I posted a blog recently about a historical movie that I believe was inspirational while also very historically accurate. However I also watched another historical movie recently which was neither. My wife mocks me about how serious I take watching movies, but I do believe good film makers are always trying to make more than just a movie. This movie was Hairspray. I understand that many will stop reading this blog now; after all I am talking about Hairspray, a cheesy musical that was not supposed to be taken seriously. Yet the main message of the film was about fighting racial and physical intolerance. This message was a positive one, and anyone who knows anything about the civil rights movement or the plight of blacks in America in the 50s and 60s will agree with the message of Hairspray. My problem with the movie was the way they seeming made light of the struggles black America endured during this time. 1960s Baltimore was a very segregated city. Though in Maryland, Baltimore was always a very southern city and as such had serious racial rules. The main character in the film Tracy (played by Nikki Blonsky) is an outcast who wants to perform on an afternoon dance show. Tracy and her friend Penny (played by Amanda Bynes) while in detention (where all the black kids seemingly hangout) befriend the school’s black students and learn to dance like them. This new friendship opens up Tracy’s eyes to racial discrimination, where black kids are only allowed to dance on her favorite show once a month. Tracy decides to take a stand and convinces the black kids that they should do something about it which results in a protest march where Tracy pushes a cop and has to hide out to avoid being arrested. During their conflicts Penny becomes attracted to one of the main black characters, Seaweed, and they begin a little romance. In the end of the film, the black students and the two girls crash the dance contest, out dance the white dancers, the bad girls are exposed, Tracy wins the boy, the little black girl wins the contest, and Penny and Seaweed kiss. What a happy ending.
This movie is listed a musical/comedy, and I think that is why I had issues. It is a very serious subject not shown in its true light. It is a liberal Hollywood’s version how things should have been, but not how they were. I will only touch on a few points. Is there anything wrong with a black boy kissing a white girl, no. But in 1962 Baltimore that black boy would have been killed. A black man-white women relationship was the number one taboo of racial discrimination. In what the move portrayed as sweet would have ended in the death of Seaweed, and I am not exaggerating this point. This is where white liberal guilt is selfish. The two white girls meant well, but they were pushing the black kids, based on their own standard of right, to do things that would put the black youth in harm, while only minimal hard to themselves (the white girl was in no physical danger while the black boy’s very life was at stake). Whites joining protest marches are one thing, whites instigating the march is something else. When Tracy pushed the police officer, she would have been arrested, while the black youth would have been beaten and killed, something that happened too frequently in protest marches. The same outcome would have happened when they crashed the dance show. I do not have a problem with the idea of this movie; they just needed to more historical perspective. The kiss at the end bothered me the most, because they did not show the consequences of those that did fight the system. I do not have a problem with musicals, in fact I like them, and other musicals have taken on racism without the cheesy factor (Showboat, South Pacific).
In history there were men and women who stood up to racial intolerance, but they did not win dance contests. Fannie Lou Hamer as part of CORE boarded a bus and rode it across the south to protest discrimination at bus terminals. When she and her fellow passengers reached Mississippi she was drug off the bus and beaten within an inch of her life. She was beaten so badly that her eye fell out never to be used again. She was jailed for several weeks, only given bread and water, beaten every day and raped with a pipe (excellent bio of Hamer called For Freedom’s Sake by Chana Lee). In real life kissing a white girl did not bring happiness. In 1955 a young 14 year old black boy from Chicago named Emmett Till was visiting family in Mississippi. He did not know the rules of segregation and on a dare winked (far from kissing) at a white woman. In the middle of the night he was taken from his home by the women’s husband and friends and never seen alive again. When they finally found Till’s body they could only identify his from a ring he wore, because he was beaten so badly. His testicals were cut off and shoved down his throat. This is the real story of the struggle for civil rights, and how relationships between blacks and whites were handled (a better movie dealing with this black white relationship is Grapes of Wrath). Hairspray would have been fine
if Tracy wanted black kids to dance on the show, but the fact that she started the fight and hit the cop and Penny was kissing black kids, minimizes what actually happened and in a time where more and more kids are living in a land with less or no racial restrictions, they know little about those that lived before them, and what they know they know from movies, and I just hope young kids today do not think the civil rights movement was that easy.
