MovieChat Forums > The Brave One (2007) Discussion > Film's subtle racism and stereotypes.

Film's subtle racism and stereotypes.

posted 16 years ago by XcardfiendX
100 replies | jump to latest

No, I don't want this to be a generic racism thread but I haven't gotten so offended by a movie due to stereotypes in a while. I'm half Chinese and half Puerto Rican and was so annoyed at the crappy overdone portrayal of New York. My minds a lil mixed up right now so I'll just make bullet points for the things that bothered me. Race-related or not. (Spelling errors I know)

- Yep, everyone knows if you walk around anywhere in New York at night you're BOUND to get either shot, stabbed, robbed, jumped, killed, or offered sex with a prostitute. (and in the middle of the day, you're offered illegal guns)
- I love how Jodie buys a gun, spends 5 seconds learning how it works, and PRESTO! She magically turns into a supercop with incredible aim! Dark at night and a guy driving a fast car getting ready to run you over and another girl. Nope not a problem for this strong women, she'll manage to throw the girl out of harms way, instictively pull out her gun and "BOOM HEADSHOT" the guy in the car in the middle of the night, while of course holding a the gun in a badass one handed stance.
- All mexicans wear tank-tops.......ALL WAYS.
- Black guys dont listen to radiohead!
- Another thing that made me just roll my eyes in disgust is when Jodie Foster is taking calls for her radio show and this one girl answers the phone. In the most obnoxious overdone hollywood "LATINA" accent, she says something along the lines of "yea ppl need to kno that NY aint no disneyland. We're getting our respect back!" Wow, just wow.
- "If you're gonna kill someone. Make sure the gun is legal." LOLOLOL WOW WHAT A FUNNY TWIST!!!
- I hate how everything in this movie just MAGICALLY seems to fall into place. Its extremely predictable.
- The two black guys in the subway scene was just so overdone and try-hard. I've seen every damn "ghetto" movie out there and this portrayal was so fake.
- Jodie can't play a straight women to save her life.
- Ugh, this movie screamed feminism so damn hard and obvious. Did they have to throw in "he" every single sentence when talking about the killings. You'd think they would "vigilante killer." But nope.
- This whole movie just seemed to be this drawn out stereotype filled borefest with "middle aged blonde hair blue eyed woman fights back against the big bad male minorities in NEW YORK!"

I think I'm pretty done so far. Thoughts? I'm from NY, btw.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] Cthulhu06 16 years ago

Sorry if there's something important in the second half of your post but I only read the first half, but all I have to say is get a life, it's a *beep* movie!! I'm so sick of people coming on here with "this is racist" "that is racist" "I'm so offended"

I thought the movie was pretty good, I didn't notice any racism and it has just as many stereotypes as your average movie

[–] kapsi 16 years ago

Yeah, it would be all better if Jodie was the villain and the black guys from metro were the vigilantes.

[–] MistakesWereMade 16 years ago

its a movie, its not racist...its a movie. Jodie Foster was great, Terrence Howard was great. Its not a pefect movie, but if they were going to tie up every aspect of the movie and make it all make sense it would be 12 hours long.

Its not taxi driver...but its a good movie

-i'm looking for a dare-to-be-great situation-

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] kdnh42-1 16 years ago

I think, on the whole, this pretty well embodied the general sense of paranoia and fear--yes, with all the racial trappings--of being a middle- to upper-class white woman in a city as diverse (racially and class-wise) as NYC.

It doesn't matter what your own personal attitude is towards race; it's a whole society problem. I've experienced it, as a white girl in a big city with little to no personal attitude about race.

The subway scene with the thugs and the iPod--seriously. Guys dressed like that are trying to project an image, same as the little hipster dude. And their target image ain't "I listen to Radiohead." It was a perfectly valid stereotype to express.

I think ultimately it's more of a class issue than a race issue (see the white guy in the convenient store--anyone can be stupid, mean, and petty, but Foster's character was hanging around in decidedly crummy areas). But that gets turned around pretty good with Terrence Howard investigating the violent crimes of a rich, white man.

Lots of questions posed here, and not a lot of answers.

