Ready For Gay PDA – ABC News).

37. Nobody calls me straight with maliciousness. (Example: John Mayer’s Apology Wanted for Use of Gay Slur – Aceshowbiz).

38. People can use terms that describe my sexual orientation and mean positive things (IE “straight as an arrow”, “standing up straight” or “straightened out”) instead of demeaning terms (IE “ewww, that’s gay” or being “queer”).

39. I am not asked to think about why I am straight.

40. I can be open about my sexual orientation without worrying about my job. (Example: Bias in the Workplace: Consistant Evidence of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination [.doc download] – UCLA).”

Can you add more?

Linkspam: Unpacking the invisible knapsack Straight privilege edition -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

The Linkmistress would like to interrupt her regular linkspams to bring you an actual blog. With words. As usual, civility is requested and will be enforced. Iron fist, velvet glove etc.

crossposted. The following critique is based on the media I have consumed and the experiences I have had. Feel free to rec media in which the things I am complaining about have been fixed. Except that Pullman fellow. I tried. I tried. But.

Pharyngula is linked to my old blog, and thus, when I go over there, I sometimes check his feed. I say sometimes, because the writer thereof is like many white middleclass atheists in that FAIL! on race issues, and the difference in scale between religions affected by the past how many hundreds of years of colonialism and Christianity is constant and unremitting (and the comment section is WORSE.) This post however Letting go of gods is a reason for joy…like being free of prison, sparked an annoyed rant that I had been turning over in my mind for a very long time.

I am an atheist. A black atheist at that. And I am HAPPY AND FULFILLED ABOUT THIS. I do NOT run around wistfully gazing after religious people, feeling sad that I am missing out on the experience of faith. Nor do I run around feeling nihilistic and angry at the world because there is no God and therefore LIFE ON EARTH HAS NO MEANING !!!!!!!!!!!!! And I sure as hell do not run about committing crimes and hurting people left, right and center because God isn’t in my life. I have ethics. And morals even. And NO that it NOT because God is in my life and I don’t know it, WHAT!!! Hell I formed my ideas of ethics and morals in direct opposition to some of the things in the Christian Bible (fer instance, the idea of a god sending his people to go kill people and take their possessions reminds me of European colonialism and is WRONG WRONG WRONG in my ethical universe. Women are intelligent and sensible and should therefore have been in on the equal human rights from the beginning of time, no excuses. In fact, in my ethical universe, strict instructions about the equality of EVERYONE from transpeople to disabled people to poc to people with alternate sexualities to people in different classes to anyone who has a mix of these identities, plus anyone else who might have been left out of this list would be MY FIRST FREAKING COMMANDMENT. And that’s just the beginning.)

I am SICK AND TIRED of encountering those tropes in most of the tv, movies and books which even deign to acknowledge the fact that people who don’t believe in gods exist in the first place. Almost every black movie and tv show or book mentions God somewhere. If a character does not believe in God, the person is taught a firm lesson, which is usually accompanied by humiliation of some sort, so as to bring them back into line (praise ye the Lord!!) For white characters in tv shows, more latitude is given in that there are atheist characters, but we end up with people like House, or atheists who are made to accept that the fact that someone has faith makes them a better person. (I think I have seen that dynamic in Bones but I may be wrong. Anyone watch the show and can clarify?) Which. It doesn’t. It makes you a different person. Good for you. But my lack of faith is just as good as your abundance of it and gives you no moral cookies over me, kthx.

So. I want proudly atheist characters who are happy about it in my media. Minorities of every kind, even. Because we exist. And our stories deserve to be respectfully told.

The myth of atheists being “less” than religious people -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Personal disclosure: this guy is my first cousin. Which in no way invalidates what I’m saying below.

OK, so like many of you I’ve done my share of “diversity workshops”. Which were mostly, I have to admit, pretty good — generally because they were long enough (several days) to dig deep; hands-on and interactive; integrated into everyday practice thereafter; and run by extremely patient/knowledgeable workshop facilitators. This is one of the benefits of working in education versus the corporate world; most educators don’t expect to tackle a complex and emotional subject in a quick soundbyte.