This movie is listed a musical/comedy, and I think that is why I had issues. It is a very serious subject not shown in its true light. It is a liberal Hollywood’s version how things should have been, but not how they were. I will only touch on a few points. Is there anything wrong with a black boy kissing a white girl, no. But in 1962 Baltimore that black boy would have been killed. A black man-white women relationship was the number one taboo of racial discrimination. In what the move portrayed as sweet would have ended in the death of Seaweed, and I am not exaggerating this point. This is where white liberal guilt is selfish. The two white girls meant well, but they were pushing the black kids, based on their own standard of right, to do things that would put the black youth in harm, while only minimal hard to themselves (the white girl was in no physical danger while the black boy’s very life was at stake). Whites joining protest marches are one thing, whites instigating the march is something else. When Tracy pushed the police officer, she would have been arrested, while the black youth would have been beaten and killed, something that happened too frequently in protest marches. The same outcome would have happened when they crashed the dance show. I do not have a problem with the idea of this movie; they just needed to more historical perspective. The kiss at the end bothered me the most, because they did not show the consequences of those that did fight the system. I do not have a problem with musicals, in fact I like them, and other musicals have taken on racism without the cheesy factor (Showboat, South Pacific).
In history there were men and women who stood up to racial intolerance, but they did not win dance contests. Fannie Lou Hamer as part of CORE boarded a bus and rode it across the south to protest discrimination at bus terminals. When she and her fellow passengers reached Mississippi she was drug off the bus and beaten within an inch of her life. She was beaten so badly that her eye fell out never to be used again. She was jailed for several weeks, only given bread and water, beaten every day and raped with a pipe (excellent bio of Hamer called For Freedom’s Sake by Chana Lee). In real life kissing a white girl did not bring happiness. In 1955 a young 14 year old black boy from Chicago named Emmett Till was visiting family in Mississippi. He did not know the rules of segregation and on a dare winked (far from kissing) at a white woman. In the middle of the night he was taken from his home by the women’s husband and friends and never seen alive again. When they finally found Till’s body they could only identify his from a ring he wore, because he was beaten so badly. His testicals were cut off and shoved down his throat. This is the real story of the struggle for civil rights, and how relationships between blacks and whites were handled (a better movie dealing with this black white relationship is Grapes of Wrath). Hairspray would have been fine
if Tracy wanted black kids to dance on the show, but the fact that she started the fight and hit the cop and Penny was kissing black kids, minimizes what actually happened and in a time where more and more kids are living in a land with less or no racial restrictions, they know little about those that lived before them, and what they know they know from movies, and I just hope young kids today do not think the civil rights movement was that easy.
6 comments:
I enjoyed the play...it was cute but I agree, I really did not like the movie.
I have not seen the play, is it different, I had a feeling it was.
Duncan read a book about Emmet Till it is called "Getting Away with Murder" he was astounded that people could do that to each other. (poor kid has a mother who majored in History... luckily he likes the books I give him) He made a good point for a 12 yr old to make he said... "Mom it seems like we are starting to treat Mexicans the way we used to treat black people.... when will we figure out that we should treat everyone like we want to be treated" I never watched Hairspray but now I think I just might.
I see the treatment of Mexicans as very different. Back in the 60s they were often treated the same depending on where you lived. In areas with large black population and small mexican ones, mexicans were treated as white. But in large mexican areas they were segratated as well away from whites. Today we are not moving closer to treating mexicans as badly as we once treated blacks, they are just now becoming more important so we debate about them more. The mexican population is much larger than the black one and the biggest political question in the comming years is who can win the Mexican vote. There also happens to be a large immigration debate right now and the anyone who opposes illegal immigration is being called racists.
I think Duncan perspective is correct from what he has seen at school. I know that the extremes and the lynchings and such are not happening, but Duncan comes home with stories of kids spitting on hispanics no matter what country they are from telling them to go back home. A boy go expelled at his school because a hispanic boy was holding hands with a white girl and he was jumped and severely beaten up. Edric (my husband) is often mistaken for hispanic not filipino and a kid asked Duncan why his Dad and his family didn't just go back to Mexico where they came from. So in Duncan's eyes he see's many different people from all races treating a specific group of people like scum and almost as non-human. Obviously he has a lot more reading to do in regards to many of the atrocities that happened but from his point of view it is pretty bad. We have worked very hard to teach Duncan that racism has no place in our home or in our friends so these things are very hard for him to watch. There are places where hispanics live in Reno and places where they do not. Maybe it is just different here.
That is interesting, I guess in someways as the population get bigger and the immirgation question heats up, racism towards Mexicans is increasing. It is different here and everywhere else. Jake is the only non-mexican in his class, so we are always the minority.
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