Soladrin wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I remember a church sermon. The priest talked about how "the God particle" he put on a YouTube vid about how he downtime it called that because of some reason. He complained at God upset at the replies. He then whined about it in church.

What is this.. I don't even.... Seriously, what are you trying to say?

Also, oh my god, people on the internet are being terrible? Surely this is a new thing that hasn't been happening for almost a decade

Did we really need a topic for this?it

Gadge wrote:It's pretty shocking. Just an advert, but it is weird why when they want to portray a mixed couple it is nearly always a black male and white female, looks like colonial guilt to me.

 azazel the cat wrote:

Gadge wrote:It's pretty shocking. Just an advert, but it is weird why when they want to portray a mixed couple it is nearly always a black male and white female, looks like colonial guilt to me.

Will Smith has to be the most non-threatening, old-white-person-friendly leading black man you can get.

daedalus wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

Gadge wrote:It's pretty shocking. Just an advert, but it is weird why when they want to portray a mixed couple it is nearly always a black male and white female, looks like colonial guilt to me.

Will Smith has to be the -most non-threatening, old-white-person-friendly leading black man you can get.

Wayne Brady.

Sigvatr wrote:Chris Tucker. As threatening as a toddler. It's like...you just...nod and smile. His acting is terrible. Like below high school terrible.

Dreadclaw69 wrote:No mention of;
- Denzel Washington
- Morgan Freeman
- Tyler Perry
- Don Cheadle
- Jaime Foxx
- Cuba Gooding Jr
- Taye Diggs
- Martin Lawrence

All black male leads

 azazel the cat wrote:
Right. Now list all the white girls that have been a love interest for them in a film. Go on, I'll wait.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Right. Now list all the white girls that have been a love interest for them in a film. Go on, I'll wait.

I was trying to highlight potential "non-threatening" black male leads, and many of their films I haven't seen.

Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Right. Now list all the white girls that have been a love interest for them in a film. Go on, I'll wait.

I was trying to highlight potential "non-threatening" black male leads, and many of their films I haven't seen.

LordofHats wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Right. Now list all the white girls that have been a love interest for them in a film. Go on, I'll wait.

I was trying to highlight potential "non-threatening" black male leads, and many of their films I haven't seen.

He's talking about the way society views those men in the idea of an interracial relationship. And he's right. I think there are a few times a black man has been opposite a white female lead romantic interest but it's not a particularly common thing in films or television. He's not saying 'non-threatening' in the sense that they're okay guys and you wouldn't be afraid of them walking down the street. He's saying 'non-threatening' in that Will Smith is what someone like Spike Lee would call an 'Oreo.' Culturally, he doesn't spark the same reaction that other black men might, hence why he's practically the only black actor who is often featured opposite a white female lead (MIB, Hitched I think, Hancock, iRobot to name a few). Compare that to someone like Tyler Perry who is famous for black exploitation films about nutty black families.

As Denzel Washington puckered up to kiss Kelly Reilly, his redheaded co-star in the movie “Flight,” you half expect the camera to cut away. Surely, Washington doing “love scenes” with a white woman in a movie billed as an airplane thriller would be too much baggage for the movie to fly.

And as the camera zoomed in on those locked lips, that proved to be the case.

I was watching a sold-out Saturday matinee at the Magic Johnson theaters in Largo — the place to go if you want to hear the audience interacting with what’s happening on screen.

Whenever the alcoholic pilot played by Washington would reach for a bottle after swearing off booze, for instance, someone in the audience would have to warn him. “No, Denzel, don’t do it!” And when he’d take a drink anyway, someone had to give voice to the communal disappointment. “Oh, Jesus, no he didn’t.”

The kiss, on the other hand, got no reaction at all. Just a mood-shifting silence, as if the theater had suddenly lost cabin pressure and there wasn’t enough air left to even let out a sigh.

Oh, Jesus, yes he did.

There was a long-standing belief that the reason Washington did so few interracial romantic scenes was not to offend black women, who are his core audience and greatest admirers.

