| UNFAIR RACIAL |
 |
CLICHE ALERT |
!SPOILERS AHEAD!
101 COINCIDENCES AND COUNTING
URCA:
UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT
Deadicated to Scatman Crothers
1900 - 1960 - 1970 - 1980 - 1990 - 2000 - 2010
The Unfair racial Cliche really got moving in the 1980s.
Read HOLLYWOOD RACISM
For a complete explanation of what this page is about, please go to the
UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT
main page.
| HORROR/THRILLER | HOLLYWOOD THRILLER | NON-HOLLYWOOD HORROR |
Be Alert for These Titles of the
2000s
THE 6TH DAY - 2000 This movie is a grey area UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT, so I'll let you make the call. There are only two black people in this picture. Both of them are men and both are bad guys. Arnold kills one, Vincent the assassin (Terry Crews), but merely beats the other unconscious. So he kinda survives - at least until Arnold blows up the whole building with the unconcious guy in it - which just goes to show that the new Arnold is becoming gentler in his old age. I realize that the black man he beat unconscious might have been killed by the blow. I also realize that the potentially unconscious man might have woke up and fled the building before it exploded. The movie never shows either scenario - it didn't matter to the storyline. Like I said, a grey area. |
HOLLOW MAN - 2000 There are a number of survivors in this movie, but the only token black character, Janice Walton (Actor Mary Randall) ain't one of them. |
DRACULA 2000 - 2000 There are many minorities in this movie with major roles. They are all bad people and they all die. As befitting the DRACULA legend, the Big D makes his three brides. The two blonde haired blue-eyed brides were innocent victims who were turned bad by Dracula. The third one, Solina (played by Jennifer Esposito) is dark-skinned and was a bad person even before she was turned. Despite the many minorities, only white survivors at the end. |
JURASSIC PARK III - 2001 The only black man in the whole movie is Nash (Bruce A. Young), who dies right fast. There are also two Latino actors (one of whom is long time character actor Julio Oscar Mechoso - Nicolas) in the movie as well. They are the very FIRST characters to die. It's all in keeping with the standards set by the first Jurassic Park. Only well-to-do white characters survive, same as all the Jurassic Park movies. |
FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN - 2001 I originally didn't include FINAL FANTASY in the line-up because there is a minor 3D Computer Animated Figure who is black and lives. Many emails later, and with another viewing, I have to admit: The only surviving black character in the film would be considered a quick walk-on or minor role in a live-action movie, so here we go: This is an animated movie, right? Made in Japan about the U.S. in the future, right? And they STILL kill off the only major black character! (He dies nobly though, saving the light skinned couple) They kill off the cgi animated characters and leave only white survivors! Was this done because the Japanese film makers presumed that, "Since this movie is about the USA, when in Rome...?" Who knows? Not just white survivors this time though - there is a white "character" but she has an Asian sounding name who also survives. Hey, I don't want this to be a total spoiler! |
PLANET OF THE APES - 2001 Tim Burton continues the fine tradition of the first Planet Of The Apes by killing off every black actor who has any appreciable camera time. "But wait," you say. "Actor Michael Clarke Duncan is in the movie and he doesn't get killed!" Yes, but Duncan isn't playing a black man, he's playing a black gorilla! And unlike the first Ape movies, he isn't in charge either, but led around by the smaller and light skinned chimpanzee, played by Tim Roth. |
THE FORSAKEN - 2001
Redline Studios
HORROR
The only black person, Cym (Phina Oruche) is also an evil vampire, so guess what happens to her? She gets a shotgun shoved in her face and her head blown off in glorious slow motion, brain splattering, blood spraying, flesh flapping color! The white blonde vampire girl is an innocent and thus saved!
