MovieChat Forums > In the Time of the Butterflies (2004) Discussion > Misleading film about the Dominican

Misleading film about the Dominican

posted 12 years ago by jonjax71
4 replies | jump to latest

As posted in multi-racial's thread, this film is so far off the mark in the depicting the reality of domincanos, a predomainantly dark skinned society. There was only 3 dark faces throughout the film, not even close to reality.

In the opening portion of the movie one can hear a song Oh Merengue, a modern Cuban charanga band out of L A performs it, then in the ball room a small combo is playing, despite all the horrors and murders committed by Trujillo, one thing he did is instill Domincan pride for their music, I know first hand that in any event that Trujillo would be part of, there would be a Dominican big band playing traditional merengue

Trujillo was a mulato, Edward James Olmos, a fine actor is not only Mexican-American, he is not in any part, African descent like Trujillo was, in fact the entire cast lacked any resemblance of actual dominicans speeh patterns

The jeeps seen topwrds the end of the film were 1970s models, not 1950 Willys jeeps.

[–] EpicalypseAfter 10 years ago

dark skins don't sell movie tickets... white hicks do

deal with it

[–] jonjax71 10 years ago

I've been "dealing with it" and people like you all my life-over 60 years

[–] chicago85 10 years ago

Probably in the Dominican Republic, like other places, whites and near whites dominant society. They are proud of having lighter skin.

In October 1937 Trujillo personally ordered the genocide of Afro-Haitians people living near the border with Haiti. Most had been born in the Dominican Republic. Bullets recovered from bodies were from Krag carbines used only by the Dominican army. His government gave a total dead of 547. But other sources including foreign government ministers said it was several thousand.

It came to be known as the Parsley Massacre. Soldiers would hold up a spring of parsley and ask what is this? The Dominicans speak Spanish and the Haitians speak French. They pronounce it differently. It determined if you would live or die.

I think the Haitians were generally darker than the Domincans which made the Dominicans think they were better.

So, Trujillo had "some" African blood. So what. He still though he was superior than the ones who were darker especially the Haitains.

I don't know everything. Neither does anyone else

[–] deborahjwood 8 years ago

I don't know about the music, but most Dominicans are MUCH lighter than Haitians and Trujillo imo looked like a dark skinned white person he was so fair skinned. Besides, this is a MOVIE ... they frequently use Hispanics to play Orientals and vice versa. It's not unusual to swap out races that can pass for one another. The point of the film was made ... Trujillo was a monster dictator that committed hundreds of war crimes and atrocities. I just wish they could have made the movie about Trujillo and his ultimate assassination ... after training him in the Marines, our own CIA was allegedly involved in killing him.