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UNFAIR
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THE UNFAIR
RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT

RESPONSE PAGE 2004

As of November, 2004, I decided to start posting some of the responses I get from folks who read the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT.

MOVIES ARE DISCUSSED - SPOILERS REVEALED

"I'm glad you at least appreciate the idea behind the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT even if you still don't understand it."
- E.C.McMullen Jr.

Feo Amante
Your Host
E.C.McMullen Jr.
Hello and welcome to THE UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT Response Page.

Some of you think that I've over-explained myself in the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT: that I've hammered home the obvious. You get it, there is no reason why I should keep repeating throughout the site the reasons for the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT's existence. This November 26, 2004 email from Zima Filippov demonstrates why I feel that I can never explain it enough. For the benefit of others who still don't understand the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT, I'll address Zima's arguments point by point. I'm also taking into account that English may not be Zima's first language and so, perhaps, some things that may be obvious to some might be subtle nuances to others.

NOV. 26, 2004

Hello!

I've just discovered your site very recently and immensely enjoyed reading your reviews (especially Science Moments). Great job! However yesterday I stumbled upon your Unfair Racial Cliché Alert and that confused me a bit. I think keeping track of minority body count in sci-fi/horror movies is an interesting idea, but your explanation why you do that is somewhat overblown. It seems that you read way too much into it. Reading through the list made me think of examples of sci-fi/thriller/horror movies where minorities did not die in the end.

Hi Zima,

I'm glad you like the site, but before we go any further, it's probably best to explain - yet again - that this site is a Horror, Thriller, Mystery, and Suspense website. That's why it's calledFeo Amante's Horror Homepage (UPDATE: now Feo Amante's Horror Thriller) . I also include at the bottom of nearly every page another Feo Amante banner that says, "Horror, Thriller, Mystery". So this website isn't a "Science Fiction" website any more than it is a Western, Comedy, Fantasy, or Romance website. The only time we cover a movie that is Science Fiction (ALIEN), Western (CURSE OF THE UNDEAD), Comedy (EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS), Fantasy (ARMY OF DARKNESS), or Romance (SHAUN OF THE DEAD), is when the movie uses Horror, Thriller, Mystery, or Suspense and/or their elements as the main theme in telling the story.

THE TERMINATOR is clearly a monster movie: Horrifyingly gory and with plenty of scary thrills.

CURSE OF THE UNDEAD takes place in the Southwest of the 1800s, but is about Vampires.

IDLE HANDS is a comedy filled with monsters, zombies, demonic possession, and gore.

LORD OF THE RINGS is perfect fantasy, and if it was something as simple as an evil sorcerer battling some good guy or such, we wouldn't touch it (We won't touch The Princess Bride or Time Bandits. Time Bandits even has the devil and his minions, but they are never portrayed in a horrifying or scary way. These Horror elements are never the main theme of the story. Various creatures are brought into play, but never as anything more than varmints of different fantasy races. Action also takes the place of Suspense, and a spirit of Adventure displaces what could have been a mystery.) . But LORD OF THE RINGS is much more than Fantasy and saga. It is unquestionably a thriller. There are monsters and ghosts and they are all deadly and kill in horrifying ways. Throughout the books and the movies there are scares a plenty. So, while being primarily a fantasy movie, LORD OF THE RINGS is also a Horror Thriller movie.

SHAUN OF THE DEAD is about a man trying to prove himself worthy to the woman he loves and he does so by attempting to save her life - BUT - He is saving her from Zombies!: they are everywhere! Deadly, taking over, seemingly unstoppable, clearly monsters, and they eat rather messily. I'm explaining this now to make my rebuttals clearer later.

To everyone else who is reading this response: I'm fully crediting Zima for her letter, but I'm also not specifically targeting Zima for what may appear to be insulting responses (I've tried carefully to avoid such flame nonsense). While Zima's letter is real, it is also fair to describe it as a representation of the many emails I've received in the past from folks who, for whatever reason, just aren't getting the point. This means that I won't be posting any emails from readers who specifically target Zima by name for derision. This person took the time to write an opinion and I appreciate that.

The UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT is just that: an observation of insulting racial stereotypes in Hollywood cinema in the specific genre that this website represents. I don't call the page the UNFAIR RACIAL LAW or IRON CLAD RACIAL RULE. There are exceptions and I've posted them at the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT page. So onward.

I spent a couple of hours and came up with this list:

1. Star Wars (James Earl Jones is the voice of the ultimate black badass! And then Billy Dee Williams also lives later on and lots of white storm troopers die)

Several things here. Star Wars has been out nearly 30 years as of this writing and I've never heard anyone refer to it as a Horror, Thriller, Mystery, or Suspense film. The Internet Movie Database refers its genres as "Sci-Fi / Action / Adventure / Fantasy", and while imdb.com isn't always accurate, in this case they are right. Star Wars, like many Science Fiction and Fantasy movies (Lost Horizon, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Star Trek: The Movie, E.T., Back To The Future, Brazil, The Truman Show, Lost in Space, and so many more) is not Horror, Thriller, Mystery, or Suspense and will never be reviewed here. I grant you that the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT also doesn't apply to them, but then, that's my point exactly. Thanks for helping me prove it.

But in choosing Star Wars to qualify your point, you made some errors in acknowledging what the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT is about. So I'd like to address these issues not only for you but for the audience as well.

Men In Black

1. The Difference Between An Actor And A Character
When American Natives and Asian people decry people of other races portraying their people in movies or television, their logic is flawed. Actors aren't usually meant to play themselves (thus they are acting). Men can play women (The World According To Garp), women can play men (Yenta) or children (most stage productions of Peter Pan). This same reasoning crosses over into Asian cinema as well. Japanese actors play Taiwanese (Moon Child) and Chinese actors play Japanese characters (WICKED CITY). Even in music, Mariah Carrey is accepted as a black musician and Michael Jackson wants to be accepted as a white musician - at least when it suits him. This is acting and actors portray people that they aren't. Like when Lebanese - American actor, Tony Shaloub portrays a white man (The German in Gattaca), an Asian man (Fred Kwan in Galaxy Quest), a Greek (Kriticos in THIR13EN GHOSTS) or an outer worldly alien (MEN IN BLACK).

In regards to Darth Vader: He is no black badass; ultimate or otherwise. Unless by black you mean his clothes, in which case I am often a black guy; badass or otherwise. The voice of James Earl Jones is supposed to be that of a white man. Refer to his son, Luke Skywalker's blonde hair, blue eyes, and white skin, as well as that of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. As well as Anakin in all three "first episodes". James Earl Jones is playing the voice of a white man. The logic is no different than Mr. Jones playing the voice of Mufasa in The Lion King. He is the voice of a lion - not a black man - same as he is the voice of a white man, not a black man in Star Wars.

2. The Difference Between A Character And A Costume

When we reviewed both PLANET OF THE APES movies, we made note that, while both are Science Fiction, both are also clearly Thrillers - as in scary thrilling. Both earned the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT. There could have been minorities dressed as various apes in the first PLANET OF THE APES, but they weren't playing minorities: they were playing apes. So it doesn't matter how many survived. The audience didn't know that, beneath the chimp, gorilla, or orangutan make-up was a minority actor. Same logic with the remake of PLANET OF THE APES. Granted Michael Clarke Duncan survives, but his character isn't a black human. By the same reasoning, Elizabeth Pena isn't playing a Latino woman in STRANGELAND. She is playing a white woman.

As far as the Storm Troopers are concerned, all you ever see is their white body armor. Racial characteristics are not determined by what color clothes you wear, so how do you know what their skin color is? You don't.


2. SPHERE (Sure, everyone lives, but still, Samuel L. Jackson didn't die [he's one of the few black dudes that's hard to kill in any movie])

Reviewer Kelly Parks, covered SPHERE. You'll notice that, while it got itself a derogatory SCIENCE MOMENT, it didn't get an UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT.


3. Catwoman (OK, she died, but then she came back and kick major white ass!)

Okay, this movie isn't Horror, Thriller, Mystery, or Suspense, in fact, it isn't even the extra genre you include: Science Fiction. So what are you trying to say here?

This is the second time you've proved my point for me so I'm not sure why you are debating it.

