Race Relation Movies for Spring ’09

There are a few movies about race relations this Spring that’s garnering attention.

The first one is “The Soloist“.

Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr

I have been failing on this one.  I have the book at home but haven’t finished it and on Monday I had a free pass to view it but was knocked out on Benadryl.  But it looks interesting.  Based on a true story, a white LA Times reporter befriends a schizophrenic African American homeless man.  I don’t know if it falls into the white man as savior category of films, but it still beckons me, so I’ll definitely go see it.

The next movie is Obsession.

Idris Elba, Ali Larter and Beyonce Knowles

The film is Jungle Fever meets Fatal Attraction and I’m not feeling it.  Hollywood is about 10 years too late with this mash up of black female defending her marriage and her man from a crazed mistress.  If the movie had came on the heels of Waiting to Exhalewhich had a ranting Bernie (Angela Bassett ) about her black husband’s white mistress I probably would have seen it back then.  I have a gay Mexican friend who still wants to be diva setting a mf’s possessions on fire.  But in this day and age do we really have to have a black woman getting upset about her husband’s infidelity with a white woman?  Does race play into it?  And does the black woman really needs to fight a white woman for her man?  A more interesting film would have been if the Ali Larter character was sleeping the husband to get closer to the wife, who she really wants.  That sounds more ’09 than this story.

The best film people will want to see about race this spring is American Violet. 

Alfre Woodard and Nicole Beharie

This is another movie based on true events that happened in Texas.  A young single mother living in a housing project is wrongly implicated during a drug bust and through most of the movie works to clear her name.  Race comes into play because blacks are targeted by the police and the KKK tries to make an appearance.

But what I really find interesting is what NPR reporter Wade Goodwyn said when he went to the preview in the small town the even happened in.

That one scene with Alfre Woodard when she comes in with a baseball bat.  It was interesting to watch this black community see itself on the Hollywood screen.  And when Alfre Woodard jumped out, you know, from that bedroom with a baseball bat and threatened to knock the ex-husband’s head off,  about a hundred furious, triumphant women came to their feet urging the grandmother, Alfre Woodard, to knock his head off.  I almost fell out of my chair.  So this movie is a lot more than just about black and white.

Sadly, it always is.