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Wonder if Townsends missteps in the 90's have minimized this effort


“Hollywood Shuffle” surprised the hell out of me. It’s funny, it’s really, really funny. This is the first film of Robert Townsend, who had to beg cinematographers for leftover film, scrounge up every dollar (only a $100,000 budget) and get his cast to work on deferment of funds just to get it made. But in his efforts he made a hell of a movie; one that showcases all the dreams, heartbreaks, and struggles of black actors in Hollywood. And it’s so funny. He wrote the script with Keenan Ivory Wayans, the future comedic legend behind “In Living Color”, and you can see a lot of his style here.

The film has a loose, scattershot narrative but Bobby (Townsend) essentially becomes our POV as we see Hollywood through the eyes of a black actor, lampooned with exaggerated comedy bits like auditions where slave and street hood is all that’s being offered, meeting people who have gone to prestigious acting schools demeaning themselves with these roles and light skinned actors who have to go to great lengths to present as more black. Townsend and Wayans are expert as poking fun at Hollywood tokenism and a scene where unimaginative Hollywood execs say they’re looking for another Eddie Murphy type leads to a hilarious Bobby nightmare. The film has quite a few scenes like that- ideas that run through Bobby’s mind, like what a black actor academy would look like within the Hollywood standard (Jive Talk 101) or blacks having more options (like a 1940’s crime noir segment).

But there’s anger, eagerness and soul-searching here as well. Best of all is that the movie looks at the ethics of continuing to take demeaning roles (in another dream segment with the great comedian Paul Mooney as head of the NAACP) while making a call to demand something better. It’s hard not to fall in love with Townsend’s dream of one day seeing a black Rambo (“Rambro”) or superhero- that last bit all the more sad not only because real progress, and movie execs listening, has moved so slowly but because Townsend’s own chance at the superhero movie (the first black one, btw) was “Meteor Man” and it was not well received. In fact a lot of his work in the 90’s didn't go over so well, which is a shame, because it feels like that has unjustly minimized this great piece of work.

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