4. DAREDEVIL (Well, Kingpin lived, they could have killed him and kept Bullseye instead!)

Another review by Kelly Parks. Again, we never gave it an UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT, only a SCIENCE MOMENT. And it was also included in the list of movies that buck the trend.

5. PANIC ROOM (Just like in Daredavil - big bad black man lives, but is arrested)
6. OPEN WATER (I agree, it's a stretch, I just include it here, because in Hollywood a black man usually dies nobly to save a white couple and here the black dude doesn't and the white couple does)

Phantasm
Two things to mention here. I watch an awful lot of Horror, Thriller, Mystery, and Suspense movies, and I read a lot of the same types of books as well. That said, neither I or any of my reviewers have seen or wrote about PANIC ROOM. We'll get to it when we get to it. As I've mentioned on the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT page, "there are an Awful lot of Hollywood made Horror & Thriller movies that I'm sure I haven't seen."

In regards to OPEN WATER, the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT states,

"The UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT specifically applies to movies made or backed by Hollywood, as I have not seen this "Rule Of Death" appear so consistently in Independent movies or movies made outside of the United States."
Whenever I have posted a movie made outside of Hollywood that carries an UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT, I point out that it was not made by Hollywood (CUBE, FINAL FANTASY) as well as point out Independent or foreign films that didn't earn it (All of Don Coscarelli's PHANTASM movies, all of George Romero's DEAD movies, ANACONDA and more).


7. I, ROBOT (In fact, it's pretty hard to kill Will Smith and he is in every other sci-fi film - MEN IN BLACK, MEN IN BLACK II, Independence Day 4, Wild Wild West - he lives through it all!
8. MINORITY REPORT (The dude from The Practice helps Tom Cruise in the end and lives)

What seems to be happening here is that, when you do mention the rare movie that falls into the genres I refer to, you pluck it from the small list of movies I've already credited as "bucking the trend" regarding those movies that do not fall into the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT. We've reviewed I, ROBOT, which got a SCIENCE MOMENT, but no UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT. ID4 (Action/SciFi) and Wild Wild West (Action/Western/Comedy/SciFi) are not in the genre category. You are bringing nothing new to the table.

9. URBAN LEGENDS: Final Cut (There was a black security guard. I think she lived - don't remember - it wasn't a good movie)

Thisone also falls into the category of films we haven't seen or reviewed yet. And, unfortunately, you don't remember it.

10. DAWN OF THE DEAD [new one] (Ving Rhames lives. Of course it is implied in the closing credits that they all died, but he survived the film)

In regards to what a movie "implies".

In X2, it is implied that one of the major characters is dead. There is also the subtle implication that the character might not be dead. The same kind of situation happens in DEEP RISING. Are the characters at the end going to die, are dead, or merely threatened? The audience doesn't know so I don't count it as deaths. We never gave DAWNOF THE DEAD [2004] an UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT. While the movie shows everything going to hell, and our heroes certainly seem to be in great danger, we don't know if they actually survive their ordeal. They could have made it back to the boat and tried another island.

But I also have a theory as to why it didn't happen in this movie. It all has to do with, what you accurately describe as, "implied".

Think about the over 30 years of fandom built around George Romero's DEAD movies. Director Paul W.S. Anderson pulled an UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT in his film RESIDENT EVIL, after months of telling fans he was making a tribute/spin-off of Romero's DEAD films (at one point George Romero was even attached to the project and wrote a complete script for it). The movie tanked at the theaters and tanked BADLY! Audiences hated it and on the message boards, more than a few pointed out how Romero would never have killed off every single minority in one of his films. Anderson though (who didn't get the cliché with his films, EVENT HORIZON or ALIEN vs. PREDATOR) was trying to set himself apart from Romero - for whatever his reasons (and in time, Anderson might become another of those kinds of directors where you just never know: unpredictable. That said, Anderson, like Romero, makes very few Hollywood movies).

So I can understand, in the Hollywood money mindset, that refusing to kill off every minority character was a decision made specifically because the audience they were going after, George Romero's audience, didn't play that game. In the few movies where he did, all the major characters died. And I've got no problem with that either. In fact, I kind of like the idea of DotD 2004 which leaves you hanging over whether or not the movie ends with a NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD ending or a DAWN OF THE DEAD ending: it was a very cool plot device!

