my thoughts have been provoked by the news of the dismal opening of the movie cadillac records. i admit that i had very little interest in seeing this movie in theaters. i love beyonce as a singer and performer in that capacity, but her acting has always left much to be desired--as does almost anything where i have to listen to her talk, unfortunately. i hadn't heard much about the movie--i read more posts about the cast and premiere parties in blogs than i've seen commercials for the movie. but i felt guilty when i heard about the poor showing at the opening. this movie had black star power--jeffrey wright, gabrielle union, the mighty mos def (swoon!), and of course beyonce (who gained weight for the role--you guys know how hard it is for that girl to stay in shape, so this was a super important role!) and it chronicled the rise of chess records, which gave us important black singers like etta james and muddy waters. in short, the movie was black history and pretty much coonery free--it portrayed the kind of images of black people that we say the big (and small) screen is lacking. so why weren't we out in droves to support it? this is the same problem the great debaters, eve's bayou, and other movies about black firsts/history have.
i get it. people like to laugh, comedies tend to do well across the board. but in a barack obama era--why can't we pull large audiences without shucking and jiving, killing each other, a man in a dress, cooning, or movies produced by a man in a dress? white people have always loved to laugh at us--we were allowed to entertain them long before we were allowed to drink from the same water fountain as they were. and true to form, they will still turn out in droves to see movies where we are cooning, thus inflating the box office numbers . . .i'm not really talking about them, but about us. we can't complain about bet, mtv, and other derogatory forms of black entertainment if we won't support the few times someone breaks through and can get funding for a movie that shows us in a positive light. if as many of us would have put secret lives of bees at the top of our priority list the way we did sex and the city, it would have done much better. if we were as excited to see denzel in the great debaters as we were to see him in training day, we would have been sending a message. we aren't doing a good job of letting studio executives know that we mean it when we say we want to see positive black images and we don't need a laugh track or a punchline to support it.
therefore, i will suck it up and go see cadillac records. it might not mean much, but it makes me feel like i'm doing my part so i can feel good about complaining about the lack of real, positive 'us' to go with my popcorn
2 comments:
Well, you already know that I am not a huge Beyonce fan but I am very excited about going to see the movie. I thought they did a horrible job of promoting this movie, which I am sure added to its lackluster box office opening. I have heard great things about Beyonce's performance and have loved Jeffrey Wright since he played the villan in the remake of Shaft. It's really unfortunate that the coontastic Black movies usually make more money than the ones that have positive Black images. With that being said, I can't wait to see this movie and though I hate to admit I want to see if the Oscar buzz B is getting for the movie is worth it, lol!
I, too, heard nothing about this movie, except that Beyonce had to get chunky. I am a terrible movie-goer to begin with, so the chances of this making the cut were slim to none. But now that you've guilted me, it might get a bump up. I'll let you know. ;)
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