We’re watching a lot of movies up here to fill the time. Finding Forrester was last night’s gem. I very much appreciate the effort to clue in to my interests, but the thing from the beginning seemed fantastical and made to palliate white audiences. It was nice to be confirmed by the NY Times this morning:
What is one to make of Jamal? This hybrid of the young Michael Jordan and Arthur Rimbaud, with the temperament of Gandhi, is the new, teenage version of an insidious Hollywood fantasy that might be called the Perfect Negro. In his latest incarnation he looks and sounds like a direct descendant of the sort of righteous but gentle black saint embodied by Sidney Poitier in the late 1960’s and early 70’s. Invoked at a moment when some are alarmed by the language and attitude of contemporary rappers, Jamal is a blatant palliative, a fantasy figure invented to assuage anxiety.
There is something to be said, however, for a black hero who wins in the classroom in addition to the bball court. But I do find it sad that in order for something to be a “mainstream” hit the mentor has to be white. It would have been entirely more believable for Jamal to run into some old Harlem Renaissance crank who suddenly starts describing the literary and musical genius of the 1920. I might have enjoyed that.
I really must expand my horizons. I know there must be HR movies out there, but I haven’t found them to watch yet.
Do you have an opinion on the possibly similar film “The Great Debaters”? I haven’t seen either one myself.
My dad gave me that movie before we moved and I haven’t been able to find it since.
It has the advantage of being “based” on a true story (the main character went on to be a civil rights warrior). It’s not the uplifting nature of the story or that a black kid is smart and achieves that I object to. It was the total lack of anger and dealing with race.
At the beginning of the movie the old dude says to our hero–you’re not going to give me any trouble about race are you? (basically, I’m forgetting the exact words) and our hero says, well, no. And that’s the end of the discussion (except that some of the characters sport dreads and like rap).
I watched The Great Debaters yesterday and I don’t think it’s like Finding Forrester in the ways that concern you, for the most part. The whole movie is about race and there’s a whole lot of anger in it. There certainly aren’t any Perfect Negros in it.
Thanks for the report. I really do need to watch it, if for no other reason than to stop feeling embarrassed when my dad periodically asks if I’ve seen it yet.
P.S. not every movie about black people has to be about race. African Americans have a myriad of interests. But Finding Forrester’s insistence that race does not matter was what got my goat. I have an odd relationship to things “being about race” because I am usually interested in what African Americans do in and around discussions of race–not those discussions themselves. But then I feel self-conscious about this interest and can over-emphasis race and discrimination.