11. EVENT HORIZON (I think Lawrence Fishburne lives, also don't remember)

EVENT HORIZON is still another film that is on our exceptions list for two reasons.
1. We never gave it an UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT.

2. It's not a Hollywood movie.

Laurence Fishburne's character of Captain Miller is dragged into that dimension of hell where all humans are brutally slaughtered by Dr. William Weir/or the life form that possesses him. It is made clear in the movie that if you go there you die. Miller is dead.

But Richard T. Jones character of Rescue Tech Cooper, survives along with one other crewmember. This is why the movie bucks the trend, why we never gave it an UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT, and why it doesn't really apply anyway.

One more thing, why in the world are you bothering to list movies - which you claim don't get the URCA - when you admit you don't even remember? Don't you find that odd?


12. BATTLEFIELD EARTH (Forrest Whitaker lives, even though he is an enemy psyclo or whatever...)

This is precisely why I had to explain, earlier, the difference between an actor and the character and a character and a costume. I was worried during the writing of that piece that I would be perceived as talking down to you. But it had to be said because of mistakes you made in reference to Star Wars and now BATTLEFIELD EARTH. In this case, in both costume and character, Forrest Whitaker neither represents or is costumed as a black man. He is an alien from another world. His skin isn't even black, but blue.

Do you recall any human characters (not just stand-ins or faces in a crowd - that LOGAN'S RUN stuff doesn't apply here) that were black and made it to the end? Do you recall us giving it an UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT? No? Then nothing you've wrote so far adds to the merits of your debate, does it? You are merely repeating what I've already said. But it was my point, not yours.


13. Finally, ALIEN vs. PREDATOR (The chick not only lives - she is the sole survivor! She also brakes the Alien Saga minority death curse [although, I think Dominique Pinon in the fourth movie could be considered a French minority :-)] )

AVP is another movie we never referenced in the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT. So after the 13 movies you list, 5 of them don't apply to the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT because they don't have minority characters in them (BATTLEFIELD EARTH). Or they either aren't Horror Thrillers (Star Wars, Catwoman) or they aren't made in or by a Hollywood studio (OPEN WATER, EVENT HORIZON).

In regards to the other 4 that buck the trend, you seem to have culled them from the list I already created at the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT, I'm wondering if you honestly followed my invitation or if you simply went through my "Buck the Trend List" and repeated what I'd already said.

My invitation still stands.

"I challenge my critics to go out and see 5 Hollywood Horror/Thriller movies: any five, their choice. All I ask is that the movie have minorities in the cast (not some quick walk on or someone in the background of a crowd scene)."

I would have been more impressed with your argument if you had listed just 5 movies, not on my exceptions list, that you had watched after my invitation - not just remembered. Purposefully going through a preselected list of movies you already know don't apply to the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT isn't honest - its cheating. It also adds nothing to your argument.

It's no different than researchers using only that material which supports their theory and ignoring everything else.

Many of those movies on the "Buck the trends" list you see were reported as being the only one out of 5 movies that my readers saw that actually didn't follow the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT. They present a counterpoint to my argument, and I list them - because it is the honest thing to do. A theory must be able to withstand all honest criticism and so far in my research, my theory - which is the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT- is supported by facts. As I say, the list continues to grow, and not just by the addition of older movies.

Also, you note that Yaphet Kotto died several times in films and in the same time that Nightmare on Elm Street buck the trend, but I think it is worth noting that Kotto survived and was instrumental in defeating Freddy Krueger in Freddy's Dead. He also did not die in any sequels.

The UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT has never been about how often an individual actor dies in his or her movie career or how many movies that actor has been in. You say that Kotto
"...did not die in any sequels."
What sequels are you referring to? He wasn't in any of the subsequent ALIEN or A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movies. So how could he play a character that died in them if he wasn't even in them?

Another thing worth noting is that not only Matrix movies buck the trend, it is a trilogy populated by minority MAJORITY! The white folks are very few there and most of the good guys are either black or Asian. Bad guys are all white, aren't they? Plus the lead white couple die in the end. How about that?!