QUEEN OF THE DAMNED - 2002 Like in the first movie of this series, INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, all the black people or even swarthy people are killed off. Only the whitest of the white vampires survive. Only white survivors. |
RESIDENT EVIL - 2002 First, mullatto actress Indra Ové's (also dies in INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE) character of Ms. Black (only "black" woman is "Ms. Black") gets decapitated. Then this movie cuts the only black guy (Colin Salmon) in the entire flick up into bite-sized pieces. They save the Hispanic woman (Michelle Rodriguez) for last, but at least she DOESN'T die while trying to nobly save the white couple. She dies while trying to KILL them! Only white survivors at the end: one mutating. |
EQUILIBRIUM (2002) Yet again, not including background people or brief walk-ons, there is only one racial minority character and he gets killed! Brandt (Taye Diggs) is the only black guy in the movie who speaks. He wants the white guy's job, and he is the lap dog of the evil white guy. Will he "Join the revolution?" Will he "See the light?" Only the light he goes towards after his face is cut off. |
DREAMCATCHER - 2003 As always, not including background people or brief walk-ons, there is only one racial minority character and he gets killed! Colonel Kurtz (Morgan Freeman) has a shootout showdown with a white guy and dies. Granted, he's the bad guy and I've got no problem with that. But again, why does the ONLY non-white guy in the movie ALSO have to be the bad guy AND get killed? I mean, we got lots of survivors. Tons of survivors, it's just that they are all white! |
GHOST SHIP - 2003 Some people write to tell me that the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT shouldn't apply if there is only one survivor and that person just "happens" to be white. JUST HAPPENS TO BE WHITE? Do you think scripts, casting, production, and the tons of meetings that accompany every movie all occur by CHANCE? Do you think that screenplays are merely BORN with a random twining of DNA so that, however they end JUST HAPPENS TO BE how they end? I have to ask these people: Are you that freakin' thick skulled? Or are you just utterly incapable of paying attention here? If your story/film calls for X amount of non-whites and you've only written one survivor in there and you've decided that the survivor will be white then you just wrote, cast, and directed the non-whites in BODY COUNT ROLES! It DIDN'T happen by chance! You and your decision making people decided that white people and ONLY white people can survive the odds. That all non-whites, however noble you make them out to be, are better off dead! And you want your audience to SEE that. It wasn't just a FREAK ACCIDENT, it was intentionally written, cast, and directed that way! How many times does this have to be repeated before folks get it? Well, 54 times and counting so far! And by the way, GHOST SHIP gets the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT because actor Isaiah Washington's character of Greer and Alex Dimitriades character of Santos DIE! They were specifically cast in GHOST SHIP to DIE! This is not to say that white people didn't die, but by the time the credits roll, only the white race, the Caucasians, are represented as people CAPABLE of surviving the odds! This is not to say I didn't like the movie (which, in fact, I do. A pretty scary story - worth checking out.). Some of my "favorite films" have the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT. To be fair, this is the first film from Dark Castle Entertainment to get the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT. THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL and THIR13EN GHOSTS did not. If GHOST SHIP was part of a trilogy or connected series of movies and the RACIAL CLICHÉ didn't occur in some of them, I'd remove the entire series from the list. I've got no problem if sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Like reality, life is a chancy thing, and even though movies are in no way intended to be reality, they are intended to reflect reality, suspend disbelief, and not have the kind of sloppy storytelling template of racist overtones that the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT represents. |
