Posted on 04/24/2003 10:37:30 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
Somewhere in these great United States, there might be a young black man who has taken on all the pop culture affectations of the stereotypical young white American male.
He's listening to Limp Bizkit and Creed, he's quoting his favorite lines from "Friends," he's doing his best Adam Sandler imitation, he's drinking Guinness, and he's dressing like Colin Farrell on a pub crawl.
Maybe this young black man exists. But I doubt it.
What we do know is that for years, millions of young white guys have been acting "black"--or, to be more accurate, are acting and dressing like the bling-bling-loving gangsta-rappers they see on MTV and in movies. From Eminem to the kid ringing up Big Gulps in a 7-Eleven somewhere in Montana, they affect the mannerisms and adopt the poses, they pick up the slang, they do the exaggerated walk. They talk as if they're from some mythological 'hood, even if the only hood they've ever known is on a fleece sweat shirt from Ralph Lauren.
The wannabe has become such a cliche that satires of the wannabe are getting tired. Just last weekend, Jamie Kennedy's TV creation of "B-rad" made the leap to the big screen with "Malibu's Most Wanted," which made a strong $13 million debut. If you haven't seen the movie--and there's no rush--it's an intermittently amusing but all-too-obvious comedy about a spoiled rich kid from Malibu who has somehow reached the conclusion he's a "dope rapper," to quote Brittany Murphy from "8 Mile." Bradley, a k a B-rad, has become such an embarrassment to his Jewish parents (Ryan O'Neal and Bo Derek!) that they hire two black actors to stage a kidnapping and hold their son hostage until they can "scare the black out of him."
This comes on the heels of "Bringing Down the House," one of the worst movies of the year and also one of the most successful, with a three-week run at No. 1 and more than $100 million at the box office. If you haven't seen the film--and there's no rush--it's the story of an uptight lawyer played by Steve Martin who learns all about loosening up from a free spirit convict (Queen Latifah).
As the ads put it, "Everything he needed to know about life, she learned in prison."
Really? Like what? Eating amazingly bad food, doing laundry detail for 19 cents an hour and sleeping with one eye open?
"Bringing Down the House" is crammed with embarrassing cliches about racist whites and blacks who are livin' large. Just one example: About five seconds after Latifah bullies her way into Martin's house, she's throwing a party where the bodies are bumpin', the booze is flowing, and there's a craps game in the living room. And before the story mechanics grind their way to the ridiculous ending, we're subjected to the sight of the 57-year-old Martin in an urban nightclub, talking smack and preening and yapping like his name should be Ja Fool.
We've also seen variations on the white-guy-acting-black character in "Bulworth" (with Warren Beatty going hip-hop and Halle Berry proclaiming, "You're my niggah"), "Bamboozled," "Barbershop," "Black and White" and "Can't Hardly Wait," not to mention the mid-1990s series on Showtime called "Sherman Oaks."
OK, we get it. Enough!
The same could be said for movies where the black character loosens up the rigid, disapproving white folks by putting on some dance music and encouraging everybody to shake their groove thing. We saw it in "Bringing Down the House," and we saw it in "Head of State," and we even saw a variation of it in "The Guru," where it was an Indian who got the stuffy white folks moving.
And while we're at it, isn't it time for black stand-up comics to come up with something other than that generic white-guy voice when they're doing routines about how blacks are free spirits and whites are Gap-wearing stiffs? You know, the voice that assumes all white men sound like Anthony Edwards in "Revenge of the Nerds." From Eddie Murphy to Martin Lawrence to Eddie Griffin, some of the most successful comics of the last 20 years just can't resist doing that white-boy voice. At this point it doesn't even sound like a white guy, it just sounds like an imitation of black comics imitating other black comics doing the white-guy voice.
Blacks and whites are very much the same in many God-given fundamental ways--and very much different in so many cultural ways. We know this. We've known this for a very long time.
We also know that whites often co-opt aspects of black culture. Sometimes it's a legitimate way of paying tribute to a style of art or music or fashion, but often it's just embarrassing and silly--as when privileged white suburban kids try to sound as if they're hard-core thugs, which is a stupid thing to aspire to no matter what your race or creed.
These guys are already self- parodies. There are few things sillier than someone trying to be something they're not, right?
I know you're feeling me on this dawg, so I'll holler at you later.
Richard Roeper appears on the WBBM-Channel 2 News on Fridays at 6 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
In the same vein regarding racial stereotyping, I just picked up a Chuck Berry Anthology CD and in the liner notes, they compare Chuck and Elvis by saying (pardon the political incorrectness-these are the printed quotes) that Elvis was "a hillbilly who sang with that colored feeling" while asking about Chuck fondness for country music, "Who is that black hillbilly?"
No need to apologize - we on FR are PROUDLY politically incorrect ! :-)
Whatever happened to rich, soulful music from the likes of Teddy Pendergrass or Atlantic Starr?
Make that hughly ridicules...seriesly!
Black music artists are entrepreneurs just like anyone else. What are they supposed to do in cities and families decimated by failed liberal and big-government policies?
You can hate rap all you want, but you can't dispute the influence that rap has had on America, from fashion, trends, business, the arts, movies, and of course music.
He runs hot and cold. He'll write a bunch of really good and insightful columns followed by the obligatory one that has you scratching your head and swearing him off for weeks at a time. Regardless, beats the cr@p out of what passes for commentary in "one-paper" San Francisco.
No thanks, I'd rather listen to the Dixie Chicks.
Uh, go to high school, graduate, go to college, graduate, get married and invest time and money back into their communities.
Or is it just better to impregnate 5 different "baby mommas" and run the streets with the "fellas?"
Whatever.
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