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Like St. Balders, I'd like to know what films you have in mind when making this statement. I'd say
the opposite is usually true. Hollywood is usually extremely sensitive to questions of prejudice.
But there are certain kinds of prejudice which are "sanctioned" and deemed acceptable.
Let's take some potentially explosive examples from recent years. Ridley's Scott's "Kingdom of
Heaven" about the crusades and the film "The Kingdom" about terrorists in Saudi Arabia. With the
political background of recent years, these were potential powderkegs. Both films go out of their
way to demonstrate how humane and enlightened some of the Muslims were, however. It was clear, while
watching them, that the film-makers had been conscious of possibility of inflaming prejudice and had
gone out of their way to circumvent it.
Since France refused to go along with America's plans for attacking Iraq, however, it has apparently
become de rigueur for virtually every bad guy in a Hollywood film to be French. This is absurd and
should really be considered unacceptable. In fact, I believe the French government officially
protested to the American government about this.
Before the French became the officially sanctioned villains, it was usually English people who
fulfilled this role.
I think that, where prejudice exists, it is usually sub-conscious, subtle, and reflects actual
perceptions, even though those perceptions may be misguided. For example, I see subtle anti-European
bias in many American films. Europeans are regularly portrayed as greedy for money. Take, for
example, the German girl that Jason Bourne hooks up with in The Bourne Identity. She's short of
money and she wants to go to the US to work. Right. Switzerland is a wealthier country than the US,
but, for some reason, she's failed to earn a crust there and is desperate to go to America. That's
believable.
Or take Spielberg's Munich. We see a German girl pretentiously talking about some philosophical
gobbledygook, yet as soon as money is flashed, she's snaps out of it and grabs hold of the cash. The
lesson : Europeans are pretentious and greedy.
Yet Europeans choose to take 4-6 weeks holiday per year while Americans choose to take only about
one. It's clear that Americans value money more than Europeans do. So these perceptions are
false.
The prejudice we see in films, though real, is of this kind of subtle nature, though. |
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Films like "Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) were produced in 1940's Germany to poison the nation's
mind against the jews. Nothing even comparable to this has been produced of recent time. |
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I understand your fear that it could do this... But concerned people never jump to the conclusion
that someone deserves to be hated... They try to find a way to better understand their own motives
and transcend hatred... If an underlying theme in some place becomes exposed then maybe that
problem will be solved... That solution shouldn't be ignored or censored just because your afraid
of facing reality... Don't fear your own intentions or discovering your place... The rabbit hole has
room for all of us :) |
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Do you have any particular films in mind when you make this statement. Sounds an interesting topic
but without quite knowing what you are talking about it is difficult to comment.
To think of a general example would be that of Hollywood. Some of the ignorance and arrogance of
the filmmakers does give the rest of the world the wrong idea that all Americans are idiots. |
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03 Apr 2008 15:02
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