I decided to re-write this post.
I watched "Driving Miss Daisy" on Encore yesterday. It was very infuriating to me.
This movie was made in 1986 and like many old movies, it depicts life as it was in America. Blacks and all minorities were treated as inferiors and made to "Serve the Man."
While I love old movies, movies on Encore, movies on TCM, many of these old movies depict minorities as servants and inferiors. Some movies, like "Gone with the Wind" are obviously racist. More subtly racist are movies like "White Christmas" or "The Great Lie" where all minorities are depicted as servants or mammies.
Many of the old TV shows depict only White people. Occasionally a minority will appear as a servant or some exotic creature.
In times past, we allowed one group to be elitists and another group to be down-trodden minorities who served as their slaves/servants, sex machines or crooks.
Thank God for Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement of the sixties. Until then, America was NOT the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave for ALL. While times have gotten better, we still have racism in many people's hearts. Recently, Hollywood has produced newer movies that are meant to help us remember - never forget the racist atrocities of the past. These movies include:
. The Help
. 42
. The Butler
Watching these movies is painful. I understand the reason and rationale for these movies -- to help us remember the history and to ensure those times NEVER, EVER re-occur.
Saying all of this, I know that Bad Anon will send me some hate-filled comment saying, "Racism is over. I'm sick of minorities still playing victim." To him I say, that level of Open Racism is over, but the underlying racism in some people's hearts is still there. We hear it with every:
. "I want my country back!" (to times of Mayberry)
. "English Only"
. "Anchor Baby"
. "Your President," "Kenyan," "Muslim," "Witch Doctor"
. "Self Deport," "Mass Deportation," "Get to the back of the Line."
America was founded as the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, and most important of all:
WE ARE ALL EQUAL!!!
I am awaiting for the release of movie Fifty shades of grey...Soon....
ReplyDeleteAwesome book By E L James and characters played very well ...
the movie fifty shades of grey