Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Project Greenlight: The driver

This show is so good this season.  It seems like this is a movie I'd love to see.  And, it is coming together better than Battle at Shaker Heights.   
Effie Brown: I understand her point of view of on diversity. I can get behind wanting more minorities in front and behind the camera. Hollywood is lacking that behind the scenes folks. However, I had a major problem with her freaking out over a black man being a driver in a scene. In real life, there are people of color that work in the service industry.
Why was this such a hang up for her?
From Scpr.com, ((Brown says in the show why she changed the casting of the driver to a white actor: "A butler, a chauffeur — these are tropes that we have seen time and time again, and I think that those images are done. It's time for us to tell a different narrative."  ))
But there is a difference between showing a buffoonish black server, in those old movies, and just having an extra in the scene. It was just a driver that happened to be black. I get the feeling that Effie Brown is trying to force diversity down this production at all cost. You're only putting a ban-aid on the situation, when it needs to change from the ground up. The actual culture within the black community needs to change too.
We need more black people in tech and creative things, but that's because we shun education in our culture a great deal. We need more nerds instead of thugs. We need to stop worrying about how we dress and our cars and focus in on grades and getting more black people into school. 
I keep seeing more and more young black kids behaving in such an ignorant and rude manner that I am starting to fear we will never get ahead.  Let's have more people in production and tech stuff, but let's work on it from the ground up.  When Hollywood doesn't let you in, you make your own movies. 
Like the Black Lives Matter movement, Brown seems to only be focused on the surface level instead of getting to root of the problem. IE changing the culture of the black community.
Side Note: Yes, Black Lives Matter, the police are a problem, but can we also address the black on black crime too? We have a huge problem with black killing other black people. Let's change the culture from within instead of just focusing on the cops.

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