That said, I have done some diversity workshops that reached fathomless depths of assitude. There was the one run by a very young, white, self-identified heterosexual and Christian, visibly anxious facilitator who gave me a blank look when I asked a question about privilege. (I didn’t bother asking any more questions after that; spent the rest of the session working on a short story.) There was also the one in which, after a fellow black woman shared a painful and powerful anecdote about being on the receiving end of some blatantly racist treatment as a college student, a white female participant shared her feelings about being so, so sorry “on behalf of white people” and then broke down crying, at which point everyone in the workshop started comforting her. (Except me and the other black women, who shared a deep spiritual eyeroll.) And then there was the diversity workshop that lasted only one hour out of a six-day, 48-hour training session. No matter how good that workshop was, the amount of time devoted to it sent a message on behalf of the trainers: reducing harm to non-privileged people means so much to us that we’re going to spend 2% of our time on it. Go us! (Yes, go. Please. Really.)

These kinds of workshops are a waste of everyone’s time — no, worse. They make the privileged participants feel better about themselves (for completing the workshop) without actually challenging their privilege, and they make the rest of us feel very fucking tired.

But I want to spread the word about the best short anti-racism workshop I’ve now seen: comedian W. Kamau Bell’s “Ending Racism in About an Hour”.

It’s not a comedy show. (As my aunt, Kamau’s mom, has very emphatically informed me.) It’s a solo theatrical performance… which just happens to be funny as hell. Kamau is the latest of a wave of black comedians who do more than merely exaggerate stereotypes and “keep it real”, whateverthehell that means; he openly confronts the issues of power and the status quo, and the LogicFails that allow racism to perpetuate itself. (I’ve been avidly following another comedian who does this too: Elon James White of This Week in Blackness.) Here’s an example of Kamau in action:

In his latest show, Kamau does everything I’ve ever seen in a good anti-racist workshop: he explains privilege and the power dynamics of racism; gives examples of aversive racism, objectification, and stereotyping; and doesn’t pull punches about the life-and-death impact racism has on politics, economics, health care, and more. But he does all of it without ever using the terminology, and without losing his audience. (Yeah, including Angry Black Women.) Well, scratch that — when I attended his performance on Saturday, he mentioned that a white guy once walked out on him, complaining of guilt. But one out of thousands ain’t bad.

Anyway, I’ve said all this to note that Kamau is in New York City this week for a limited run, as part of NYC’s International Fringe Festival. Most of the shows are already done — sorry, but I wanted to see it before I blogged about it, and I’ve been crazy busy lately — but he’s got one last NYC performance coming up on August 29th at 5 p.m. The one I attended was standing-room-only, so you might wanna buy tix early. If you can’t catch him in NYC, though, he’s a regular at the Punch Line in his adopted home of San Francisco (where he’s Best Comedian of 2008 according to SF Weekly).

Oh, yeah — and if you bring a friend of a different race, you get a free gift! (So if you’re stuck being somebody’s Special Black Friend, bring them to this show so you can get something out of it for a change.)

ETA: OK, I screwed up — posted a clip from a 4-year-old performance of his, which contained some problematic remarks about Condoleeza Rice. I don’t know if he’s repudiated those comments since, but I think he’s grown up a lot since then (as I have, since I started blogging here; once I would’ve found that joke much funnier than I do now). Hell, I’ll ask him. Until then, replaced the old clip with a more recent one, from the actual show. Should’ve done that in the first place. Sorry for inflicting that on ya’ll.

Entertaining Anti-Racism in About an Hour -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

The Examiner’s Ed Moy inquires Does Hollywood ‘white-wash’ the casting of Asian characters in movies? Then he proves it…

After doing some research, I discovered that “The Last Airbender” wasn’t the only recent movie that cast white actors in roles that were originally created as Asian characters.

