The Movies Are Getting Better
By: Tooth Truth Roopa Vikesh
Tags: Nonfiction, Parenting, Movies, Diversity, Perspective

I’m writing this in response to Rebecca Stevens A. ‘S article about how there is no such thing as Black Privilege.

Rebecca is right. From India, as a person who watches America through the movies, I’m going to talk about a few movies. I am not a movie buff, but I do have a subscription to an English Movie Pack and I watch part of an English movie everyday during my lunch-hour.

1. Pretty Woman

I recently re-watched this. Back in 1990 when I was 14, I watched this movie with a friend and both our moms. Our moms would clap their hands over our eyes in many scenes, so naturally being able to watch all of it was good fun in itself.

Screenshot from Apple TV trailer of 1990 movie Pretty Woman

Pretty Woman has one black person in it. Darryl, the limousine driver. There isn’t a single black person in the upper class party here.

Screenshot from trailer of 1990 movie Pretty Woman

So as a movie, promoting human equality, I’d say it was a #fail.

Don’t worry, Hollywood will fix everything! Here come, movie no.2 and 3.

2. The Mighty Ducks

Screenshot from trailer of 1992 movie The Mighty Ducks.

Coach is white, while the rag-tag team he teaches is almost all-white. Like in Quidditch, however, this game is gender-neutral, with one girl player.

Screenshot from trailer of 1992 movie The Mighty Ducks

There is one black player on the team, but his dad is always on the white coach’s case, along with a white mom of another player.

Screenshot from trailer of 1992 movie The Mighty Ducks

In this movie, I’d give Disney credit for trying, but not so hard that it looked artificial. The focus is on the Coach’s drinking and driving, and his desire to win even if he’s cheating, unlike the kids who are honest.

3. Hardball

Screenshot from 2001 movie Hard Ball

Hard Ball too deals with a white coach down on his luck who’s forced to coach a kids’ baseball team. I’m amazed they liked the format enough to make the movie twice.

Screenshot from 2001 movie Hard Ball

The thing is: in the older movie, The Mighty Ducks, 1992, most of the ice hockey team is white. There is one black kid on the team, that is all.

In the newer one, 2001, Coach is white, while the kids are all black. This movie isn’t as great as The Mighty Ducks because the Ducks’ coach works harder than the Kekambas’, the game play is better thought out.

I liked the way the Ducks’ ice hockey coach has them have to use eggs for pucks without breaking them.

Keanu Reeve’s character doesn’t do much in the “this way and that’s how” of baseball.

4. A Time To Kill

Screenshot from trailer of 1996 movie A Time To Kill

Next up are two courtroom dramas. One is a dramatization of the novel, A Time to Kill, by John Grisham. Here, the lawyer is white, while the defendant is black.

The defendant, played by Samuel L. Jackson, deliberately picks a white lawyer to offset his all-white jury. I wouldn’t call this a racist movie, but it is a bit like a low-calorie, fat-free, health drink. It reminds you of all the things you’re trying to avoid.

5. Marshall

Screenshot from trailer of 2017 movie Marshall.

The other courtroom drama is Marshall. This movie also has a black defendant, but here, the lawyer is black, too. He’s from the N-double-A-C-P. I deliberately didn’t say NAACP because they never said it that way in the movie, it was always N-double-A-C-P.

Screenshot from trailer of 2017 movie Marshall.

This movie, Marshall, is so great it makes your skin prickle. I wish such movies were released in the theaters in India, and all we get in the movie halls are the superhero movies.