TERMINATOR 3: THE RISE OF THE MACHINES - 2003 No surprise here. In keeping with the tradition established with the previous TERMINATOR films, and like every Schwarzenegger Horror / Thriller movie that has come before, the black guy dies. If there is a black woman, she'll live but only after the black guy is killed. If there is no black guy, then the black woman / minority woman will die. By this point, the very second I saw the only black guy in the entire movie start talking, I knew he was toast. If you've read this far you know the drill. Some argue, "But Feo, the machines take over! They bomb the cities! Everyone dies!" WRONG! Everyone does NOT die or else there couldn't be a human resistance for John Conner to assemble and lead. There were lots of actors with speaking parts in this movie, who we didn't see die, who could have been any race you like. But they were white. The only black character with a speaking part in this film, was specifically cast as a victim (and he didn't get much screentime prior to his beheading either). So they could have had black people with speaking roles in this movie who were not shown getting killed. And if we didn't actually see it, then there is a chance that they could have been one of the survivors after SkyNet bombs the world and takes over. It's not asking for much, is it? |
THE CORE - 2003 This movie has many people in it but only one token black guy (Delroy Lindo). He's heroic, he's smart, but yeah, he's the only black guy. Guess who buys it first? No seriously, go on, guess who dies first? I'll give you a hint: there are many white survivors. I'll give you another hint. There are ONLY white survivors. |
SAW - 2003 Two minorities get theirs in violent fashion. Which is to be expected because this is a pretty violent movie. There are a number of survivors. But the black cop, Detective David Tapp (Danny Glover) and his Asian partner, Detective Steven Sing (Ken Leung) ain't among the white only survivors. |
KING KONG - 2005 New Zealand director, Peter Jackson, never made a movie that held to the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÈ ALERT until he started making movies in or funded by Hollywood. Every film he has made since has done one of two things: had no minorities at all (THE LORD OF THE RINGS: FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, THE TWO TOWERS), portrayed them as evil (THE LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING), or killed them off every one (THE FRIGHTENERS, THE LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING), and now KING KONG. In Peter Jackson's KING KONG, there were a LOT of black people, most of whom were portrayed as unforgivably evil, and one as noble. The evil ones were all killed, according to the storyline, and the one noble black man died trying to rescue a white boy in a meaningless subplot that went nowhere. Oddly enough, the original KING KONG made back in 1933, treated the humans on Skull Island with far more respect that the two "Socially Conscious" KING KONG remakes in 1976 and 2005. In 2006, the Academy and the Hollywood movie industry decided to make 2005 the year of the "Socially Conscious movie." They even insisted on having - for 2006 only - "green limousines" (not green in color, mind you) pull up to the red carpet. They never did that before, and in all award shows with the same people, they haven't since. The land of Showbiz is truly all show and no conscience. With such a blivet of hubris, small wonder that the 2006 Academy Awards show became the least watched of the Oscars to date. And if that wasn't enough, one of my favorite actors, George Clooney (who made not one but two back-to-back socially conscious bombs in 2005) decided to hammer the point home further by engaging in a vainglorious speech about the film industry's social superiority to the rest of the world. A moment that swung between being unintentionally funny and awkwardly embarrassing to watch. It was so embarassing in fact, that the show South Park, actually made fun of South Park alumni, George, and his smug speech. BTW, KING KONG won loads of awards for SOUND. The Oscar for Best Achievement in Sound, Sound Editing, Visual Effects, and Art Direction: It won the BAFTA (British Oscar) for Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects, Best Sound (by golly I guess it DID sound good at that!), and Best Production Design. It won no Golden Globes. Nothing in Australia; nothing from MTV or even the Teen Choice Awards. It didn't win ANYTHING for screenplay and / or direction by any major award folks. |
DANCE OF THE DEAD - 2005 In the future there are very few people who aren't white. Those who are get little screen time and mainly watch the door of the Doom Room. The one non-white man with any appreciable screen time is the bouncer (no close-ups but played, I believe, by stunt man, Frasier Aitcheson), who plays "Giant Door Guy" and only exists, it seems, to be shot dead by the hero. The dead black man's boss is the truly evil bad guy in the movie, who is also white. He is allowed to live. |
PRO-LIFE - 2005 Director John Carpenter has long established himself as a Hollywood renegade and his long history of movies have never appeared to follow the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT. Sometimes the minority person dies (ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK) and sometimes they don't (THE THING, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, more). Just like in real life. However, the Masters of Horror series as a whole does appear to follow this rule. Everyone in this movie: the doctors, surgeons, nurses, and upscale patients, are all white. The one guy in the guard shack, and first victim, is Keirnan (Biski Gugushe) who is black, and gets the top of his head shot off by a white guy who felt that he "had to do it to save his daughter" but didn't really want to. PRO-LIFE ends with many white survivors and only white survivors. |
