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Tag: Race in film

  • Race in Film: Shanghai Express

    **I’m a little sick. Please excuse the stuffed nose voice**

    As evidenced by this very Race in Film series, color is a large part of my life. This is frequently not by choice, as was certainly the case when I was a child.

    It is 1993. I wear turtlenecks under Champion sweatshirts like on TV. I feel proud about this, my first deliberate sartorial decision. I sit at my desk and quietly enjoy the feeling. The room is hushed. We scrawl on a worksheet. The substitute teacher calls me to her desk. We all look up.
    “Kartina,” she says.
    “What are you?”
    Her eyebrows draw together in the middle.
    “Are you Eskimo?”
    She must find out. She must know.

    Unfortunately my sass had not yet developed, and instead of protesting her insensitivity, I replied and satisfied her curiosity. I returned to my seat and continued my school life as the “other”, turtlenecks in sweatshirts of little help.
    I had this same teacher a few more times, and since she had forgotten, she asked me the same question again…and again.

    Such is the life of the mixed person (in the parlance of our times). When you are multiracial, or even look like you are, prepare to be reminded of the fact every day.

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  • Race in Film: Tammy & the Bachelor

    In elementary school, my desire to be white was so strong, I created two imaginary sisters. They were both older and white with red hair and lived in California. One’s name was Gina, and the other’s was Tammy. I named her Tammy after the character in the 1957 film Tammy and the Bachelor directed by Joseph Pevney. Who could be whiter than Tammy?

    Tammy is not a good movie. It isn’t even a “bad” movie that amuses its way to being “good” (Frankie & Annette have a special place in my heart). It’s just bland and uninventive. I know the Beach Party movies aren’t winning any medals for innovation, but they at least possess a certain stupid energy. Tammy is a joyless film. A strange statement for a movie about a girl whose most cherished attribute is overzealousness, but even Reynold’s sparkling sparkles can’t cover up the fact (fact=my opinion) that no person’s love went into making the film. No one cared about it. Watching Tammy is like watching a small orphan roam through a busy market. We question the ways of the universe: How could this happen? How did it end up this way? Isn’t anyone looking after it? Doesn’t anyone care? Doesn’t anyone care?”
    No. No one cares.
    That is the problem.
    How dare Universal slap this, AND subsequent Tammy movies, on the public, and how dare the public gobble this up. I am very forgiving when it comes to wide screen technicolor movies. Doubly so if it’s a movie that I enjoyed as a child. The very fact that they are Cinemascope with Stereophonic sound will keep me watching, but it cannot be faked with Tammy . It’s really unfortunate since Debbie Reynolds has no shortage of charm (in other movies).

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  • Race in Film: Paisá (Paisan)

    Paisá directed in 1946 by Roberto Rossellini is, in my most humble opinion, one of the greatest films ever made. After watching neo realist films I often wonder how different American movies would have been then and now, had WWII been fought on US soil. I’m not saying Best Years of Our Lives (released the same year) isn’t good, but it’s certainly no Paisá.

    Paisá is the second film in Rossellini’s “War trilogy”, films made during and after the war (preceded by Open City, followed by Germany Year Zero). Though Open City is generally more critically acclaimed, I find Paisá to be more moving.

    The film consists of six episodes set during the liberation of Italy at the end of WWII.Though all the episodes are powerfully moving, I shall focus on the second, for it is in this episode that I saw something I had never seen before in a European movie from the 40s-50s. Something I had rarely seen in any Hollywood movies of the same era.

    It was a black man. An American black man.

    A soldier. Not a butler or janitor.

    I was startled, I was amazed, I was impressed.

    I was filled with a greater love for Rossellini that I suspect is similar to seeing your baby walk for the first time.

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  • Race in Film: Meet Me in St. Louis

    As you have learned in the previous post, I adore Meet Me in St. Louis.

    I adore the Trolley Song and I adore many of the other musical numbers the film offers. This is one of them. Margaret O’Brien plays Tootie, the mischievous baby of the Smith family, who wishes to show off for her sister Esther’s (Judy Garland) party guests.
    The song, “Under the Bamboo Tree” is fabulous and allows the audience to fawn all over O’Brien. This is her scene. Garland is simply supporting. However, if we listen closely to the lyrics of the song they sing, we may pause in our enjoyment:

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  • Race in Film: Hold That Ghost

    This clip is from Abbott and Costello’s 1941 film Hold That Ghost directed by Arthur Lubin, who also directed several other of the duo’s films including Buck Privates and In the Navy (also excellent). In the movie Bud Abbott and Lou Costello play waiters Chuck and Ferdie respectively at the Chez Glamour nightclub. Due to a series of circumstance they become the beneficiaries of a gangster’s will and inherit a haunted house.

    For those of you unfamiliar with this brilliant duo, Abbott and Costello were a comedy team in the tradition of Laurel & Hardy, or Martin & Lewis. Budd Abbott was the straight man who frequently took advantage of of the baby faced Lou Costello, the idiot with the funny lines. I realize that the pair could not have worked without Abbot’s set up, but Costello is really the main attraction. When I watch these these films today I am constantly surprised and impressed by the skill with which he uses his body. I’m not simply referring to the big fall gags he does (banging into doors, sliding across the floor in a puddle of water etc), but smaller details, specifically the way he splays his stubby fingers when gesticulating and the manner in which he pouts his lips. They combine to really emphasize the boyish ineptitude of his characters.

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  • Special Series I : Race in Film

    Don't look now Tammy, but your slave is showing.

    Oh man are we gonna have a ball.

    This series looks at representations of people of color (POC) in films that do not explicitly deal with race. This means that although I love Mr. Tibbs, In the Heat of the Night will not be featured. Instead, we will look at images of POC, references to race, racism, and race relations (positive and negative) that pop up in unexpected places. Such un-race related films like Hold That Ghost, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Paisan and even Meet Me in St. Louis.

    The movies in this series are primarily ones I grew up watching and have viewed hundreds of times. The majority of them will be from the 1930’s-60s*. My love for film, and these pictures in particular, surpasses every other passion I have in life (with the exclusion of human beings of course). Because (rather than despite) these films are dear to me, these moments of racial ignorance and insensitivity caused uneasiness. This not only interrupted my movie watching experience, but excluded me from the club. The one that loved the movie unquestionably and did not get offended. These moments made me feel that not only was the movie was no longer mine, but it had never been intended for me in the first place. That is a painful feeling.

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