Am I the only one who liked it?
I am surprised this film is rated so low and at all the comments here that say the film's characters were stereotypical racists and that it failed at being efficient in opening any dialogue about Racism.
First, I am taking the film for what it is, a social commentary and look at racism issues today in America and I personally thought it was honest and brave in the way they portrayed the characters. The hypocrisy that was addressed about people acting like they care about racism is something that I never see in usual Hollywood movies, where people are usually overt racists or not at all. In reality , a lot of white people have no experience mixing with diversity and a lot of people including people of color have internalized racism because thats the nature of racism. People don't want to be racist in public but when they go back to their community they make no effort step out of what they know...
One person in a previous thread said 'what does white guilt has to do with solving racism issues?'. But I think it has a lot to do...In certain areas in America, everyone talks about diversity etc... but most communities are segregated. I live in Oregon and Asians, Whites, Blacks and other communities stay in their own area. There are great ethnic celebrations of all kinds and on my campus (where it's liberal and not like Belmont at all), everyone talks about diversity, it's in the curriculum and all. Being from Paris, I am often startled because I never felt so aware that I was Asian before I came to Oregon. But as one white person pointed out to me, white people are sometimes scared to mix with other people because they are scared to say or do the wrong thing, they don't want to be perceived as racist and then feel bad about themselves, yet being all human and having some (different levels for everyone) internalized racism, they are aware that they could say something offensive so they stay safe... This is the type of white guilt that keep communities enclosed and divided. Most white people here, I wouldn't say are racists but definitely hang out with whites only.
The film was brave enough to admit that white people have internalized racism. I didn't think it was white and black. I think watching American films when I was growing up in France, I imagined a happy melting pot where all people were mixed and living happily together and after coming in the U.S., I realized it wasn't the case at all. I liked the film and I thought it did a good job and probably a lot of people feel uncomfortable.