Have you guys noticed something about black movies on IMDb?

How To Get The Man's Foot Outta Your Ass (aka Badass): 7.6 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367790/
Inside Man: 7.7 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454848/
He Got Game: 6.7 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0124718/
4 Little Girls: 7.7 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118540/
Malcolm X: 7.6 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104797/
Do The Right Thing: 7.8 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097216/
The Color Purple: 7.6 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088939/
Coffy: 6.6 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069897/
Rosewood: 6.9 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120036/
Hustle & Flow: 7.5 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0410097/
Dead Presidents: 6.5 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112819/
Friday : 6.9 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113118/
48 Hrs: 6.9 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083511/
Trading Places: 7.4 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086465/
Training Day: 7.5 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139654/
The Great Debaters: 7.7 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427309/
American Gangster: 8.0 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0765429/
Antwone Fisher: 7.3 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168786/
The Hurricane: 7.3 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0174856/
Glory: 8.1 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097441/
I'm Gonna Git You Sucka: 6.3 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095348/

I'm really not in the mood to debate the "IMDb voters are racist" theory, but using these movies as an example to the contrary is misleading. Movies like Inside Man, Trading Places, Training Day and American Gangster are not exclusively "black" movies. Just because a movie stars a black person doesn't make it a black-themed movie. I just saw Traitor last week and liked it a lot, but it's not a "black" movie just because Don Cheadle is in it.

Blaxploitation movies are like Film Noir, they are kind of genres onto themselves just like Kill Bill is more of a chop-socky-grindhouse type flick more than it is a "white" flick.

And although I'm not about to defend any of the bad black movies that come out (and there are more than a few), the good or decent ones still have an up-hill battled when it comes to IMDb ratings. A movie with a black cast has to be better than an average movie to get an average rating on the IMDb. Case and point, The Longshots. Not a great movie by any means, but not a terrible movie either. It's average, but is rated far below average. Even awful movies like 10,000 B.C., Over Her Dead Body, and Fool's Gold have better ratings.

If everything were the same except Denzel had played Cube's character it'd easily clear 6.5. Hell, they could've cast a far more terrible actor than Cube like Paul Walker in this and I bet the rating would be higher.

But as to why the ratings for black films are so low, I know many many black folks that watch movies, but I'd say almost all of them either don't have a computer, don't use one often, and don't visit the IMDb and rate movies routinely. Hell, not a day goes by that I don't watch a movie I haven't seen before and I hardly ever vote on the IMDb and instead opt to vote on Amazon so I can get recommendations on other things to watch.

"Action is how men express romance on film." --Kurt Wimmer

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