Saturday, April 1, 2017

Silver Kills Black

Hollywood has a habit of insulting black people, killing them off, and making them look incredibly stupid on the silver screen. The latest example of this is the 2017 Power Rangers movie. I am not a loyal fan of the Power Rangers franchise and have nothing against the show. I watched Voltron as a child, the original power rangers, and loved the series. However, I was an adult when the Power Rangers came along, so I missed the whole "I am a fan" opportunity. My son loved the Power Rangers as a child, second only to Pokémon. Of the few Power Rangers' shows that I have watched, I don't remember a cowardly ranger, not like the one in the new Power Rangers movie. Not only is the black ranger (the blue power ranger) cowardly, he was weak, simple, and had to be saved several times by his peers. The funny thing is that after all that was done to the ranger to make him the comic relief, the weak and unworthy ranger, he was made to make the mega-droid do a stereotypical ethnic dance at the end of the movie. I am sure the Power Ranger movie will do well since the franchise is popular. However, I am not discussing the Power Ranger movie because of its popularity. It is the featured movie because it killed off the black ranger ( the blue ranger) in the movie. When it happened, I shook my head. My thoughts were that it wasn't even possible for creators of a children’s movie to leave out the need or unwritten law in Hollywood to insult, minimize, or kill the black character(s) in the movie.

Prior to the Power Rangers movie coming out, there have been other movies, many others that have the same theme. Recall Episode VII The Force Awakens. The pre-hype for the movie was that there was going to be a black jedi hero. Yes, Samuel Jackson was a black jedi, but he was not the main character. How laughable was it when the movie opened and the “black jedi knight” was portrayed as feeble, bumbling, cowardly, and accidental as the Blue Ranger (the African American ranger) in the Power Rangers movie. The black actor in The Force Awakens wasn't even a jedi knight. Another known example of how blacks are portrayed on the silver screen is the mortality rate for black actors in horror movies. Out of 50 horror movies, 35 of the movies killed off the black actors. Seventy-percent of horror movies killing off the black actors is more than just a coincidence. Yes, it is better to have black representation than not, even if the actors meet horrible deaths. I do not see anything wrong with the black actors dying. The white, Hispanic, etc. actors die also. It is only a concern when the act of killing or beating the hell out of the black actor is obviously or presumably the target because of his or her ethnicity. The black jedi knight turned out to be a cowardly-turncoat imperial soldier that worked his way up from sanitation worker to soldier. This example has to be the most blatant example of, not racism, but an example of the embedded negative feelings that Hollywood has for the black presence on the silver screen or in general. Sanitation worker, ha-ha, you get the joke right? I will name a few more examples of Hollywoods hiding messages, then I will rest my case.

I have discussed how Hollywood insults, kills, minimizes, and making black people look stupid on the silver screen. They also like to use blacks for examples of violent actions- when someone needs to die, have their ass kicked, or show humility to the main character. Take the two movies Deadpool and Criminal for example. Kevin Costner beats the crap out of two guys by a van, noticeable the only blacks in the movie. The same sort of scene is observed in a Deadpool bar scene. The only black actor in the movie appears just to get knocked out in a bar room fight.

Finally, Hollywood is not replacing black actors. There are a few new black actresses running around Hollywood, but unlike new talent among other ethnicities, there are few black faces popping up on the silver screen. Samual Jackson, Denzel Washington, Laurence Fishburne, Morgan Freemen, and a few others are the black actors "still" being used in Hollywood. I love and respect these guys but they are going to die at some point, except Morgan Freemen. The black actor's pool is scarce under 45 years of age. Spike Lee discovered most of the old guys and Hollywood just jumped on the train. Will the next Spike Lee please stand up?

References
BARONE, M. (2013, October 31). Fact Check: Do Black Characters Always Die First in Horror Movies? Retrieved from ComPlex: http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/10/black-characters-horror-movies/

Lo, C. (2016, September 8). Is it racist that in most hollywood movies, the asian, black, or hispanic characters die before the white protagonist? Retrieved from Quora.com: https://www.quora.com/Is-it-racist-that-in-most-hollywood-movies-the-asian-black-or-hispanic-characters-die-before-the-white-protagonist


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