MovieChat Forums > 48 Hrs. (1982) Discussion > This movie is racist

This movie is racist

posted 9 months ago by Heisenberg (6365)
36 replies | jump to latest

Every man in the movie is paired with a girl of exactly the same skintone and racial features as him. It looks very odd for San Francisco in 1982.

But it becomes ludicrous when this happens:
Ganz is ordering 2 whores over the phone, one for himself and one for Billy, his Native American colleague.

He gets himself a white blonde girl. What the fuck is up with the need to get Billy an indian whore?
With all the possible choices available, not to mention the limitations of finding an indian whore for the service he called, does he really need to get Billy an indian girl? He doesn't even ask Billy for his preference.

The movie takes it one step further, by having a clearly white girl with an "indian" hairdo pose as said indian whore later on (maybe that was what the service could organize, given the likely difficulty of finding a real indian whore on such a short notice- the movie doesn't clarify).

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[–] SweetTooth43 (1797) 9 months ago

Don't forget all the fun watermelon comments by Nolte's character toward Reggie. It really is a classic isn't it? Glad it triggered you too. 😉

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[–] millsey72 (9606) 9 months ago

Most movies were racist up until when Star Wars episode 7 and Ghostbusters came out in 2015 and 2016 respectively

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[–] Gd5150 (11082) 9 months ago

Ganz & Billy go way back. He obviously knew his preference for Squaws. There’d be no reason for them to have the conversation in the movie as it illustrated perfectly their long and distinguished history.

The scene in the cowboy bar is hysterical.

Top 10 80s action/comedy no doubt. Up there with Midnight Run. Risky Business.

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[–] Heisenberg (6365) 9 months ago

I don't know.
Given their circumstances, what the characters "needed", the year etc, it seriously stands out as offensively racist for Billy to need such a rare item to get some sex.
The scene looks like it implies that, obviously, he is indian, hence he needs an Indian whore or else he cannot fuck. As if it's a given.
Couldn't be more racist.

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[–] Enigmaticocean77 (2123) 9 months ago

Maybe he just prefers Indian women. Yes, it's that simple.

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[–] Heisenberg (6365) 9 months ago

Sure. Why not?
And all the black guys prefer black women, white white etc.
Simple and easy...in 1940 Alabama. Not 1982 California.

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[–] Gd5150 (11082) 9 months ago

Well it was Ganz. He referred to Billy as Tonto and made a reference to him wanting “fire water”. The audience was not supposed to like Ganz, so painting him as a racist would contribute to this.

However their relationship on and off the job showed that people of all colors can “just get along”.

Kinda like Jack and Reggie.

A heartwarming story bigger than race, inspiring films like Shawshank Redemption, Selma, and Do the Right King.

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[–] Heisenberg (6365) 9 months ago

Yes the scripted overall message is the one you wrote.

But I get the vibe that, while all the other racism is intentional and well used, this sexual segregation slipped out of the filmmakers subconscious.
It's blaring that it's not just Ganz to be pairing Billy with his race.
Every x man is with or looks for strictly an x woman.
It just jumped at me with that bizarre request, but the rest of the movie follows the same logic.

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[–] Gd5150 (11082) 9 months ago

I think it was kind of a caricature of the Ganz type. He’s a lowlife criminal scumbag. As was Billy.

Despite being a criminal, Reggie was a respectable character. Treated the woman he met at the club with respect. Had Kates back when it mattered.

The whole Squaw line was humorous just because it was kind of over the top. But so was a lot of the movie. To me it’s gritty and real for the time. Everyone was calling each other watermelons and honkys back then. Things were different.

Great soundtrack. Early James Horner.

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[–] Heisenberg (6365) 9 months ago

Yes the movie is great. The ost is a masterpiece.
I guess the squaw need could be chalked up to Ganz's ignorance.
I am not that sure though. I mean, the very concept is there as a clue later on Kates and Hammond use to track them down (their girlfriends complain to the police/one of them is indian/shit, her boyfriend must be Billy!).
Ok, it could be that they figured Billy is a racist so he can only date Indians.
But again, is smells like the movie infers that it's an obvious, normal and expected trait that everybody (not just Billy) strictly has sex within their race group (even if you are just looking for a one fuck prostitute).

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[–] Enigmaticocean77 (2123) 9 months ago

Some people (even in modern times) prefer dating or having sex with members of the same race. It REALY IS that simple. If you don't understand that you must be trolling.

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[–] Heisenberg (6365) 9 months ago

That is obviously not even up for debate.

But this is a movie, so it is just a representation of reality.
When EVERY SINGLE PRSON in said representation makes that same choice, it seems less realistic and more like a deliberate choice by the filmmakers.
Like I already wrote 10 times here, this choice is even more glaring because of this whole indian whore necessity, which is passed as an OBVIOUS need instead of a peculiarity.
But it's not limited to that "necessity" for Billy, it's all over the movie.

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[–] Enigmaticocean77 (2123) 9 months ago

Okay, I can see your point.

Honestly, I never thought about it at all. I never think about who dates who, or who F's who and what color they are. It just doesn't matter to me.

You'd have to ask the director/casting agent as to why they did that.