PICK ME UP - 2006 Larry Cohen made his mark in movies featuring strong minority leads, and yet this is the only movie I've ever seen him make with a single minority actor whose character gets killed. If Masters of Horror can be considered a microcosm of Hollywood Horror film making, then it is not only following the URCA, but is beating it into the ground. This seems to be a first for Larry, but since directors aren't the only ones involved in making a movie, I don't count this against him. Still, with such a large cast and so many survivors at the end (6), its kind of amazing that the one and only minority, the bus driver (Tom Pickett: BORDELLO OF BLOOD) gets killed. PICK ME UP ends with many white survivors and only white survivors. |
SLITHER - 2006 Many people die in this movie, many live, but only white people survive the odds. SLITHER, like the majority of movies made in Hollywood, cast several actors in body count roles. If you aren't white, you're among the dead. It's as simple as that. |
FEAST - 2006 Like the majority of Horror Thriller movies made in Hollywood, if the film features a non-white at all, that person is dead meat. Unfortunately, FEAST doesn't stray from this. White people may die, but by god ONLY White people shall LIVE! Actor Anthony "Treach" Chriss (EL CHUPACABRA) was cast to play the only minority - who doesn't survive. |
PULSE - 2006 There are three minority actors in this movie, but only two of them had any appreciable screen time, Stone (Rick Gonzalez) and Isabel (Christie Milian). Now, out of all of the main characters both white and minority, guess who survives to tell the tale? What's weird about their deaths is, the two white folks who survive the "Pulse" went through everything that Stone and Isabel did, only the white folks went through it first! The Ghosts actually skip the white folks and go after the minorities. Some readers say that, on the DVD extras, the black landlady had a bigger role, but her scenes were cut out, so she doesn't belong in the URCA. That's true. The black landlady did have a larger role, that of being a thief who steals from her dead tenants and sells their property. The white guy who realizes this, buys the stolen stuff anyway, but the movie paints him as a good guy because he bounced a check to the landlady. So if the scene had not been cut, this movie would not have got the URCA, because it would have then showed minorities as either folks who cannot survive or thieves. But what matters is not what is cut, but what is in the movie, and as such, PULSE stands as still another example of the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT. |
Of the various people in this movie, all were revealed to be white-collar professionals except for the two black men. The two men are a Security guard (Richard Whiten: THE ISLAND) and a convicted felon (Tony Todd: CANDYMAN). The single black woman is a lawyer: a perpetually frightened, feckless coward who has to be constantly dragged to safety by the brave white people until she finally gets her deadly comeuppance. All three black people die. Only white survivors. |
NIGHT JUNKIES - 2007 Max's hired hand is a body guard. He doesn't say anything. Not much. Chuckles a few times. Laughs a few times. He's mainly there as Max's hired muscle. He is also the only minority in the whole cast. But he's more than just an extra, he appears predominently in most of the scenes with Max. So you just get the feeling, THE FEELING, that he's supposed to be there as a corpse. Well whattya know? I was right! NIGHT JUNKIES has a lot of white survivors, but only white survivors. |
And boy, was Ken Foree's role of truck driver Big Joe Grizzly, sportin' a 1970's style jeri curl, a racial cliché! Big Joe comes onto the scene bee-boppin', shuckin' & jivin' with his groovy Huggy Bear street lingo all the way to the rest room and even while he's taking a crap! Big Joe is not the only minority in the movie who has any appreciable screen time. Danny Trejo as Ismael is also there. There are a lot of white folks who die in this flick, and a lot of white folks who survive in this flick. But as usual, what happens in most Hollywood made Horror Thriller movies where a minority has some screen time and isn't a mere extra? Yep, Ismael is drowned and Big Joe dies big time. Then Michael goes and drives away in Big Joe's big 18 wheeler. Because Michael, who has been in isolation for the last 15 years, inexplicably learned how to drive a twelve shift semi-truck! |
RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION - 2007 A friend asked me if I'd seen this movie and I told him a bit about it, mentioning the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ. My friend has never been happy with the URCA as he holds to the belief that characters who die in movies, just happen to die! It has nothing to do with their skin color - its just chance! There are lots of white survivors in RE3. There are a lot of non-whites in this movie too. But the character who has a Latino sounding name? He dies. The three black people: L.J. (Mike Epps), Betty (Ashanti), and an Umbrella Tech (John Eric Bentley) die. Runty (Ramon Franco) also dies. In short, if your skin is not white you WILL die. Another odd thing. Remember the little white girl, The Red Queen, in the first RESIDENT EVIL? The Red Queen was a bad software avatar and Alice killed her. In RE3, another little software avatar white girl, named The White Queen, is good and gets to live. So even though everyone who wasn't white died, and only white people lived (including the white software hologram girl named White Queen!), my friend still asserts that it means nothing. His logic is: Since I am not psychic I can't possibly get into the heads of the folks who made this movie and learn what they really thought. I cannot possibly judge their observable actions because I can't read their minds. If I can't read their minds then what I've seen them do is immaterial. Because if they don't come out and actually admit that they intentionally made this movie to purposefully kill off all of the minority characters, then they didn't! So let's say that this movie was real life, and in real life everyone who was not white was slaughtered and only the white people were allowed to live. The non-whites who were all slaughtered were done in by a bunch of other white people (the creators of this film). They did it without giving a reason why. Well then, who am I to judge them? I have no idea what they were thinking! So what am I saying? That the creators of this film are racist or bigoted? No. Am I saying that they made a film that uses the standard Racial Cliché of killing off everyone who isn't white and leaving only white survivors? YES! |
As much as I like this movie, it still gets the URCA. At the start of this film, we see all manner of folks from various races - mainly Eskimo. But there are only a handful of people who actually have talking parts - more than just background extra work. And all of them die. Make no mistake, they die heroically! They die saving the white folks! They are a credit to their race! But they still die. In one scene, Carter Davies (Samoan actor Nathanial Lees: THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS, THE MATRIX: RELOADED, THE MATRIX: REVOLUTIONS), finds himself turning into a vampire, and asks a white guy to please kill him. Which the white guy does, by chopping off his head. Later in the movie, Billy Kitka (Maori/Arawa actor Manu Bennet), also starts turning and the same white guy chops his head off too! In this movie, if you're a non-white you don't get killed off by the vampires, you get your head chopped off by a white friend trying to do you a favor! Yow! I mean, I loved this movie, but ... wow! |
Yeah, I gave it 5 Shriek Girls, but it still gets an URCA, which just goes to show that I don't use the URCA against the overall grade of a film. That said, there are only three speaking roles for non-whites in this movie. Janice (Suehyla El-Attar) is stabbed to death, Rod (Michael Sahr Ngaujah) is shot by the only other non-white person with a speaking role in this movie, the Police Woman (Pat Yeary), who he kills. Rod is eventually beheaded and his head is used for a comic relief. Three survivors in this movie and all of them are white. |
Brent Norton (Andre Braugher) leads a group of men out into the mist to their vehicles or otherwise get help. THE MIST clearly establishes that if you don't come back, it's because you died, as evidenced by the only man in the group who returns... from the waist down. The only other three minority actors in the movie with any screen time are three soldiers*. Two of them kill themselves and a third one goes "ALIEN", apologizing for bringing destruction upon the remaining white folks - right before the varmints burst out of him. Only white survivors. Lots of white survivors. *Not including Extras. Extras never count, and for good reason. On movie sets they are addressed as "Background", as in "Background, if any of you look directly at our lead actor again I'll going to pick you out of the group and send you home. Avert your gaze, now!" |
