Spoiler Alert!
I had no idea when I picked up HANCOCK to watch this evening... it was going to be about the one thing the nation still has trouble talking about: The still emotionally explosive situation of Black Man and White Woman.
I thought it was just going to be, from the previews, drunk ex-superhero who happens to be black, does some extraordinary things... then gets his superhero act back together and all ends well.
I was wrong. (As usual).
The movie cruises along pretty entertaining... until the moment the married blonde woman and superhero Will Smith... look at each other a little too long.
Then I thought: this is going to be more than a superhero action movie.
But the attraction grows... with the woman's husband, who has been helping the black man, seemingly unaware.
Then, when they are about to kiss, I remember thinking... the director has painted himself into a box: this movie can only be a tragedy for somebody... since the white man and Charize Theron have a child. There has to be divorce or pain of some kind.
But looking back now, the director put in a few forshadowings... that would make what he did next... less "painful." Or more able for the white majority in this country to accept.
First he forshadowed that the marriage was in trouble. Then, that the child, a son, was not the woman's, but the man's first wife... now deceased.
So now at the moment of the first kiss... you have a white man about to be cuckolded by his wife and a black man... an action many white men would have strong and violent reactions to.
How in the world does the writer get out of this predicament... and STILL make this a light hearted, action adventure... with comedic overtones.
As for the comedy, there really isn't any more after this moment of truth.
But for the big thing, how to get out of the predicament of white man and white woman wanting each other - the writer does it by doing this: not making the white woman a person anymore, but by making her "super" like the black man is portrayed.
Which comes as a complete surprise to the viewer.
I wrote a novel one time... and an agent told me that it was completely believable up until one point.
That's what happened in this movie. It was a black man/white woman love story up until the point the woman "became" a superhero too.
This was a crucial point in the movie - the point where the powers that backed it realized they could go no further in this direction. Not in today's America.
Something had to be done to save this film for commercial profit return.
So the movie "God" or "Gods" made the woman and man no longer of different "colors", but told us they are the last two remaining "angels" of a different "superhero" species.
The problem of marriage to the white man is also solved, by bringing to light the "fact" that the two superheros, are already married and have been for thousands of years.
The problem of bigamy is never discussed and never resolved in the movie.
So now you have a new slant on the old theme of a white man wants to help a black man, but loses his wife to a black man.
The slant is to make them lose their color... and become more like colorless aliens.
But in reality... what it did was make them HUMAN... because our inner spirit or soul is infact... colorless.
Now the black man white woman love is "ok" in the movie, because the black man is not really black, he is a superhero, and the white woman is not really white, she is a superhero as well.
And the superhero status means they are people who realized their humanity is colorless. Too bad America as a whole doesn't realize that.
Nowhere in the movie is racism discussed. It is only filmed... leaving the viewer to make all the connections.
The white man feels betrayed by the black man he tried to help... when he realizes the attraction the two have for each other.
And the white man appears to question his own sexuality at least twice in the move.... a kind of odd inclusion into the move... unless someone involved wanted to consciously or subconsciously attack the motives... of white male liberals who help black men.
And remember... nothing happens in a movie by accident. Everything is there for a reason.
Now, when the villian, who speaks with a strange accent, part Southern and part German, is trying to enlist help from prisoners to kill Hancock, he enlists two who Hancock has already humiliated in the past. One a fat good old boy redneck... and the other a black man.
Hancock has previously stuck the black man up the white man's anus when they stood up to him, not believing he was "super."
The villian tells them both, he has taken away your (white?) pride, and together we will get it back for you.
So now the movie heads toward the showdown:
The three villians are out to Kill Hancock, the reason being for the leader, Hancock stopped him from getting a lot of money in a bank robbery. The reason the other two are in on the plot, is because Hancock humiliated them. How? Hancock defeated a red neck and a friend of the redneck. (An uncle Tom?)
Racism is never presented as a motive... only driven by the use of stereotypes and their actions..
Now both Hancock and his superhero "wife" are attacked by the three villains..
And each time he tries to save her, he himself comes closer to dying... the distinct message being both through dialogue and violence, that black man and white woman can never be together... without one or both of them dying.
This message was further solidified by the woman telling how at least three times in the past thousands of years... they had been near killed... by people who did not want them to be together.
One time was in 1858 when their house was burned... right before the Civil War.
There was never a reason given why people over the centuries did not want the two together.
You are left to put the clues together: She was white. He was black.
Otherwise, why wouldn't people want two super heros to be together. Let them have at it. They are not like us. They are another species.
It's about race. Black man. White woman.
Now they are being attacked again. And the white liberal man, stands back and doesn't help the black man as he is being killed by the three villains, two of which are white and one black.
What the white man does instead, is protect his white son. Trying not to let him see his mother dying and the black man being attacked...
just as earlier he led his son away from a scene where the man and woman were in a romantic scene.
But finally, the white man does the right thing, and saves the black man from the other three.
Then the black man leaves... because of the previously stated moral of the story, that white women and black men can never be safe together... but only apart. FAR apart.
And white men will leave them alone if only they will do that.
So Hancock now stays away from his white "wife" and she goes back to her white husband.
Hancock goes back to saving the world... but far away at the other side of the country.
And he calls the white man on his cell one night and tells him, you (the white liberal) will do great things..." just as the white man tells him earlier in the movie that he (the powerful black man) will do the same.
But the fact unspoken but acknowledged between them is... the black man will do great things... as long as he leaves the white man's wife alone... even if the white woman loves him.
She, who has no apparent job in the movie, apparently goes back to her white husband because he is "a good man," who loves her and will support her, and she doesn't want to see her first husband, the black man, die. The second reason seeming to be the most powerful.
Therein lies the problem with the movie. The love that the white woman and black man had together... can not be allowed to be consumated and they can not be allowed to live in peace... even in the year 2008.
This movie is entertainment. Good entertainment.
And it is reality: white liberal America will help the black man... as long as they stay away from their women.
Maybe things have to be taken a step at a time. Maybe the nations racists have to be brought to the liberal step of helping the black man ... by film... before they can be taken to the next step: letting men and women love whoever they want... regardless anybody's of color.
But the truth is this:
The only way the movie could have been fair to both the black man and the white woman... is if their love... was allowed to flourish in the America of the white majority... without any danger to them.
If they together had told the white man... we are sorry you are hurt by this... but we love each other and we will live together until we die. Now get over it. And the white man accepted this and went on with his life. Then yand only then ou would have an honest movie about real love.
Until that happens, this was just another entertaining movie with good intentions... but no backbone.
I'm surprised Will Smith fell for it.
Maybe... he just didn't think it through.
Maybe... he just said... Take the money and run, Will.
Take the money and run.
But someday... black and white leaders...
like Will Smith...
have to stop taking the money and running.