However, interracial relations (while still happening quite often back then) were still much rarer than they are now.

To be honest I figured that you were just trolling for attention. There's a lot of that on here.

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[–] Heisenberg (6365) 9 months ago

I agree on all your points, but like I said, that request that Ganz makes for a strictly squaw prostitute stands out, even more so condisering it's a very temporary relation. I would have loved to see the scene where they get a white or a black prostitute and Billy says "no, I cannot fuck her, send her back".

Anyway, no big deal, the movie is still great.

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[–] JFZ (1459) 9 months ago

Back then, men weren't brainwashed into muttifying the country, like now. It was a better time. Less mystery meat downies walking around like depressed NPCs filled with rage that no one accepts them and they have to be so shocking and obnoxiously brazen to get any attention.

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[–] Darren (1135) 9 months ago

Oh my God! The world four decades ago wasn't just like today! People back then didn't think just like me!!! How could those troglodytes back then not realize how civilization was supposed to work?

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[–] Heisenberg (6365) 9 months ago

Who said anything about you bullshit cliché arguments?

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[–] Darren (1135) 9 months ago

You did. You don't like the movie -- or you don't just dislike it; you condemn it as racist (a wearisomely overused label these days) -- because the demographics, attitudes, life choices, sexual preferences, etc. are not those of 2023. Well, why would they be? 1982 was not 2023. Deal with it.

There is saying: "the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."

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[–] SweetTooth43 (1797) 9 months ago

You just got torched Heisenberg!

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[–] Heisenberg (6365) 9 months ago

1 I love this movie
2 You are a moron that does not know how to read
3 When you learn not to put YOUR ideas into somebody else's writing, read again what I wrote
4 Try not to barely report some cliché

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[–] Darren (1135) 9 months ago

I can read just fine. Your every gripe is based on an assumption about a given character's motivation, which is underlined by the presupposition that this motivation is morally wrong, and this attitude in turn arises out of a morally sensibility grounded in "progressive" ideas of social justice current in 2023, but anachronistic to 1982.

Bottom line: you're condemning a forty-one year old movie for reflecting the attitudes of its own time, rather than conforming to your own, 2023-based ideas of what "correct" behavior should be.

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[–] Heisenberg (6365) 9 months ago

Nope.
Bottom line: you're pulling out of your ass your bottom line.
But your first paragraph is also utterly existing in your imagination .
The only part you did not fabricate is the cliché that we are judging an old movie with modern standards. Which of course nobody is, but that is all you understand after you keep imagining what is not there.

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[–] Darren (1135) 9 months ago

Yep.

Merely asserting the same thing over and over again does not somehow magically make it true. It is disingenuous in the extreme, after complaining specifically about the lack of "diversity" choices among the characters, in a film from 1982, and doing so in such a way that just coincidentally happens to align 100% with modern, "progressive" attitudes on the subject, for you to pretend that this is not precisely what you are doing.

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[–] Heisenberg (6365) 9 months ago

That is specifical YOUR tactic and ONLY argument (which is also a fucking cliché only morons like you still use thinking they sound clever).

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[–] Darren (1135) 9 months ago

Yeah, sure, whatever. I'm not going to keep going round and round on this with you. What it is is you thought you'd do a little virtue signalling, and when some of us didn't agree with your superior morality, and told you you were being ridiculous, you got all butthurt.

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[–] Heisenberg (6365) 9 months ago

You are so stupid you STILL have not understood shit of what I wrote.
Yet write AGAIN your low culture barrage of cliché.
Too early to throw in the covid vaccine or the lizard people?

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[–] Darren (1135) 9 months ago

Like I said, I'm not going to argue the point further with you. That you resort to such stupid insults as you threw in at the end there tells me at what intellectual level you are operating; it's not nearly as high as you flatter yourself it is.

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[–] MCguy (949) 9 months ago

The movie is not racist. Some characters in the movie may be.

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[–] Heisenberg (6365) 9 months ago

No, many characters in it are racists, but that is clearly addressed by the movie in a modern way.
But when an idea that is not very realistic is repeated constantly to some excess, it seems like it is what the movie wants to express.
In 82 not every white guy needed a white girl etc. when you go to the excess of needing an indian whore for an indian guy to fuck once, it sounds like racism to me.

Maybe I am just uninformed on the statistics for indian prostitution in SF in 82, but it strikes me as a hard to satisfy request from Ganz, so that makes it even more racist. Billy really couldn't just fuck a white chick?

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[–] MCguy (949) 9 months ago

Regardless of how many characters are racists (by your standards), the movie is not racist. It is a movie with racists characters, not a racist movie.

Uninformed is an accurate term, but you're limiting yourself on subjects.

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[–] Heisenberg (6365) 9 months ago

No, like I said, the two concepts are distinct and I am specifically saying that a movie that portrays couples as segregated as this, for 82 SF standards, seems unintentionally racist.

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[–] Levtones (508) 9 months ago

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[–] liscarkat (16621) 9 months ago

1982 was a less uptight time. Humor was more sophisticated. Judging the movie by the dubious standards of 2023 is stupid.

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[–] Heisenberg (6365) 9 months ago

What does that have to do with my op???
Who the hell is judging it by 2023 standads???

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