Kelly Lynch, a white actress who starred with Washington in “Virtuosity” in 1995, reportedly gave a different reason during an interview with the A.V. Club in October.

“He said, ‘You know what, Kelly? I hate to say it, but, you know, white men bring women to movies, and they don’t want to watch a black man with their woman,’ ” she said.

For his part, Washington has noted that Hollywood, historically, was reluctant to put interracial relationships on the big screen, that he has no problem with it but won’t do it just for the sake of getting a reaction out of viewers.

But he’s done it now.

“It took me by surprise,” Mildred Bailey, an information technology specialist for D.C. Superior Court, told me after the movie.

Toni Blocker, a retired visual information specialist with the D.C. government, was blunt about it. “The relationship was awkward and didn’t work for me,” she said.

(I happen to think Washington deliberately made the kissing scenes look awkward, like he was kissing a window pane, a signal to black women that his heart really wasn’t in it.)

“I just sat there thinking: ‘Why couldn’t they have found a black actress to co-star with Denzel?’ ” Blocker said.

Washington has spoken out on that problem, too. During an interview with the London Observer in February, columnist Alex Clark asked him about the barriers facing African American actresses.

“Black or white, there seems to be a cut-off for women,” he said. “Don’t have a couple of kids; you’re out the door. They’re constantly looking for the younger one, the younger one, and for African American women, women of color, it’s doubly hard. And then for dark-skinned African American women, it’s even more difficult.”

And for the black audience, it can be even worse.

Take “Flight.” Two black women are cast as little more than stereotypical, long-suffering backdrops — an ex-wife whose heart has been broken by a selfish, lying, drunk black man; and a religious-minded flight attendant whom the black man morally corrupts by persuading her to lie for him.

On the other hand, the character played by Reilly turns out to be the black man’s saving grace, pointing him on the road to salvation. And when he strays, he is forced back in line by another white woman. She’s a federal investigator — and the only woman in the movie tough and savvy enough to get Washington to be honest with himself, to do what the black women could not.

I was expecting to see an airplane version of the 2010 movie “Unstoppable.”the 2010 movie in which Washington plays a railroad engineer who averts a disaster by stopping a runaway train.

What I saw instead was a tortured story about alcohol and drug abuse that was nearly ruined from the outset by gratuitous nudity and a ridiculously profane Washington, along with an unconvincing portrayal of his extramarital love life with a white woman.

Only the final few minutes are devoted to the character’s recovery from substance abuse. But they are powerfully acted by Washington; moving enough to make me glad I didn’t walk out in the middle of the movie after all that fake kissing began.

When I went to see the new film “Flight,” featuring Denzel Washington, I got almost exactly what I expected: An extraordinary performance by one of the greatest actors of all time. Denzel commands both screen and stage unlike any other, and it wasn’t until I saw him up close on Broadway that I was able to see the power of his talent. ”Flight” was a great movie, and it deserves all the buzz that it’s been receiving, I highly recommend the film for those who love good cinema.

But while I did get what I was hoping to see, I also saw some things I didn’t expect: Denzel as a drunken, arrogant, irresponsible, wife-beating, lying dope fiend, not exactly fitting of the well-crafted public image Denzel has built over the last 20 years. Black women love Denzel for all the intangibles that I could never put my finger on, but their adoration for this man is something that the rest of us know to be all too real (yes, I’m a bit jealous). Much of this affection started when Denzel’s character took a fierce on-screen beating from his slave master in the film, “Glory,” making him the magical figure that he has become today.

It seems that others are taking Denzel’s latest role a bit more seriously by calling for an all-out Boycott of the film. Citing a list of reasons that the film is not worthy of a first or second look, they say that people should simply stay home and see Denzel’s next creative venture. I have no idea who generated the poster (below), but it’s certainly creating a great deal of buzz on our Facebook page.

