Posted on 02/08/2016 6:28:43 PM PST by SJackson
Asked about diversity in Hollywood last week, the Coen brothers defended to the Washington Post their history of making movies about Jews and Minnesotans.
The Oscars So White controversy, #OscarsSoWhite, may reflect a real problem, the film writing-directing-producing duo agreed: Money drives commercial movies, people who invest money want more of what has worked in the past and it's daunting for minorities to break into that cycle.
But the brothers balked at the notion that film creators bear personal responsibility for promoting diversity, arguing you write what you know.
"Take any particular actor or writer or filmmaker, and you go, 'Your movies should be more this or more that or more the other thing,'" Joel Coen said. "The only sane response is that you can only write what you can write. You can't sit down and say, 'I'm going to write something that follows the dictates of what the culture thinks should be happening, in terms of cultural diversity in storytelling.' To be honest with you, that's completely lunatic."
Ethan Coen added: "We actually write movies in which the characters are Jews or Minnesotans."
True enough. They've done Jews ("Barton Fink"), wannabe Jews ("The Big Lebowski"), Minnesotans ("Fargo") and Minnesotan Jews ("A Serious Man").
Even sticking to what they know has gotten them into trouble.
"You say, 'Look at the work.' And then they go, 'Well, this character is Jewish and is a bad guy.' Somehow in their minds, that's implying that in our minds the Jewish characters stand in for all Jews," Joel Coen said. "Like I say, you can only write what you can write. If the question is whether or not there should be more people involved in the process, with more diverse backgrounds, so that what they write reflects a greater amount of diversity -- that the business itself should be more open to people of different backgrounds, so that those stories come in -- that's a legitimate thing to talk about. The other thing is crazy."
"Hail, Caesar!" focuses on another community the Coen brothers have come to know -- the Hollywood film industry. The film focuses on the making of a film, also called "Hail, Caesar!" starring Kirk Douglas-like actor Baird Whitlock (George Clooney). Unsurprisingly, there are some Jews on set.
In an exquisite Jew-out-of-water scene, studio executive Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) convenes a group of clergy to review the "Hail, Caesar!" script and make sure it doesn't offend any religious sensibilities. There's a Roman Catholic priest, a Protestant minister, a Greek Orthodox priest -- and a rabbi.
The rabbi struggles at length to politely explain that however Jesus is portrayed in the film, Jews won't be offended because to Jews, the Christian messiah is simply the "Nazarene." The acutely funny five minutes encapsulate what it is to be a Jew in the Diaspora.
Written by #RacistsSoBlack
Even today, when I'm hungry for breakfast, I tell my wife that we are headed to "pancakes house".
GO COHEN BROTHERS GO
Common sense, if they wrote and produced a film about the black experience they would be panned by the black community for not portraying it the way they would want it to be portrayed.
I will watch and buy any Fargo-like movie they make for as long as they make them.
OK then.
They already gave the complaint more time than it’s worth. This is one of those cutesy damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t games the race pimps love to play. If they wrote a film poking the sort of fun at black people that they did to North Dakotans in Fargo there’d be rioting by BLM and shrieking that it wasn’t “authentic”. Just ignore the whiners - you can never please them and it’s a mistake to try.
The Coen brothers are intelligent writers, but the populace today want cartoons, and so the film flopped.
Do you watch the TV series? The first season was fantastic!
why are people so sensitive?
I’m Italian American and I love The Godfather I and II and Goodfellas. And a Bronx Tale and The Sopranos.
If someone out there is STUPID enough to think that they make up more than a very small percent of a percent of Italian Americans, why should I care?
Besides, we all know there’s no such thing as the La Cosa Nostra :)
Can’t wait to see the TV series. It will hopefully be on Netflix or Amazon Prime soon.
Finally saw Blood Simple.
The Coen brothers have mastered the depiction of a slow motion train wreck.
Why do Blacks expect Whites to write about their experience? That’s what Spike Lee does. If you want better Black writers, have more Black students finish high school and college. That’s the job of Black fathers and mothers.
After spending $18 TRILLION of their tax dollars on worthless social spending for 50 years, Whites have given up trying to improve Black lives.
Spike Lee and the rest of the OscarsSoWhite crowd should STFU and make their own movies and see if anybody buys tickets to them.
Good observation.
#superbowlsogay
“True Grit” was a great book, and the Coen Brothers served up a fantastic treatment of it. Just saying.
I did, and I thought it was superior to the movie. Probably because there was more time to flesh out the characters.
I was impressed by the second season, as well. However, it took me a little longer to get into it; but, I think that may have been because I was familiar with all of the characters from the first season; and, I needed to get to know the characters from the second season. Kirsten Dunst was absolutely brilliant in the second season. I was so disappointed when the Golden Globe award went to Lady GaGa.
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