Come on... It's not about the movie is it? It's not that maybe I never even heard of this movie before because it was poorly marketed which probably means that's why it wasn't a blockbuster? It wasn't about this movie not being full of action or suspense or end up being a thriller? It wasn't about this movie maybe actually not being the greatest movie out there? It's about `some white people` not coming out of their comfort zone? You're pretty quick to jump on the prejudice/racist bandwagon huh?
I think this movie probably wasn't a blockbuster mainly for the reasons laid out. The Friday series, although containing only a few white people, in a rather trivial and stereotypical role themselves, did very well because it appealed to a young crowd, was marketed pretty well, got good word of mouth because of its audience and had the very same Ice Cube in it.
There is also this thing about thinking because people outside of some of the american black culture don't associate with it, they're somehow closed minded or racist... That is pretty racist or at least prejudiced in and of itself.
Whether you see it or not, white people aren't really invited with open arms into the black community. Neither are many asians, latinos, or immigrant africans... it's rather exclusive actually. Of course this might be different in some places, I'm only speaking from my experience in 3 large american cities. And growing up.. I was not accepted very easily by most black people -- Being white usually meant I was an outsider... Only a couple guys became good friends and trustworthy both ways.... I mean really - You won't sell me some weed because I'm white... which means I might be a cop?? lol - that happened too often when I was younger... for weed!!! Who cares about weed?
Most white people I know, snd you may consider this racist as it is based on race, try to be overly kind to black people because there's this huge cloud of guilt that hangs over most of them, due to the misdeeds of some people most people in the last 2 generations had no contact with or even much knowledge of...
You also can't deny that the people in the 13-25 age range have grown up in a pop culture dominated by hip hop and various forms of rap. And those two types of music are dominated by black people - so much so that only 1 or 2 white people have successfully broken into that realm (eminem and the guy with 36mafia... not vanilla ice lol - he's ridiculed). White men, anyway, don't get much publicity; white women however are all over the modern hip hop and rap videos. Does that really not seem like there is a huge racist attitude against white people who like to rap or like the beats? Can we not attribute your allegations of white people's attitude towards black movies to the same attitudes towards white rappers?
My overall point is that I'm beyond irritated at the racism going all ways. Being white I obviously am irritated more at people holding racist attitudes towards white people (mainly because nobody ever acknowledges that it's true), but I won't stand by someone saying something racist towards black people or other races either. The only hard part with this is that there are a whole lot of white kids who want to say the N word so badly because everyone tells them they're not allowed to because they're white... meanwhile every other word out of certain icons mouths are the exact word that white people would be persecuted for uttering. That doesn't work out so well for me. I can see why the white kids have such a hard time with it... You tell someone they can't say something, they are obviously going to want to say it. It's time for the word to just disappear because black people feel they have a right to kick the crap out of any white person that says it and many white kids don't take too well to being told they can't do something... it's ridiculous...
Sorry, got kind of way off subject -
Since we're talking about movies with most or all of the roles played by black people, here are some I found pretty good or at least decent.
Clockers? Good movie...
New Jack City - so so...
Old Foxy Brown and the like movies... exploitative/low budget bad production. But Pam Grier is looking very nice in them. And yes, that would be the exploitative part.
Barbershop - I thought parts were pretty funny. But just typical.. I couldn't get past Cedric looking stupid in his old man get up.
Malcolm X - Really enjoyed this. I think I first saw it when I was 14 or 15 and it made an impression.
Shaft - fun to watch.
He got game - Me and my mom actually went to see this together. Not really her type of movie though - She doesn't like the cursing and fights obviously.
All of those got a pretty good showing and were almost solely black films. I'm sure there are a bunch more, these are just some that came to mind.
Please don't use racism as the first reason why something isn't working out as planned. I'm sure sometimes it is the reason, but it's thrown out way too often...
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