HACK! - 2007 The UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT has become so standard in presumably progressive Hollywood that sometimes film makers make fun of it. Writer Director Matt Flynn had his actor, Wondgy Brunt, as the character "Q", broach the subject in conversation, and then Flynn committed the URCA to film anyway. Sometimes you feel as if someone in the Hollywood film industry might actually get into trouble if they don't adhere to the URCA. But admitting to the URCA and then doing it anyway doesn't let you off the hook. It means you know you are doing something racist and don't care. Leaving three white people surviving at the end, Flynn made sure that Ricky (Justin Chon), Q (Wondgy Brunt), and Sheriff Stoker (Tony Burton) were all slaughtered. Understand that there are still people who argue with me over this. So let me clarify a few things. Does the URCA mean that anyone who kills off all of the minorities in their movie is racist? Absolutely not. Does that mean they are following a thoughtless, no-talent, hack, worn-out, clichéd racial stereotype trope? Yes! That is exactly what it means. So does THAT mean that anyone who EVER does this in their movie is a racist or an untalented hack? Nope. But consider: Suppose there was a new cliché! And that new Hollywood trope meant that every woman who appears in the Horror Thriller movie is violently raped (that's what rape is, you know. There is no such thing as a passive rapist). Nearly every time a Hollywood Horror Thriller movie came out, every woman in the picture got raped on camera. What would that mean? If you are a woman reading this, how would that make you feel? How would you feel to know that every movie theater had at least one movie playing where every woman in the film gets raped. And those movies play 365 days a year. How about if nearly every Horror Thriller movie that came out of Hollywood had an obligatory male homosexual rape scene of every male in the picture? Imagine that: Nearly every Hollywood Horror Thriller movie from this moment on will have an obligatory male homosexual rape scene. By the end of the movie, every man in the picture has been forcefully sodomized against his will at least once by another man. If you are a man reading this, how would it make you feel to know that there was an entire section in your local video rental store that had every male actor in the movie violently raped? What would that mean? Would it mean anything? How do you feel even reading this? Of course, if you are a minority woman or man in the U.S., you already know how it feels to walk into your local video rental store and know that nearly every Hollywood Horror Thriller movie, in its own section, kills off every last person who has your skin color. Nearly every one. Hell, they practically have the entire section dedicated to it! Maybe it would be, like some people say of the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT, all just coincidence. That however many men got raped in the movie nearly every single movie just happened to be the ones who get raped in the movie. Like the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT is all just a long string of coincidences. By the way, HACK! makes the 75th coincidence. Over 30 since the year 2000 alone. ...and counting. |
SANDS OF OBLIVION - 2007 Hey, big cast! Lots of people! How many do you think were minorities? Only one token in a starring role. Azie Tesfai, as Jamie, gets killed off right quick. Lots of people die, lots of people live, but in the huge cast of people who survive and have speaking parts, guess how many are white? All of them. Only white survivors. Not that this "Kill all of the minorities in a Hollywood Horror Thriller movie" actually exists, mind you. This is merely coincidence #76 in the "Nobody cares if I kill off every single person of your race in my movie" URCA. |
THE TRIPPER - 2006 (wider release in 2008) "I went to see Logan's Run, right? They had a movie of the future called Logan's Run. Ain't no n*ggers in it. I said, well, white folks ain't planning for us to be here. Pryor said that back in the 1970s and in various newspapers and magazines, writers tried to set Richard's mind at ease. No, no, no, there were some black people in Logan's Run! Honest! Well, one anyway. Why, if Richard had only paid attention to the last five minutes of the movie, before the credits, for about one second, he would have seen a black woman (or maybe a man, it was very fast), in the crowd scene as everyone leaves the city. On-set extras and musicians (in case of a stage show) are known as "the background". What is "the background"? On movie sets, in crowd scenes, sometimes living flesh and blood extras sit next to lifeless plastic dummies. That's what an extra is, that's what "the background" is. So when someone sends me an email and says, To all of that I say, "Seriously?" In THE TRIPPER, the main token black character of drug addled Linda (Actor Marsha Thomason) gets butchered. Lots of white survivors at the end who were Actual Characters in the movie. Just no black ones. No minority survivors at all. So I draw this line (not for the first time) because the band Fishbone is in the movie. Fishbone aka Norwood Fisher, says one line (besides his song). "The show's over." That's not a starring role. That's an extra with one line. Any black people who are actual characters in the