For example, the character of Kyo Kusanagi will be played by Sean Farris in an upcoming live-action feature based on the video game “King of Fighters”.

There’s also the casting of Jake Gyllenhaal as Prince Dastan in “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” along with a British actress Gemma Arterton playing his love-interest Tamina. The movie was also based on a popular video game.

And then there’s the recent announcement that Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are starring in a live-action version of the Japanese anime “Akira.”

And finally, there’s the casting of Keanu Reeves as Spike Spiegel in the live-action adaptation of “Cowboy Bebop.” (Although, I do admit that I think Keanu Reeves looks similar to the character.)

This all of course pales in comparison to the fact that last year, the producers of the movie “21″ took poetic license in rewriting actual Asian American card playing MIT students as white characters.

The movie “21″ was based on the best-selling book “Bringing Down the House”, about a real-life team of mostly Asian American students led by an Asian American professor John Chang and his teaching cohorts. (To read about the real “21″ students and their professor click here.) MORE

21. Oh 21. See, 21 was when I first became aware that Hollywood was full of thieving, cultural appropriating assholes. This is a case where the fuckup is as bad as Avatar. It was Racialicious that brought this to my attention:Trans-Racialization in ’21′

Six MIT students band together to hoodwink Las Vegas casinos for millions. It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood movie — and it is. But before Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe), Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishbourne were cast in 21, Ben Mezrich wrote a non-fiction book called Bringing Down the House, upon which the film is based. In that book, Mezrich documents the infamous MIT Blackjack team, which was led by Asian American — not White — students.

Huh. Let me make that a standalone link:By the time Senor Kevin Spacey was done, the only Asian Americans were playing supporting roles, one being the goddamn girlfriend! (Pics at link) And as it turns out when you read that link, they fucked up the story too. For one thing, there was no romance in real life. For another:

Was an MIT professor really the leader of the Blackjack Team?

No. In the movie 21, an unorthodox math professor named Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) leads the team. The 21 true story reveals that the real MIT Blackjack Team was led by three individuals, none of whom were professors. Arguably, the most notable is Bill Kaplan, a Harvard Business school graduate who had also done his undergraduate studies at Harvard. John Chang and J.P. Massar were also very much the basis for 21′s Micky Rosa. “While [author] Ben Mezrich has been quoted as saying that Micky Rosa was a composite of myself, J.P. Massar, and John Chang, the fact is there is little, if anything, that resembles either of us except that he started and ran the team and was focused on running the team as a business,” says Bill Kaplan. John Chang graduated from MIT in 1985 with a degree in electrical engineering. An influential member of the original team, Chang would later re-team with Bill Kaplan as a co-manager in the early 1990s. J.P. Massar (“Mr. M” in the History Channel documentary Breaking Vegas) was an MIT alum who had helped Kaplan manage the original team in the early 1980s, shortly after the first casinos opened in Atlantic City. -Bill KaplanMOAR things they got wrong

Basically, Kevin Spacey decided that he wanted a star vehicle, and decided to completely erase the people whose story it is in the first fucking place!

Oh and the response to the concerns raised about this?

Several organizations such as Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) protested the movie and “Boycott 21″ and other anti-”21″ websites sprang up on the Internet.

According to MANAA, after the “white-washing” issue was raised on Entertainment Weekly’s website, movie producer Dana Brunetti wrote: “Believe me, I would have loved to cast Asians in the lead roles, but the truth is, we didn’t have access to any bankable Asian American actors that we wanted… If I had known how upset the Asian American community would be about this, I would have picked a different story to film.”MORE

No bankable Asian stars. And dammit, the Asian American population didn’t just sit down and take it, they protested!! Shock!horror! And instead of fixing the problem, I’m just not going to film anymore of their stories. See how they like that!!!! The article goes on to list the many bankable Asian stars. And to point out the fact that Jim Sturgess was not exactly a big name Hollywood actor. They have no trouble making films off unknown or not too well known white actors either.

