It’s been eating at me for some time now, I don’t understand why, when given a platform to lift up and make positive statements about race and people in general, media people seem to believe that the only road left to them is the low road.
I see this almost everyday, whether it’s in the movies or television; the most successful people are those who choose to lampoon and debase people, all in the name of a cheap laugh or easy put down.
The "minstrel’ show mentality of these performers almost as offensive as those Latino and African-American performers who when given the opportunity to positively portray their communities generally refuse to connect those roles with their respective communities they, in the case of Latino actors adopt Anglo names, leaving one with the impression that if it’s positive it can’t be Latino; I realize I am painting with a broad brush, and for that I apologize, but it is time to call these people out and call a spade a spade.
There are too many people in the entertainment world who do not play to the dross in our communities and yet achieve a level of success without compromising their principles. Harry Belafonte, Rita Moreno, Denzel Washington, and Bill Cosby, just to name a few.
However in today’s media market it seems easier to play the minstrel than to act like what we really are; a solid mixture of personalities; some nicer than others, some less admirable than others.
If a visiting extra-planetary anthropologist were to visit and base their study of the human race in the U.S. on the various media portrayals, they would necessarily have to conclude that other than Anglos, everyone else was either a pimp, drug dealer\junkie, prostitutes and bereft of any intelligence.
The ‘most successful’ films and television shows portray us as being loud, foul mouthed individuals, and in the event they should portray LGBT community, it is either the screaming queen or the man hating butch.
This at a time when one looks at the panorama that is the American reality and one sees Black\Latino\LGBT people in positions of power and influence. Does that mean that we have entered some sort of post-racial\sexist society; the answer is no.
Tyler Perry and George Lopez, two of the most readily identifiable members of our community continue to deliver stereotypes on a constant basis. Mr. Perry’s’ portrayal of the African-American family consists of minstrel actors acting out a level of self hate unseen since the days of Amos N’ Andy. There are those who claim that Mr. Perry is simply delivering a product to an underserved audience, and to the extent that he has achieved the sort of success says more about us; Mr. Perry has hit a winning formula, and if that is the only measure of success, I wonder what that says about us.
As for George Lopez, I must admit that I have only watched his late night show on two occasions, and both times he had a recurring character, La Chola, and truthfully, it pained me to see the beauty that is La Mujer Chicana reduced to a caricature.
Someone once said, no one ever went broke underestimating the gullibility of the American consumer; and that brings me to that sickening Super Bowl commercial selling Doritos and while that commercial was just one of many objectionable commercials aired during the most expensive per minute programs on television, it resonated because of the response by the public. In poll after poll, the Doritos commercial was considered one of the top five commercials aired during the Super Bowl,
You have to understand that before these commercials air, they are shown to focus groups in order to gauge its effectiveness, and they then use the information to target their customers.
We surrender too much when we just let these types of caricatures stand, and thus, are defined by these poor attempts to make a buck.
It is an unfortunate truth that many people in this and other countries base their opinions on what is shown on the mass media; whether it be the large screen or the small one.
In the course of writing this rant I came across an article in the New York Times about a new cartoon show premiering on the Cartoon Networks Adult Swim; the feature titled, Freaknik: The Musical. This animated feature is supposedly drawn on Freaknik, an annual celebration in Atlanta hosted for the most part, by Historically Black Colleges’.
This one hour feature is another in a string of what I will call Black on Black disrespect; from Kat Williams whose every other word statement begins and ends with that most reprehensible quote n word unquote. Even Richard Pryor as funny a man to ever take the stage, finally reached a point in his career where he admitted that the use of that word serves no noble purpose.
There is a school of thought that believes that one can defuse the harm caused by a word by taking ‘ownership’ of that word, and on a micro level that may be true, but I also believe that it gives license to those who denigrate us a free pass.