movie die. There is one other extra, apparently not part of the band, who plays a drum during the dance scene where the extras are acting all drugged up. As the only noticable black man in a sea of white folk, and because he's slapping a congo drum, he stands out for the (perhaps) 1.5 seconds he has onscreen. That's it! And in the DVD commentary, while we are watching all of these white people extras dancing and acting wired, one of the commenters (I think it was Richmond Arquette - whose character of Deputy Cooper also survives) makes a point of saying that he thought the "Drummer really was on drugs." Classy. Now of course, Richmond was actually in the movie so he would know better than me. But it was still odd how he singled out the only black guy in an entire crowd scene for being the only one really on drugs. To be fair, since David Arquette, Jason Mewes, and Jaime King were all recovering from heroin addiction at the time they made this flick, perhaps it was a compliment? |
ALIEN APOCALYPSE - 2008 Apparently, the only people who were able to survive the alien invasion on earth were white people. When the one minority returns from a space probe mission, he gets his head chewed off by the aliens. From then on, while Dr. Hood discovers and rounds up an army of various tribal survivors, they are all white tribal survivors. Holy crap! Not even indigenous American tribes survived the alien onslaught. On the other hand, this movie was shot near Sofia, Bulgaria for cheapnis so there probably aren't too many dark complexions over there. According to Writer/Director Josh Becker, actor Michael Cory Davis said, "Of course the only black character gets killed." to which Becker replied, "Yeah, but this role wasn't written for a black actor." And then Josh chuckles. Yeah! So in your face, chocolate man! Becker actually thinks that's a trump in his favor. Yet the most obvious reply would be, "But out of all of the major speaking roles in this movie, and there are plenty, you made sure to cast only one minority - the first dead guy. And I'll bet the script never called for that either!" What else did Josh say? "No, don't take that attitude! This isn't racist! This role wasn't written for a black actor. But since the character dies in the movie, and you're black, we'll cast you in the role!" ? This is the whole, narrow, specific, point of the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHE ALERT and I'm still amazed how some people claim that they just don't GET it. EVEN when the actor stands right there and openly points it out to them. Freakin' DU-UH??? |
DOOMSDAY - 2008 Shot in England, Scotland, and South Africa, three of this movie's four production companies are based in Hollywood. What does that mean? Only that DOOMSDAY continues the UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHÉ ALERT theory. There can be any number of reasons, or excuses, as to why it was used here. But that said, it was still used. Eden Sinclair's second-in-command Norton (Adrian Lester: THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW), and Prime Minister Hatcher (Alexander Siddig), don't survive to the credits. Only three Scots make it, and you don't get much whiter than the Scottish. |
TRAILER PARK OF TERROR - 2008 Only two minorities in this movie and they both get killed. Michelle Lee plays Miss China, the hooker. She's toast. Then Haley Marie Norman plays Amber, the juvenile delinquent slut, and she bites it. At least three white folk survive, four if you count the stranger. But take note: ONLY white folk survive. Non-whites just don't have it in them to beat the odds in a Hollywood Horror Thriller movie. |
Samuel L. Jackson was the only non-white in the movie who was actually playing a minority. Eva Mendes played Sand Seref and her origins as a child didn't label her as a non-white. So with Samuel L. Jackson as the only black guy in the whole movie, guess who dies? There could have been other non-whites. But no, Jackson stands alone and gets blown to bits. And having minorities playing white people doesn't count. Many white survivors at the end, including the evil / bad guy/gal white folks. |
THE SPIRIT
UNBORN - 2009 White people all over the place and the only minority - Casey's black friend, Romy (Megan Goode ) - gets killed by a white kid who is really innocent! It's that damn evil spirit's fault! Naturally I'm thinking, "It's 2009 and we still have these damn RACIAL CLICHES." But hark! Two more black actors with speaking parts come into the story the minute the single black actor dies. Now I'm thinking, "Kind of odd to introduce these two guys like they are going to be major players in the movie when there can't be more than 30 minutes left!" Nope, actors Idris Elba (THE REAPING - character dies in that one too) and Craig J. Harris are only there to get their characters killed off too - mighty damn quick. Only white survivors, and there were plenty of white survivors. Korean actor, C.S. Lee had a walk-on role, for all of the thirty seconds he had on screen. Was he there to make a loop-hole? I gotta say it: "Hey Hollywood! It's 2009 already! When are you going to be done with this shit?" |