(By the way. Please don’t read the comments. There be idjits bringing in Asian anime and claiming that the characters thereof all look like white people. Nobody needs head exploding at 9:20 in the morning.)

In the meantime, we go to Avatar:

glockgal makes a profound statement: Over the course of this protest, I really have underestimated how insular a LOT of Americans are, especially when you get into towns that don’t have a lot of multiculturalism, like. It’s just plain ignorance.
For people who’ve never learned/seen/been exposed to anything Asian beyond fortune cookies and sweet-and-sour chicken balls, I suddenly understand that when they watched the cartoon, all they see is ‘fantasy’. All the architecture, clothing, food, writing, names, movements – EVERYTHING that is so plainly and clearly Asian to us? Is just to them….a fantasy. It’s all made-up. They don’t know that so much of the world is based on real cultures, they don’t get how much attention to detail and research the creators put into the cartoon, because they’ve NEVER SEEN THESE CULTURES, IRL.
They simply don’t know. And they’ve never HAD to learn. Gyah, it’s so crazy and sad to realize that people have lived such insular lives.

Racebending links to the first in a series about how and why POC are placed in advertising: why and how People of color are included in advertising:Including people of color so as to associate the product with the racial stereotype.Part1

They also pose the question Is racebending legal?

The costumes have been whitefied Roman and Greek armour. Roman and motherfucking Greek armour. With a bit of samurai on the side. Lovely. JUUSSSST LOVELY. More carrying through of teh myth that only goddamn Europeans had any innovations.

In the same vein:Chinese calligraphy cut from movie, replaced by gibberish language Perfectly interchangeable, gibberish and the CHINESE LANGUAGE.

Chaobunny’s Guide to Casting Failis in Hyphen Magazine Blog. Which also has the headline of the day in And you shall know us by the trail of whitewash Goddamn! I cannot believe that I have been missing this mag! *heads off to subscribe and link website to blog*

And I just saw a review… GI JOE? The good ninja is actually…white? And is a street rat in Tokyo? And somehow gets taken in and treated as a favorite over his Japanese classmate? ANd said Japanese classmate then murders master in retaliation? Really?

As an aside: District 9 needs to go up in the hottest fire known to man. And I am freaking done with Peter Jackson. In the meantime, I noticed one blog call it “progressive.” Alien cockroaches in the slums of Johannesburg are freaking PROGRESSIVE. Also, note the treatment of the actual people of color in the movie. Here, have a Cluex4. To wit…[IBARW] It’s not murder, it’s a metaphor.Abstract: If you’re going to argue about a text’s metaphorical or allegorical representations of race, you may want to take a look at how it treats actual people of color before forming your conclusions about the subversion of racial stereotypes.

Everyone should find some time to watch this. Reel Bad Arabs Documentary

via: Racialicious

If you want some new blogs, you could do much worse than these, by the way: Fiqah at Possum Stew rolls out an essay for the ages:

Jihadis”*, Skinheads and Film Representation In which Arabs are relentlessly evil, but white superemacists are not only 3 dimensional, they are shown as sexy and misunderstood, too.

Muslim Reverie. is the new blog of Jehanzeb, a Pakistani Muslim American who writes kickass essays, beautiful poetry and features astonishing art on his wordpress.

I had read his takedown of that vile, racist, waste of film, 300, when it first came out. He has updated the piece since then:

Frank Miller’s “300? and the Persistence of Accepted Racism

In the following essays, he focuses on the Hollywood penchant for whitewashing; this is…stealing our stories and retelling them with white people. Dressed in what our cultures. Which are then considered exotic.