How about it? As I noted long before you on the page you read before you wrote your rebuttal, both THE MATRIX movies and the Warchowski Bros. buck the trend. Yet again, I don't understand how you are attempting to argue against me by using my own exceptions that I raised prior to your email. It's like me saying
"Our store mainly sells vegetables but we also carry fruits like apples and berries."
and you contradicting me by saying,
"That's NOT true! In addition to vegetables you also carry fruits like apples and berries!"

Couple of more thoughts. You mention that there are 55 movies and counting with the Unfair Racial Cliché Alert, however you list at least 33 films by name on the same page (plus series) that buck the trend. Man, that's more then half. I know you will probably dismiss most of my list, but I spent less then a day thinking about it, so I think the score could even go to 50/50! Also, even in the movies you list, imagine the white body count...
Damn, that's a lot of corpses!

You spent less than a day thinking about it? You largely culled from my own list. Then added a number of movies that don't even apply or that you don't remember. You are trying to support your argument with movies you don't remember! Repeating the exceptions that I've already listed doesn't add to the number of exceptions that I've already listed.

Actually, by my own admission, there are 23. And that number includes comedies which aren't meant to horrify (
and exempts those which only have white folk like YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and HAUNTED HONEYMOON). My list also leaves out the ton of Horror Thriller movies that pretend as though non-whites don't even exist! It also leaves out all the Horror/Thriller movies that treat only whites as heroic while all non-whites are evil, stupid, or laughable at best (SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW*). At any rate, you are subtracting figures from figures - cherry picking - instead of from the sum total. Out of 78 movies reviewed, 55 of them carry the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT. That's a substantial majority.

So as you can see, in regards to perceived racism in Horror Thriller movies, I took a very thin slice of perspective - I only counted death tolls - and still came away with a majority of movies that follow a Racial Cliché. Imagine how many Horror/ Thriller movies I could list if I included those made in the last 25 years that only had white people. Or treated minorities like background furniture? Or treated minorities as worthless humans incapable of acts of heroism (except to die in the act of nobly saving some white folk)?

So while I could be fooling myself, I'd like to think that I'm cutting an awful lot of slack here. That said, even going by your list - which you largely took from mine - the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT overwhelms the exceptions by more than two thirds. I thank you for the new information regarding the as-yet-to-be-seen PANIC ROOM and URBAN LEGENDS: The Final Cut (even though you don't remember). Yet that's two movies out of 13 that you bring to the table as new or accurate information. And even then you're not quite sure yourself. Quite shy of the 5 movie challenge.

The white body count is immaterial if there are only white survivors. Again, the point is that, no matter how many people get killed, the white people survive. They can beat the odds. If there are only white survivors at the end, then, even if white people died by a ratio of 10 to every one minority (PHANTOMS), ALL the minorities are still dead (RELIC). There are no more! Only white folks survived!

I will also continue to use the word UNFAIR in the RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT because I have the distinct feeling that the people making these films are not trying to intentionally make a racist statement. They just refuse to see what they are doing. The fact that many of these movies are made by people who consider themselves liberal and racially tolerant only adds to my feeling.

So, in the end, I want to tell you that it's a great idea and I will certainly keep my eye out now for this sort of thing and let you know if I see something for this list. Just (again), I think you read way too much into it. There are simply less minority characters in these films and that is why the chance of them being offed is higher. You know, when a bunch of white dudes were killed in Resident Evil or Alien vs. Predator no one cared or remembered - they simply blend together. Now, throw in a Colin Salmon and cut him into bits - and everyone is talking about the death of the best character in the whole damn thing. That's what they aim for. Nothing more.

Um ...

You say, "There are simply less minority characters in these films and that is why the chance of them being offed is higher."

Your math is impossible, play Battleship to understand why.

So these movies which are written, re-written, directed, edited, and such, that was all by the merest of random chance? When the characters die in these movies, they die by chance? The writer, director, producers, they all have no control over it?

Well, I must tell you that, while life is a chancy thing, movies are a determined thing, usually determined by committee.>

There's a racist nazi joke (told to me by a Jewish friend no less) that goes like this:

After World War II, Adolph Hitler was in South America, licking his wounds and plotting his return. He tells a potential investor, "When I take over the world I will murder all of the Jews on the planet! I will also kill one clown."
The investor, surprised, asks, "Why a clown?"
Hitler leans forward with a smile and says, "You see? Nobody cares about the Jews."