With that being said, this film was difficult for anyone to watch. Sitting in the middle of the black female mecca of Atlanta, Denzel “Dream Boat” Washington falls in love with the kind of “marginal” white woman who fills the nightmares of every black woman who’s grown tired of seeing themselves passed over for the blonde-head, blue-eyed woman who never went to college. The film reminds black women of the trifling brothers who consider black women as viable mates for the night, but inadequate to become wives and mothers. I literally cringed when I watched the film, because I could hear the reactions in the audience, many of them black women, who grew to hate the man they were seeing on screen. Oh yeah, black women are the most religious demographic in all of America, and Denzel’s character refuses to even pray: Most of us know at least one black woman who won’t date a man who doesn’t go to church (at least not in public).

Sure, Denzel was just playing a character in a movie. Yes, it was all make-believe. But here’s the deal: Much of the love that drives so many black women to see every movie that Denzel Washington makes is sustained by these make-believe images. The love they gained for Denzel after seeing him in “Glory” and “Malcolm X” was also built from the land of make-believe and the reality is that many fans don’t differentiate between what actors do on-screen and who they are off of it. It’s tough to create real admiration and real currency from fictional images and then expect those affected to suddenly understand that it was all fake from the very beginning.



I enjoyed the film and thought it was an outstanding performance. But then again, I’ve never fawned over Denzel like my female friends. But for those women who have real love for Denzel based on what he does in Hollywood, this film could set him back just a bit.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition. He is also the creator of the Building Outstanding Men and Boys Family Empowerment Series. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

*Here we go.
It should be no surprise that ish has hit the fan; now that the new Denzel Washington movie, “Flight,” has been out for more than five minutes; African American women have learned that Washington shares an on-screen kiss with a white woman! In a recent Washington Post story about the film, writer Courtland Milloy, strategically went to watch the movie at a Magic Johnson Theater because, as she states, it’s “the place to go if you want to hear the audience interacting with what’s happening on screen.” Milloy writes,
“As Denzel Washington puckered up to kiss Kelly Reilly, his redheaded co-star in the movie “Flight,” you half expect the camera to cut away. Surely,Washington doing “love scenes” with a white woman in a movie billed as an airplane thriller would be too much baggage for the movie to fly. And as the camera zoomed in on those locked lips, that proved to be the case.”
After all, in Milloy’s story, the audience warned Washington’s character [out loud] when he swore off booze, and then attempted to reach for the bottle; and they expressed their disappointment, verbally, when he caved in. But instead of the emotional eruption one might have expected after the kiss between the pilot and his muse there was:
Absolute silence. Perhaps they were in shock. After all, Washington has never had an on-screen romance with a white woman. African American women may have put the thought of it ever being an issue out of their mind.
But here it is, 2012, and he did.
Look, Washington has covered this scenario in past interviews. Quite frankly, with this tenured A-List status; he never shied away from the fact that he really had no desire to portray an interracial partner if it was just to give shock value to an audience.That may or may not have been Washington’s “professional response” to something he simply had no interest in doing anyway. It has been rumored the actor never wanted to offend his loyal core audience: Black women.
In the 2008 article, “Race Matters: Is Hollywood Truly Color Blind When It Comes To On-Screen Romance, Shannon Pace writes,
“Take Denzel…When not romantically paired with black women, Washington is usually without a romantic lead (Courage Under Fire, Fallen, Virtuosity, Man on Fire, Remember the Titans, etc.) or trapped into roles that require him to play asexual opposite white leading ladies (The Pelican Brief, The Bone Collector).
But here’s another perspective. Check out this excerpt as Denzel responds to writer Veronica Webb, who grilled him for an article in “Interview” magazine.
WEBB: What’s the most embarrassing thing you ever had to do on film?
WASHINGTON: The love scenes in Spike’s film.
WEBB: Why? What level [of] eroticism are you aiming for?
WASHINGTON: There’s nothing erotic about nine people standing around you and a woman, setting up lights and cameras.
WEBB: Then why were you embarrassed? Did the scene involve some kind of freak sex?
WASHINGTON: No!
WEBB: Do we get to see you butt-ass naked?
WASHINGTON: Everyone was wearing their drawers. We all had our shirts off. I’m just not comfortable with love scenes.
Hmmmm … He’s just not comfortable with love scenes.
OK, so that was in 1990. Of course the actor is older, wiser, and more experienced now; and with “Flight” Washington may be spreading his wings, so to speak. Still, Washington once said to Kelly Lynch, a white actress who co-starred with him in “Virtuosity,” ‘You know what, Kelly? I hate to say it, but…white men bring women to movies, and they don’t want to watch a black man with their woman.” This may have weighed on the actor’s mind, even subconsciously, throughout his career.
At this stage of the game, Denzel Washington may have absolutely nothing to worry about though. Black women ‘gon see what they want to see; and believe what they want to believe. Check out what 0ne woman told writer Milloy, after viewing the film.
Toni Blocker, a retired visual information specialist with the D.C. government, was blunt about it. “The relationship was awkward and didn’t work for me,” she said.
And the way it’s written, its hard to tell if this next bit was the writer, or an aside from Toni Blocker, (I happen to think Washington deliberately made the kissing scenes look awkward, like he was kissing a window pane, a signal to black women that his heart really wasn’t in it.)
OK, so now the actor is sending subliminal signals? Uh boy. What’s a Denzel to do.