What’s Wrong With This Picture? takes on Prince of Persia, a Disney movie based on a video game. The guy behind this one is Jerry Bruckheimer. You remember him. He did the The Pirates of The Caribbean. Which featured a rather…”interesting” portrayal of a lady named Tia Dalma who was supposed to be a Jamaican “obeah” woman. Except that according to Wikipedia she was originally the nymph Calypso from Greek mythology???? Sooooo, the character aint really black, just a white woman impersonating real Jamaican obeah women? What the … And then of course, there were the Caribs. Who were portrayed as savage Cannibals out to eat Jack Sparrow. Except that, well, they weren’t savages, and the cannibalism thing? Is something of a dispute. Naturally, Disney thoroughly ignored the Modern-day Caribs demands for accurate representation. Who gives a fuck about the movie’s reinforcing of stereotypes on Carib children? There are white people to give adventures to! And the trope is easy and familiar enough, escaping the primitive and savage POC for a laugh! *sigh*

Seeking Avalon saw the above link, and offers her own thoughts on the whitewashing of Sinbad. Like her, I find it astonishingly disturbing that I too, completely missed said whitewashing. Ai yi yi. They get you coming and going.

From IBARW comes:A night at the movies Which for a POC, is fraught with BS at practically every turn

and IBARW: On stereotypes and the use of racist terms.

and ibarw: visibility of indoctrination, particularly this comment

finally Digital Femme asks a simple question

No. Not finally. Not finally at ALL: Because tablesaw breaks down the main conceit of Warehouse 13 and does it with STYLE. Aztec bloodstones?!?!!?!? Oh Hollywood, how I hate you so!!!!

Moving on to comics turned movies: On the Green Lantern Movie casting

ANNNDDDD then we come to the problem of Non Native Americans being cast in movies. Seems lots of people wanna claim various fractions of Native heritage so that they can play Native characters on the silver screen. Friday, Tonto, Jacob Black, et al. The additional links there are pretty good. Meantime :Tinsel Korey, Ben Kingsley (my my my, he DOES seem to get around, doesn’t he? First Iranian father, now Half Native American), Johnny Depp (yeah, I didn’t know he had Native ancestry either.Funny that.) That Twilight annoyance are some of the non-Natives whom Hollywood has decided are better at playing Native than real Natives are. Speaking of Twilight both book, and by extension movie got it rather wrong about the Quileute tribe. Then again that’s not surprising. She admits to knowing nothing about the Quileute Tribe before she wrote the things. *eyeroll*

Hipanics in the movies:More roles, but more of the same

At the beginning of this article we promised some bad news, and here it is: With the exception of a handful of actors and actresses, Latinos and Latinas are rarely offered principal roles. And the roles they get typically portray the same fatigued and fatiguing stereotypes: Latinas as exotic, sexually hot, passionate “spitfires,” for example, or language-mangling comic relief. Beltrán says that, for the most part, Latinos seldom play fully realized characters. Although there may be more jobs available, they are basically the same roles that Latinos have assumed for the last 80 years.

“Look at Salma Hayek in ‘Fools Rush In’ (1997) or John Leguizamo in ‘Empire’ (2002),” Beltrán says. “Hayek plays the sultry girlfriend of Matthew Perry — she’s an ultra-sexed Latina like we’ve seen in Hollywood films for decades. And Leguizamo’s role as a drug lord hearkens back to bandito characters that first appeared in early silent films in the 1910s.”

MORE

Latinos Work To Change Stereotypes In Hollywood

This despite the fact that In 2007, Nielsen EDI estimated that Hispanics accounted for 33% of all moviegoers. That is more than double what Hispanics represent to the national population.

To understand the scale of this, Hispanics purchased 297 million movie tickets in 2007 compared to 150 million for African Americans. Hispanics also go to the movies more often purchasing 10.8 tickets per person vs. 7.9 for the general population.

In fact, here’s a Nielsen article breaking down the Latino movie habit

Is Zoe Saldaña The Mainsteam Latina Star We’ve Always Hoped For? Related: Yes Virginia, Black Latinos exist. In fact:Black, Latino and Gifted in Hollywood

So Zoë Saldaña Wasn’t the Only Latino Actor in the Star Trek Movie

Finally, Mixed Hispanic and Native American Actors & Actresses

Have a good weekend!