What the joke illustrates is how you can always center people's attention on the anomaly, not the norm. An endless field of white snow doesn't center the attention. A single coin sized spot of bright red blood - on all of that white - does. It's how and why the red dot of a target or bulls-eye works. If you looked out at an endless expanse of ocean that stretched out to the horizon, wouldn't your attention be drawn to the single tiny column of smoke rising from that horizon?

Story tellers , directors, and movie makers in general have known this ever since their art forms began. If you have hundreds of adults running for their lives, focus on the baby. The audience will suddenly have someone to feel for. If you have hundreds of people dying in a catastrophe, have the camera focus on a puppy. Suddenly the audience will go from watching special effects to caring about life. The same applies to movies like RESIDENT EVIL (Repeat: not made by a Hollywood studio). If you have a cast of 50 white people and only one black guy, then naturally people will notice when the black guy gets killed. Especially if you build up his character like they did in RESIDENT EVIL. Tons of white people get killed that were nothing more than walk-ons, zombies, and background. The UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERTwouldn't apply to them regardless of their race.

Colin Salmon's character of One stood out. His character was built up. He was the strong one, the leader. He was freaking number one and in charge. He was also the only dark skin in a cast of very white faces and his death was also the goriest. So naturally he stands out.

Story telling 101!

I'm glad you at least appreciate the idea behind theUNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT even if you still don't understand it. Your email has made me go back to the original page and try to make everything even more apparent.

I don't know how big the selection of Hollywood made Horror Thriller movies is in Bishkek, but if possible, I do hope you'll take my challenge and try to find 5 movies that you haven't seen and that we haven't listed. Any five. Make sure they have minorities in at least supporting roles and see how many of those films, randomly selected, adhere or exempt themselves from the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT.

Cheers!
Zima Filippov
Public Relations Office Director
American University - Central Asia
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

After reading my review of SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, a reader, in person, told me,
Fan: "You make racist allegations in your review of SKY CAPTAIN and that's not fair. It was a really cool movie and, besides, they didn't have black people back then."

I could only stare at him in speechless disbelief. Then, catching himself, he added.

Fan: "I mean in movies back then. They didn't have black people in movies back then."

I said,:

Feo: "There were black people back then, though - right?"

Fan: "Of course."

Feo: "And SKY CAPTAIN wasn't made back then when its story takes place. It was made last year when the film makers had over 60 years of history to know better, right?"

Now, after all of this you might think that, in person, I'd be some male Caucasian bleeding heart liberal. But in truth, many of my liberal friends find me to be a male Caucasian who is way too conservative and far too Republican. A fraction of those are having a real hard time accepting the fact that I voted for George Bush. It just doesn't jibe with their preferred mindset of how such a person should think. I can only ask that all of you open your freaking minds to opinions beyond your own egos and be tolerant of views that rattle around outside of your own skull.

Yeah, you can keep saying that racism and homophobia isn't the rule of business in Hollywood. Keep denying it despite all evidence to the contrary.
Does Hollywood hire based on race?
LA Daily News article.
Study: Whites Get Majority Of Acting Jobs
From The Independent in the UK
Gay Rights And Wrongs: Hollywood's Biggest Taboo.

 

 

The
UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÈ ALERT
by
Decade

1930
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000

The
RACIAL RESPONSE

RESPONSE
2007
RESPONSE
2006
RESPONSE
2005
RESPONSE
2004

 

 

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Feo Amante
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NOV. 8, 2004

YOUR UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ PAGE WAS GREAT, AND HAD TO WRITE TO LET YOU KNOW GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE! I AM WORKING ON A NONFICTION BOOK WITH A SIMILAR PREMISE ABOUT HOW BLACKS HAVE BEEN TREATED IN GENRE FILMS.

MIKE SARGENT
PRODUCER/HOST/Entertainment critic - REEL WORLD/Niteshift
WBAI-FM 99.5 NYC

hello,

first off, i love the entire site, but especially this part. when people give you grief about the unfair racial cliches, tell them that black people have been talking about this for years and that it doesn't only apply to horror movies.

