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For even the most casual movie-goer, it isn’t difficult to stumble upon racial controversy surrounding staples of American cinema. Gone With the Wind, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and perhaps most famously, D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation each failed to accurately represent life as a minority in a country that has, time and again, shown up to the racial tolerance and civil rights games a tad too late. Characters featured in these multiple-Oscar winners are wholly misrepresentative of race and class and serve no purpose whatsoever than to reinforce damaging stereotypes.
Although The Birth of a Nation was released way back in 1915, depictions of minorities in American cinema hasn’t necessarily gotten worse, but it hasn’t greatly improved either. Today marks the ten year anniversary of Frank Darabont’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Green Mile starring Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan in the role John Coffey. Coffey is a demure, black prisoner with seemingly spiritual capabilities. His character is easily identifiable with the “magical negro” caricature of Southern literature, more commonly known as the “Sambo,” or the mystical token black whose sole purpose is to aid white protagonists. Michael Clarke Duncan was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role.
The Green Mile is one of many Oscar-nominated and awarded blockbusters that poorly depicts minorities in America. The argument can be made that if films like The Green Mile are being awarded the prestigious golden statues year after year, they must be doing something right. Not necessarily. The misrepresentation of race in these films are masked by the seemingly taboo subject matter being brought to light by acclaimed actors and directors. Unfortunately, this just reifies the problem. Here are ten more that are so ridiculously racist, you can’t help but wonder how they made it to the theater in the first place.
'The Good Earth' (1937)
You thought Mickey Rooney’s impression of an Asian man in Breakfast at Tiffany‘s was appalling? Check out The Good Earth. Luise Rainer, a white woman, played O-Lan, who is in fact, Chinese. She won Best Actress that year. Oh and her co-star, Paul Muni, also white, played a character named “Wang, the farmer.” Not kidding. [Where to stream The Good Earth]
The 'Dirty Harry' Franchise (1971)
Highlighted in David Fincher’s Zodiac, Dirty Harry, starring Clint Eastwood, twisted the terms of serial killer “Scorpio,” re-writing his letters to say he’ll kill school children or “a n****r” if the San Francisco papers didn’t print his letters. In that specific letter, the real-life Zodiac never once mentioned killing anyone but school children. This is just one occurrence in a film franchise that goes out of its way to be racist: through Harry’s abrasive sarcasm towards his Italian partner in Dirty Harry and the black criminals he tails in Magnum Force. [Where to stream Dirty Harry]
'Driving Miss Daisy' (1989)
What’s more offensive than this movie? The fact that it won Best Picture over Do The Right Thing. [Where to stream Driving Miss Daisy]
'The Legend of Bagger Vance' (2000)
This wasn’t necessarily a blockbuster, but it did star Matt Damon as an ex-golf pro and Will Smith as his caddy who channels his “magical negro” side to help Damon get back in the game and swing his way to victory. Directed by Robert Redford, who should have known better. [Where to stream The Legend of Bagger Vance]
'Soul Man' (1986)
A Harvard-bound white student poses as a black student so he receive a scholarship awarded to African-American applicants. Yes, once upon a time someone thought this was a good idea. [Where to stream Soul Man]
'White Chicks' (2004)
Shawn and Marlon Wayans are the Copeland brothers: two inept FBI agents who take going undercover to the next, totally unnecessary level. Not only did this crapshoot of a “comedy” poorly stereotype white women as a bunch of unintelligent basic bitches, but it stereotyped black men as well. [Where to stream White Chicks]
'The Blind Side' (2009)
Not to belittle Sandra Bullock‘s Oscar-winning performance, but she played a woman who looked at her foster child as a winning piece of meat. Too harsh, you say? Just watch the clip above where her character uses Lawrence Taylor to describe the perfect Left Tackle. Pay attention to the end of the monologue. We won’t even get into how poorly Michael’s (Quinton Aaron) biological family was represented. [Where to stream The Blind Side]
'The Help' (2011)
Here, Hollywood reiterates that if you’re poor, black, and want out of an unfortunate situation, just befriend a sweet, white woman who can solve all of your problems. Like The Blind Side, the great white hope trope is not only offensive to audiences, but a cheap representation of how these real life events actually played out. [Where to stream The Help]
'Forrest Gump' (1994)
This American classic is not only a failure to intellectually handicapped individuals, but it’s shamefully racist as well. After it’s twentieth anniversary over the summer, the blogosphere revisited Forrest Gump and pointed out all of the reasons it’s the worst. Right off the bat, when Forrest (Tom Hanks) begins to relay his life story to a black woman sitting next to him at the bus stop, he mentions how he was named after a Civil War hero who started the Ku Klux Klan: “They’d all dress up in they robes and they bedsheets and act like a buncha ghosts or spooks or something’.” In this particular instance, and later on when Forrest meets the Black Panthers, his racist views are forgiven because he’s too simple to understand what racism is and, therefore, audiences were meant to chuckle. [Where to stream Forrest Gump]
'Crash' (2004)
After Million Dollar Baby, we’re not questioning that writer Paul Haggis knows how to tug at the heartstrings. Yet when he penned and directed Crash that same year, we wondered if it was the same Haggis. A film that began as a rough outline after Haggis and his wife were robbed by two black men coming out of a video store, Crash was intended to portray the debilitating racial divide in L.A. Except it tried to show the problem but also act as the solution. You can’t have a racist, white cop sexually assaulting an upper class black woman in one scene, then have him helping her in another. In those moments, it almost felt as if Haggis expected us to suspend our disbelief. But racism is not something that can be cured like a fairy tale. Hollywood thought so, however; that year Crash won three Oscars, including Best Picture. [Where to stream Crash]