*Collapses in exhaustion*

The people and their cultures: POC and the movies -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

So over the next couple of days on the right sidebar you’ll probably notice an ad for a webcomic called Multiplex. It rotates in and out, so you may no see it all the time. I’m not going to make it a habit of mentioning advertisers, but I was particularly happy to see that the comic’s creator wanted to advertise with us. I love reading Multiplex for two reasons: 1 – I like movies and it’s definitely a comic for movie nerds. 2 – several of the main and supporting characters are POC and there are realistically drawn and characterized women as well. It’s awesome.¹ Plus, the writing is good! If any of those things float your boat, you should go read.

Should I be mean and force you to click on the sidebar link? Nah, here you go. (But click the sidebar link if you see it, anyway!)

Webcomics I Appreciate (an erratic series): Multiplex -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Footnotes

1. okay, there are some issues around the characterization of Gretchen, but due to the awesomeness of Angie and Becky and Melissa, I’m overlooking them.

My friend Elise Bryant wrote a play called The Zoo-zoo Chronicles about her life on the University of Michigan campus in the 1970s.  In the first scene, Elise’s stand-in moves into a four-bedroom dorm suite with three white women.  As an ice-breaker, one of the white women asks their new Black (we capitalized it back then) roomie, “Who’s your favorite Beatle?”

Silence.  For three full seconds.

Elise’s stand-in rises in righteous anger.  How dare these strangers assume she likes a Beatle, any Beatle, Beatles qua Beatles?  Corporate rippers-off of Black culture, lily-white wannabe Blues singers, what would any self-respecting Black woman see in them?  After making it clear the answer is “None of the above,” Elise’s stand-in goes on to become fast friends with at least a couple of these women, bonding in sisterhood with them over sit-ins; student strikes; love ventured, gained, and lost; all the standard 1970s joys and perils of life.  What sticks with me, though, is that initial moment of hegemonic attitude and challenge, that culture clash right at the beginning, that careful mapping out of common ground and unacknowledged gaps in the “favorite Beatle” call and response.

Because I did have a favorite Beatle.  Still do.

When I was six I saw the Beatles’ debut on Ed Sullivan and knew this was gonna be something big.  Drew them with my Crayolas playing Gibson guitars when teacher told us to illustrate Kalamazoo’s industrial base in action (Gibson had a factory there).  After college, singing with my rock band, I studied the chord progressions for Beatles’ songs like “Yes It Is,” then stole them and wrote my own.

Why?  Was it because I wanted to be white?  No.

Because they were good.

It’s not inconceivable that whites sometimes admire and emulate the cultures of people of color.  And sometimes it works  the other way.  Sometimes it’s not a matter of being forced to accept the dominant paradigm but rather of identifying with certain of its elements….

John Lennon was my favorite Beatle, right from the start, though it took me till after his assassination to articulate the appeal.  Basically, I loved Lennon for his unabashed idiocy.  The man was never afraid to make a fool of himself.  Audacity wins me over every time.

Is it audacious to take the stance of a cultural tourist towards territories supposed to be well inside the boundaries of the dominant paradigm?  To treat as fodder for my own dreams the harmonies and psychedelic insights of white men given license to rebel?  To tune myself to the excellencies they discovered within themselves almost by accident?

Maybe it would make as much or more sense to expand the meaning of the word.  Say my favorite Beatle is Michael Jackson.   Or Prince.  Or Sly Stone, or George Clinton, or Jimi Hendrix, or any of the other small-b-black rockers trampling down marketing categories with gorgeous unconcern.  Ya think?

Who’s your favorite Beatle?

My favorite Beatle -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Michael Jackson died yesterday. I wish I could say this came as a shock. Though I didn’t know anything about his health or recent condition, somehow I just found myself unsurprised. And profoundly sad.

