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How do women (and men) of color feel about this film? (Complete spoiler)

posted 12 years ago by Sitcom_Sally
4 replies | jump to latest

I'm wondering how women of color (and men, but mostly women) feel about this film. We can say that his attraction to Samantha in the end is due to his first love as a child who just happened to be a blonde-haired white child, but then why did the filmmakers decide that the perfect child for his first love, who his last love would mirror, would be that blonde-haired white child? Why not another child of color? Instead, they made most of his crazy lovers, and all of the significant ones, women of color.

If I remember correctly, there were only two white "hook-ups," and they weren't portrayed as deeply disturbed, but as immature. One was in high school and was portrayed as "loose," yet not yet had sex with the current boyfriend she was cheating on, which seemed odd, so maybe I didn't even understand her story correctly. The other was the girl with the Teddy bears. She was portrayed as cute and very immature, nothing like the other girls/women. The women of color were all portrayed as far more disturbed.

I don't have a problem with the premise of the film otherwise, as the women he was attracted to were women who were fragile. It's just that how they portrayed their fragility seemed to differ by race with only the fair-skinned angels (yes, even adult Samantha is shown wearing angel wings in the final montage) truly worthy of his heart.

Opinions?

- Sally

The perfect human being is uninteresting. - Joseph Campbell

[–] jamesabutler44 12 years ago

I can't really speak for "women of color" as I am an African American male. However I read in an interview that the writer, Kwyn Bader, has indicated that many aspects of the movie mirror his wife. I'm sure there are those that wonnder why Theodorous' first crush was a white girl. Who cares? The brother is the product of a white father and a black mother so he's bi-racial. Perhaps that had something to do with it. From that point on, he wanted women,PERIOD. Ending up with the married white woman at the end perhaps is a way of bringing the story full circle because she reminded him of his unrequited first love. Just my opinion.

[–] Sitcom_Sally 12 years ago

I get that about bringing it full circle. It's just that I've seen shows about how women feel that black men who become successful then feel it's a sign of prestige to have a white woman as his girlfriend or wife, and then black women feel like they've been abandoned by their own men. I'm speaking strictly from what I've heard, not from experience, which is why I asked. Personally, I have no problem with interracial relationships at all. I wondered if anyone would see this as symbolic in any way.

For example, in the show Lie to Me, the main character was married (now divorced) to a biracial woman (Jennifer Beals) and no one seems to make much of it. However, in one episode where an entire class of kindergarteners or elementary school students are stuck in the office for safety reasons a little boy tries to sneak off with a really cool mask that was either hanging on the wall or sitting out somewhere. Someone noted that they had to make it the black child who tried to steal something. Until that person wrote that post it hadn't even occurred to me that the child was black. I just thought of him as a mischievous kid who saw something interesting, which really made him more interesting than the other children. I didn't see it as a commentary on race and if you'd asked me the race of the child when I read the post I wouldn't have remembered until after I read it and watched the episode again.

- Sally

The perfect human being is uninteresting. - Joseph Campbell

[–] jamesabutler44 12 years ago

Everyone views life through the lens of their experiences. I had a friend that when we watched a movie or TV show, he always commented if there were no African American characters. It used to drive me up the wall! I grew up in a diverse environment so it's not the first thing I notice. For him it was always the first thing he noticed.

[–] tiffanykk2002 11 years ago

I'm late, but as a black woman I didn't even notice any of that. This movie is hilarious, clever, and very enjoyable. I can totally see your point, though. But it doesn't strike me in the same way. I thought that the women were excellent actors for the most part. I just saw them as individuals, crazy or not. The woman he ended up with had terrible self-esteem, and was strange also.