There are only two racial "minority" characters in this movie, John Wraith (Will i am) and Agent Zero (Daniel Henney) that actually have a part in this movie. The rest are extras or background characters who are quickly killed off without so much as a single line. Of those, only a few have any seconds onscreen and have such wonderful character names as "Nervous African Woman". In regards to the URCA, a number of people are writing me emails and actually sending me the timecode on their DVD player so I'll know the precise second that the camera wizzed by someone in a blur who is not white and wasn't killed in a particular movie. Holy crap! |
X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE |
Octavia Spencer (SPIDER-MAN, PULSE, THE NINES, DRAG ME TO HELL) as Nurse Danielles, is given just enough screen time to be an actual character and not a walk-on extra. Naturally a lot of white people die in this movie, but Nurse Danielles is the only minority in HALLOWEEN II, and while there are lots of white survivors at the end, like all Rob Zombie movies, there sure as hell aren't any non-whites surviving at the end! |
SURROGATES - 2009 This is one of those oddball URCAs. In the beginning of SURROGATES, they make it clear that the human users of the Surrogates, may look nothing like the robots. A sexy woman could actually be a fat bald man. A towering tall young black man may really be a small old white man. At one point in the movie a beautiful black surrogate tells agent Greer, "I'm not a doctor." To which Greer snarkily replies, "I don't know what you are honey. For all I know you could be some fat guy with his dick hanging out." Even the inventor of the surrogates, Lionel Canter, uses different surrogates of different races and ages as pleases him. So it's clear that surrogates don't necessarily represent their users. And its clear that the shut down or destruction of a minority surrogate doesn't mean the death of a human character who operates as its user, right? And yet, there is only one actual minority human user in the whole movie. So guess what? Stone (Boris Kodjoe), dies! Anybody else could have been a minority, but nobody else was. |
PANDORUM - 2009 Like nearly all of Producers Paul W. S. Anderson & Jeremy Bolt's Horror Thriller movies (with the exception of Bolt & Anderson's EVENT HORIZON), all of the minorities are killed off. Anderson & Bolt's movies follow the template of heroic yet flawed minority who finds it within themselves to make sure the caucasian people survive. Meanwhile, the caucasian people, who live to the end, have made sure that they and other caucasian people survive. The flawed-because-he-can't-speak-English, Manh (actor Cung Le), and the flawed-because-he-has-done-terrible-things-to survive on the horrifying ship, Leland (Eddie Rouse), both die trying to save the spaceship and the white couple, who live to tell the tale. Only white survivors as far as the eye can see. |
AVATAR - 2009 Whether we are talking TERMINATOR, ALIENS, TERMINATOR 2, THE ABYSS or TRUE LIES, Cameron is a man seemingly uncomfortable with non-white people. I personally don't know the man, never even talked to him. All I have to go on is his work. For example, how does Neytiri know that Jake is fake? It seems that, in the future, nearly every human is white, save for a very few background extras, one soldier, Private Fike (Sean Anthony Moran, blink and you'll miss him), one scientist, Dr. Max Patel (Dileep Rao: DRAG ME TO HELL), who has about four lines and 30 seconds out of a 2 hour and 40 minute movie. So all of the hybrid-Na'vi like Jake, Grace, and Norm are thin lipped Na'vi hybrids. Cameron cast all of the lead Na'vi primitives using minority actors. Why would James cast only minority actors as all of the major alien characters in his movie HE wrote, Directed, Produced, Edited, and had full creative control over, unless he felt that minorities do a great job of physically appearing like primitive tree dwellers? You think I'm kidding? For the full article, please read AVATAR: THE UNFAIR RACIAL CLICHE ALERT |
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| HOW OTHERS SEE IT |
| 2022 "And for Ralph, who has quietly and steadily built a 45-year career in an industry not always welcoming of her skin tone, taking up space has deep personal resonance." Sheryl Lee Ralph put in the time and the work. Hollywood is finally taking notice |
| 2021 "Industry professionals like the one I pitched above don't think of themselves as ableist." How Hollywood Reacts to My Disability - And Why it Matters For You |
| 2020 UCLA: Does Hollywood STILL hire based on race? 2020 Hollywood Diversity Report: A different story behind the scenes |
| 2006 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. |