In deciding to write this, I went through many thoughts on why I feel able to be sad about Michael’s death and to even say positive things about him when I would not extend the same charity to other flawed artists. For example, when Ike Turner died I was unwilling to allow his talent to overshadow my feelings about his history as an abuser. And if R. Kelly were to die today I would think it was a shame, but I would not mourn. In the former case I don’t have much opinion on the talent of the individual; in the latter, I do feel that the man has a lot of talent, but I can’t separate that from the disgust I feel at his sexual adventures with underage girls.

So why don’t I feel the same about Michael?

I can’t give you a good answer. Perhaps because I feel like, whatever Michael is alleged to have done, I can see how the damage done to him in life could have led to it. Doesn’t excuse it, certainly. But it allows me to personally look past it to the good things about him: his music.

The first music video I ever saw was Thriller and I was around 3 years old. My aunt was excited to have me watch it, my mother thought it was too scary for me. But in the end my aunt won and I tried to match those dance moves all night. Michael’s music has been in my ear since before I was born. And before I was five I could sing all the lyrics from every song on Thriller and a bunch from his Jackson 5 days, too.

I was too young at the time to understand the implications behind Michael being the first black artist on MTV. As an adult I still feel a sense of incredulity when I think about that. In the 80s there was still a need for someone’s talent to transcend their race. But Michael did and music (and television) is all the better for it.

The first record I bought with my own money was Bad. Dangerous and HIStory were the first CDs I ripped to MP3. I know that in my music-listening life there has rarely been a month that’s gone by without my listening to some of his music. It seemed like everything he set himself to do he did really well. The singing, the dancing, even the acting.

The videos! Oh goddess, the man pioneered music videos as cinema. Thriller did us all in, but as I sit here searching YouTube I’m reminded of so many more. Remember the Time, Black or White, Smooth Criminal (the long cut), Bad, Jam…

I saw him in concert once when he was touring after Bad came out. It was… amazing. He was a machine. Dancing, singing, never stopping for hours. He gave the crowd everything and then he went on to do it every night for everyone else. It increased my love for him ten-fold.

I think I mourned the MJ I adored many years ago. I had no expectation that he’d make a satisfactory comeback, though I would have been happy to be surprised. It all ended sometime after HIStory for me. Invincible didn’t impress, Blood on the Dance Floor didn’t even register. I felt bad for that. But Michael changed, and not in the way he was able to change before to keep up and transcend.

Still, today I am sad. Because the image of him I have in my head is that amazing entrance to the stage for the Dangerous tour. He exploded out of the stage in a spray of fireworks and then just stood there, silent and still, for a full five minutes, with the bearing of a god. He knew he was good. He knew that, in those moments, he was a rock god. And then the music would start, and he would move, and the concert began, and everything else melted away.

Rest in Peace, Michael Jackson. You and James Brown can spend eternity trading moves. Maybe you’ll teach him to moonwalk.

Michael Jackson: Speak A Good Word -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

About a week ago I read a review for the new Sam Raimi horror flick Drag Me To Hell. The description offered went something like:

Christine Brown is  a loan officer at a bank. When she refuses to give an old Gypsy woman an extention on her loan, the woman curses her to be dragged to hell.

My immediate thought was: Gypsy curses? Really, Sam Raimi? Really? This is the best you could come up with? I hate you.

Nick Mamatas explains it all here much better than I could because he actually saw the movie. The bottom line is: that’s some seriously fucked up prejudice and stereotypes that should not be acceptable at all. AT ALL. It’s like the dark side to the whole Magical Negro thing — Magical VooDoo/Witch Doctor/Evil Gypsy Person who will curse you with their evil, heathen magic if you do something like steal their jewelry, deny them their loan, kill their daughters, or just look at them the wrong way.

This is not okay. It’s just not. Do people who write this shit even get that Gypsies are real people? Do they think they’re some sort of made-up folktale people who only exist for our amusement? If so, what the fuck is wrong with those people?

Movie makers, TV creators, fiction writers: stop with the Gypsy curses, already. It is: NOT Okay.

Dear Hollywood, Gypsy Curses? NOT Okay. -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman