From: wwr@calmasd.prime.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: Re: What are those Negroes doing with guns?
Date: 2 Sep 92 19:38:13 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Computervision - A Division of Prime Computer

> 'Malcolm X' is a movie that I'm looking forward to - not just because
> I respect the man, but I'm interested in seeing how much of Spike
> Lee we'll be able to glean from his portrayal of El Hajj Malik
> Shabazz's life. Anyone else feel the same way?


	Actually, no, suprisingly, I'm not looking forward to this film.  I'll
probably, maybe, go see it, but - maybe I'm alone here - as a white man in the
90s, I'm getting really tired of people slamming who I am based on the sins of
white men from the past.	
	Seems to me Spike Lee is trying to equate equal footing by bringing
white America "down" -- instead of bringing black America "up" (like Living
Large did).
	As long as I'm out on the limb with a noose 'round my neck, might as
well put the hood over my face, I feel the same can be said about woman's
attitudes to men in the 90s.
	Did anyone see Northern Exposure on Monday night?  It was a repeat of
last seasons finale - the one with Adam getting married... Anyway, Fleischman
is talking to his nurse about the problems he's having w/McConnell.  The
nurse's response is, "It's your fault."
	"What do you mean, it's my fault."
	"Your a man."
	"You that since I'm a man I'm automatically guilty of something."
	"Yes."
	I was talking about this scene with a woman who was reading the book
"you gotta' have b*lls to make it in this league".  Her opinion of men was that
they were good for one thing.  Implying reproduction...sex...fornication...
rutting like dear in heat.
	Hmm.. Gee, that doesn't sound too much like those pigheaded male
chauvinist that woman *and men* have been trying to stomp out of society, does
it?
	What about the attitude of the woman in Honeymoon in Vegas?  Death
Becomes Her is the best recent film for portraying the modern woman.  (Oooh,
that'll piss some of ya' off :)
	Lots of bitching about woman in film, woman on TV, woman as objects,
but who puts them there!  Who was dressing up like little Madonna-ites when she
first came out (okay, a few queenies here & there, BUT - mostly young girls),
who makes George Michael, Tom Selleck, Mark Harmon stars despite questionable
talent?  Who dictates what amount of a woman's flesh should be shown by her
clothing?  Not men.  We don't buy it.  We don't buy Jason Priestly shirts, or
New Kids on the Block CDs?
	Basically, "Hey, woman!  Stop blaming men for *your* decisions!"

	Bottom line, if things were reversed, and this was a matriarchal (sp?)
society, the attitudes of men would be women's.  Woman would hire the cuter
man, would think little of them, pay them less ... because woman would identify
less with the men!  Nothing would be different.  One gender would still be
paying for the ignorance of the other gender.
	The ideal choice is for a gender equal society, but woman, because of
men of the past, will not be happy with that.

	While I'm at it :> (snicker dastardly), I have no empathy for Native
Americans, or the inner city urban problems.
	Films like Thunderheart & Black Robe have made a big deal over the
Europeanization of the Native Americans, and what a raw deal these peoples got,
are getting, from Europeans.
	Native Americans would most assuredly would have done everything, if
not more, to every white man who stepped onto this continent if they were able
to.  Doesn't make the US's actions of the time, or now, correct, but I have no
guilt about winning this continent.  
	Something else.  A major tenent of American Indian culture is that the
land owns them - they don't own the land.  I'm sorry, but native american's
have no right to any land (other than those by treaty) simply because they were
there first.  Before the Crow was some other, now killed off (doubtlessly
helped along the path of extinction by the Crows) race of peoples who claimed
it as their sacred lands.
	New Jack City, Juice, Straight Out of Brooklyn, Boyz 'n the Hood, more
& more films address the plight of the inner city & more 'n more films are
saying the answer is Mo' Money to these areas.
	The inner city grew because of the plight of the american farmers in
the Dust Bowl years of the 30s. Now, the jobs are back out on the farms, but
the people who have traditionally worked these jobs (the poor, the emmigrants),
won't leave the nipple of the welfare systems that exist in the inner city.
	Instead, illegal immigrants send 6 billion a year back to Mexico. 
Almost double what Mexico makes from it's oil industry.  That's a *huge* black
market economy that we are supporting for conveince sake.


Yeah, I rambled.  Got a burr up my butt & couldn't dig it out.  Got bored,
whatever... go ahead - toast me.  I got my undies all set to slip on.

walter
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