[–] babybyrd2000 16 years ago

Really?

it's all relative eh?

well which neighborhood as a single white girl do you want your car to break down in at midnight?

it's amazing how much folks are in denial

one big under 40 generation of brainwashed PC zombies

i fear for our future when I peruse this board.

simply amazing

[–] pgrimmus 16 years ago

well no it's common knowledge but if you go around stating what so are facts it probably means you're a racist. It just makes you sound racist dude. Maybe you should take "don't make yourself sound racist" classes.

[–] babybyrd2000 16 years ago

From looking at your other posts on this thread like this:

by pgrimmus 6 days ago (Sun Feb 10 2008 20:46:17)

"when she's on the train and the black guys go up to her and one of them asks her if she had ever been **cked by a knife, she went "no but I have been by a lot of black c**k". Then some porn music starts, she drops to her knees, and starts blowing them. Then the rest of the movie is her just basically going crazy and turning into a nympho and screwing all the guys instead cause she can't get any more of that Indian c**k she used to. That would've made for a much better movie."

maybe you should see someone about that itch pgrimmus, ya think..lol

[–] king_faraday 16 years ago

"when she's on the train and the black guys go up to her and one of them asks her if she had ever been **cked by a knife, she went "no but I have been by a lot of black c**k". Then some porn music starts, she drops to her knees, and starts blowing them. Then the rest of the movie is her just basically going crazy and turning into a nympho and screwing all the guys instead cause she can't get any more of that Indian c**k she used to. That would've made for a much better movie."

Damn. I think I actually have seen that movie. LMAO!!

[–] juls_99504 16 years ago

I don't give a *beep* if this makes me sound racist............but minority men commit a majority of the violent crimes. Crack Dealing, drive byes, rape, burglary, gun violence, pimping out women, gang related crimes. Check your local paper. Read a crime blog. Watch Americas most wanted. I'd say 7 out of ten are a non white. Racial Profiling not only should be legal it should b encouraged. Goes for whites as well. 7 out of ten if a child is being molested its a white guy.

if minorities don't want to betrayed stereotypically. THEN DON'T ACT THAT WAY. I live in ALASKA and i c people exactly like the ones in the tunnel and on the subway in the movie EVERYDAY.

Sheesh

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] DarkPhoenix341 15 years ago

if minorities don't want to betrayed stereotypically. THEN DON'T ACT THAT WAY.

So how does what some individuals do equate to an entire group (including those who DON'T act in that way) be treated in a stereotypical way? Now I'm not talking about this movie, I'm responding to your particular comment. Racial profiling encouraged? Does that include you? Do YOU want to go thru having every conversation you have, every move you make monitored, recorded and tested because someone in your race messed up?

I thought we had enough of the Big Brother culture. Regardless of "statistics" until it is a case of ALL people in X race commit X crime (whether it's theft, murder, molestation, paedophilia, rape, drug dealing, human trafficking, assault etc), you can't accuse the whole population of committing said crime and treat them like criminals. And I say X race because there is not one ethnic, racial or religious group on this entire planet that can say all of its people are angels. It’s not a nice world but you don’t encourage harrassing those people who do abide by the law because of the sins of others. I am not my brothers keeper and I don't expect you to be your brothers keeper either.
We all have brains and we decide the actions we take and we should only be responsible for our own actions (and to a certain point our own children) as an individual and not a collective group.

[–] SinclairJA 16 years ago

It always cracks me up when people make this argument (that violent movies utilize incorrect stereotypes).

Who was incorrectly portrayed and how? Were they saying that all black people are thugs? What about Mercer and the neighbor lady? Were they saying that Hispanices are bad? All Asians? All white people? How about people of Middle-Eastern descent? Of course not. There are examples of both good and bad of all those groups in the movie.

The fact is that young thugs are the ones who commit most random, violent crime - whether they are white, black, blue, or green. As others have said, the "thugs" in this movie were equally distributed between the races.

In addition to that, if this movie was "racist", then why was the chief protaganist (other than Foster) black? Why was her boyfried a Middle-Easterner? If the movie-makers were racist, don't you think the cop and the boyfried would've been white?

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] theskylinegtr 16 years ago

its pretty easy to know how to use a gun otherwise its going to take u 1 minute to figure out how to shoot while ur being robbed point and pull trigger sounds easy to me

[–] jenarista 16 years ago

Yeah...and to the OP who thought the Latina accent was "Hollywood"? I have several Latina friends from Brooklyn who sound EXACTLY like that. Just because you don't hear people talk that way doesn't mean they do not exist...

Don't you wish you were me? I know I do!