Saturday, October 11, 2003
It's weird to see Cuba Gooding Jr. do 'blackface'. But that's exactly what he's doing in his new film Radio. Never mind that the guy should have never won an Oscar for Jerry Maguire, let's focus on the fact that playing someone who is mentally handicapped or disabled in some way is not only the new Oscar bid/cry for attention, but it's also today's equivalent to minstrel shows.
Movies with these roles always come out in the fall when veteran actors make their bids for the Oscar to top off their careers. Look at the fucking awful, manipulative, pedantic commercial for Starbucks, I Am Sam. The point of the movie is that the developmentally disabled have a lot of love in their hearts and they can, with help, provide a loving home for children, be productive members of society, and offer us, the developmentally abled, something special. Unfortunately that's all bullshit. The movie itself destroys that message.
If the director of the film, Jessie Nelson, cared at all about making that point hit home with audiences and really felt that was true, he would have cast someone who was actually developmentally disabled in the role. He would have made the movie actually mean something. How can you expect your audience to care about anyone with a disability if you obviously don't? Can you imagine "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" with Robert Redford in blackface?
There's a few token actors in the movie who appear developmentally disabled, but they're relegated to the tiniest of roles. The movie basically says "Look the disabled can do anything...but act!" "Look we're a bunch of white liberal assholes that pay lip service to acceptance! ULP! I hope down's syndrome isn't contagious"
Now we have this Cuba Gooding Jr. tripe, Radio. Awful. "Disabled people can teach us everything except how to stop being insincere!"
If you still think of disabled people as retards, just say so. Don't dress it up with hugs and beatles songs and pretend it's something that it's not.
Movies with these roles always come out in the fall when veteran actors make their bids for the Oscar to top off their careers. Look at the fucking awful, manipulative, pedantic commercial for Starbucks, I Am Sam. The point of the movie is that the developmentally disabled have a lot of love in their hearts and they can, with help, provide a loving home for children, be productive members of society, and offer us, the developmentally abled, something special. Unfortunately that's all bullshit. The movie itself destroys that message.
If the director of the film, Jessie Nelson, cared at all about making that point hit home with audiences and really felt that was true, he would have cast someone who was actually developmentally disabled in the role. He would have made the movie actually mean something. How can you expect your audience to care about anyone with a disability if you obviously don't? Can you imagine "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" with Robert Redford in blackface?
There's a few token actors in the movie who appear developmentally disabled, but they're relegated to the tiniest of roles. The movie basically says "Look the disabled can do anything...but act!" "Look we're a bunch of white liberal assholes that pay lip service to acceptance! ULP! I hope down's syndrome isn't contagious"
Now we have this Cuba Gooding Jr. tripe, Radio. Awful. "Disabled people can teach us everything except how to stop being insincere!"
If you still think of disabled people as retards, just say so. Don't dress it up with hugs and beatles songs and pretend it's something that it's not.