Deep Blue Sea

you mention l.l. cool j's comment in deep blue sea (dbs). when samuel l. jackson was on the parkinson talk show (on bbc america), he mentioned that he knew he was becoming more successful in his profession when his character didn't die. so when he got the script for dbs, he was surprised to find that he died. the director said, "but if you die, the audience will be so shocked and they'll know that anyone can die." that's probably why l.l. cool j got to live.

an exception: michael clarke duncan gets to live in armageddon, which was a welcome surprise.

"When they say you can't take it with you, they don't mean books, do they?"--Doris Ann Norris

Linda R. Harris
Writing and Rhetoric Division
English Department
UMBC
Baltimore, MD 21250
http://umbc7.umbc.edu/~lharris/mystsite.htm Mystery and Detective Fiction sites on the Internet

Love your site!! Especially your cliche section, it's funny and it's true. I hope producers and studios and even writers take note of this glaring movie cliche, and work to nip it in the bud.

Predictability is just plain bad for movies.

A lot of work goes into your site, which is obvious by just the huge amount of reviews. As a guy who used to have a pretty extensive website, I understand the complete soul draining work of keeping it updated. Recently just slapped up a quick one page cover on my site, to hide the cobwebs, and rotting corpses.

But one of these weeks, when little things like covering the rent isn't wasting my time. I'll update it.

But enough yapping about me, great site. Nice top ten list. Your picks are all good movies that I would recommend, with the exception of Asylum and Final Destination which I haven't seen.

Of course not all of them would make my top ten list. What? Which would? Glad you asked.

Here are 5 that would make My 10 favorite horror movies/best horror movies list:

1/BLACK CAT - Karloff an Lugosi collaboration, masterful direction. One of the most stylish movies ever made.
2/Island of Lost Souls - far and away the definitive filming. Laughton and Lugosi
3/Bride of Frankenstein - The greatest movie, from the greatest director of horror movies
4/Deep Red - Dario Argento's finest film. The slasher pic as art.
5/Don't Torture a Duckling - Lucio Fulci, has made some of the worst, most useless, sloppy, uneven, pedestrian, and just plain stupid movies ever. And has been hailed for much of his gory, absurd, no-plot having zombie nonsense. However before he sucummed to his zombiastic urges, early in his carreer he directed some amazing movies, in terms of just plain style, decades ahead of their time. One of those achievements being DON'T TORTURE THE DUCKLING, the most beautiful, fragile, and perfect of movies, a defining movie, that is too broad to just be called a horror movie, and too horrible and disturbing not to. Only slightly weakened by the hugely cheesy gore effect at the very end. A foreshadowing of the excess that would litter and ruin Fulci's later work. But can't derail this... masterpiece.

As far as the 10 Scariest Movies of All Time...

Well DEEP RED and DON'T TORTURE would be on the list. Along with Exorcist, Magic, Jaws, Halloween, Seven
(not strictly horror, but like Don't Torture it's too horrible and disturbing a movie not to be called horror), Evil Dead, IT, and FRIDAY 13 Part 2 (Yes I hate this series as much as the rest of you, but this episode really was head an shoulders above its siblings, and was scream-in-the-audience scary at the time. That last scene still is.)

Well hope you get a kick out of the list. Let's see more lists from you. Keep up the reviews.

Grendel
Editor/Webmaster Ramblings from the Edge
http://www.angelfire.com/indie/ramblings

That's quite an exhaustive list you have there. One minor quibble, though.

"INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (1994)
All the minorities in the movie die including Armand the evil vampire (Antonio Banderas), the New Orleans prostitute (Indra Ové - also dies in RESIDENT EVIL), and Yvette (Thandie Newton)."

Armand doesn't die. Louis kills his minions in revenge for the death of Claudia. Louis turns down Armand and leaves.

Sabrina

Thanks for the heads-up, Sabrina. Lots of other things kept popping up, keeping me from reviewing this movie since you sent me this email (I haven't seen it since it was at the theaters). I will review INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE this month (Dec. 2004) and retain, or correct my entry accordingly.

URCA

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