 azazel the cat wrote:
Dread claw, are you honestly trying to suggest that the guess-who's-coming-to-dinner zeitgeist doesn't exist in the US?

Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Dread claw, are you honestly trying to suggest that the guess-who's-coming-to-dinner zeitgeist doesn't exist in the US?

Not in the slightest, but it is curious that you would choose to infer that after I asked was the situation more complex than just not wanting to offend the monolithic entity known as White People. There can be more than one dynamic at play.

 azazel the cat wrote:
I just think it's odd that you would attempt to explain away a very, very common pattern by suggesting that black men do not get paired with white women in film in order to avoid upsetting black women -as opposed to white people- when black women make up only about 6% of the US population, and thus do not register heavily when it comes to a marketing demographic. I just consider your argument, lacking in its explanation other than a cut & paste quote, to be disingenuous without any proper addendum.

Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
I just think it's odd that you would attempt to explain away a very, very common pattern by suggesting that black men do not get paired with white women in film in order to avoid upsetting black women -as opposed to white people- when black women make up only about 6% of the US population, and thus do not register heavily when it comes to a marketing demographic. I just consider your argument, lacking in its explanation other than a cut & paste quote, to be disingenuous without any proper addendum.

So it is now "disingenuous" to cite the opinions of others, who may have a perspective on the discussion, instead of stating that there is only one narrative in play? I was clearly making my point in relation to one of the most famous black male actors.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/censr-25.pdf
According to this in 2000;
Black females accounted for between 6.4-6.8%
Black males accounted for between 5.8-6.1%

So going by your argument if black females are statistically insignificant in marketing terms, where does that leave black males? And at what percentage of the population should a particular demographic be considered significant? Does their smaller demographic standing mean that they can be ignored by you also/

 azazel the cat wrote:
The smaller standing means that when a film is being marketed to a wide audience (read: not a Tyler Perry movie) then yes, that smaller demographic will usually be ignored. Specifically, if a film is expected to gross 100 million, then appealing to 6% of a population will likely not be a principle concern.

 azazel the cat wrote:
And yes, is it disengenuous to cite the opinions of others if all you're going to do is re-post a blurb, and then throw your hands up and say "I'm not saying anything, but you decide what this means". That's a Whembly Special. If you're going to suggest that leading black men do not get paired with leading white women in romantic contexts for fear of offending black female moviegoers, then state it overtly.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Is there any chance that it could be more than just for fear up upsetting Whitey?

Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
The smaller standing means that when a film is being marketed to a wide audience (read: not a Tyler Perry movie) then yes, that smaller demographic will usually be ignored. Specifically, if a film is expected to gross 100 million, then appealing to 6% of a population will likely not be a principle concern.

So if both the percentages of black people are too small for marketing purposes then we can just ignore them altogether?And at what percentage of the population should a particular demographic be considered significant? Does their smaller demographic standing mean that they can be ignored by you also?