What were the last movies you watched?

[SheSaidSheSaid]

Claptons will probably be back tomorrow, but I'll just go ahead and tell -- the movie is unique because it includes a sexual relationship between a black male and a white female without that relationship being the entire focus of the story.

Think about it -- have you ever seen that anywhere else? The answer, I'm almost positive, is no you haven't. The rare black guy/white girl pairings you see in movies are movies where race relations is the key theme of the story. Which sort of takes some of the progressiveness away from it.

Minorities (of any kind) in film are almost never just another character. They're always carrying the flag of their identity. You can see how Rachel Getting Married subverts this -- Tunde is Rachel's fiance/husband, and nothing more. That is so unbelievably rare, and was a seriously risky choice by the filmmakers. Odd to figure, since he's ultimately not a terribly important character (the movie's not about Rachel's wedding, it's about Kim learning to forgive herself for killing her brother).

Can you think of any other movies where a minority (of any kind, really -- race, gender, sexual orientation, disability status) was simply a character and not forced to carry the flag of their identity? I really can't, except for the one major exception. Black people in film are all but inevitably either "the black guy" in the story, or they're in some Tyler Perry walled enclave (which is the same deal). I can think of one disabled actor who isn't always forced to be "the guy in the wheelchair," and that's Daryl Mitchell. Of course, he began his career able-bodied (he was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident at the age of 36) and it's far from a rule with even him.

The big exception to the race issue is Will Smith. Even among the great black actors we have currently -- Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Samuel L Jackson, Forest Whitaker, Don Cheadle... -- Will Smith is the only one who is routinely getting roles not specifically written to be played by a black actor. So he, and perhaps he alone, is as frequently "just another character" as straight white men would be. But even he has never had a white wife in any of his films.

We think of ourselves as progressive, but if Will Smith and Monica Potter were a married couple in a movie, wouldn't that seem off somehow? Even though there are many thousands of couples that look just like that in real life.

What I'm (eventually) getting around to is how I'm trying to subvert this in my own screenwriting. It's not nearly as easy as it would seem, but I've developed a story that's getting pretty close to completion. It centers on a lesbian couple, but that is incidental and certainly not played for any direct effect. The story would work just as well if a man and a woman or two men were the central characters. The genre might best be described as a 'romantic epic.' The relationship itself is absolutely critical to the story, but the specific combination of gonads is not.

Do you think you would pay to see a movie like that?

Do you think this will ever be mainstream? And by that I mean not only movies like the one I'm writing, but also gay relationships (I'm a little extra aware of this specific point, for obvious reasons, but do take to heart the comments I made about racial and disability minorities too) existing in mainstream movies. Early in the movie S*W*A*T, an already-down-on-his-luck Colin Farrell gets dumped by Ashley Scott. The scene exists only to further kick Farrell's character down a few notches; Scott is not in any other parts of the movie. What if instead of Ashley Scott, it was Channing Tatum doing the dumping? Same exact story otherwise. Do you think that would ever happen?

This has kinda been on my mind for a couple days.

[SuperTigerMario]

Well I'm through The Two Towers now. It was pretty good but I didn't like it as much as the first one I think.

I'll probably do Return of the King this weekend.

[SheSaidSheSaid]

Did you get my email STM?

[SuperTigerMario]

Did you get my email STM?

Yeah I did sorry I didn't say anything. I will read them soon and get back to you.

[SheSaidSheSaid]

Cool cool =) Just checking. And as you'll see, the story I mentioned in my previous post (about a lesbian couple) is one of the ones I sent you.

[SuperTigerMario]

These are screenplays correct?

And didn't you say they are written up until the exciting part or something like that? Sorry I can't remember.

[SheSaidSheSaid]

They're basically Act I. Act I ends with the inciting incident, at which point you should want more story. Act I is considerably shorter than Act II, which is the bulk of the story, but longer than Act III, which is the falling action/denouement.

[SuperTigerMario]

Okay that makes sense. Thanks for letting me read them.

Now back to movies.

[MagicMurderBag7]

Claptons will probably be back tomorrow, but I'll just go ahead and tell -- the movie is unique because it includes a sexual relationship between a black male and a white female without that relationship being the entire focus of the story.

Think about it -- have you ever seen that anywhere else? The answer, I'm almost positive, is no you haven't. The rare black guy/white girl pairings you see in movies are movies where race relations is the key theme of the story. Which sort of takes some of the progressiveness away from it.

Minorities (of any kind) in film are almost never just another character. They're always carrying the flag of their identity. You can see how Rachel Getting Married subverts this -- Tunde is Rachel's fiance/husband, and nothing more. That is so unbelievably rare, and was a seriously risky choice by the filmmakers. Odd to figure, since he's ultimately not a terribly unimportant character (the movie's not about Rachel's wedding, it's about Kim learning to forgive herself for killing her brother).

Can you think of any other movies where a minority (of any kind, really -- race, gender, sexual orientation, disability status) was simply a character and not forced to carry the flag of their identity? I really can't, except for the one major exception. Black people in film are all but inevitably either "the black guy" in the story, or they're in some Tyler Perry walled enclave (which is the same deal). I can think of one disabled actor who isn't always forced to be "the guy in the wheelchair," and that's Daryl Mitchell. Of course, he began his career able-bodied (he was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident at the age of 36) and it's far from a rule with even him.

The big exception to the race issue is Will Smith. Even among the great black actors we have currently -- Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Samuel L Jackson, Forest Whitaker, Don Cheadle... -- Will Smith is the only one who is routinely getting roles not specifically written to be played by a black actor. So he, and perhaps he alone, is as frequently "just another character" as straight white men would be. But even he has never had a white wife in any of his films.

We think of ourselves as progressive, but if Will Smith and Monica Potter were a married couple in a movie, wouldn't that seem off somehow? Even though there are many thousands of couples that look just like that in real life.

What I'm (eventually) getting around to is how I'm trying to subvert this in my own screenwriting. It's not nearly as easy as it would seem, but I've developed a story that's getting pretty close to completion. It centers on a lesbian couple, but that is incidental and certainly not played for any direct effect. The story would work just as well if a man and a woman or two men were the central characters. The genre might best be described as a 'romantic epic.' The relationship itself is absolutely critical to the story, but the specific combination of gonads is not.

Do you think you would pay to see a movie like that?

Do you think this will ever be mainstream? And by that I mean not only movies like the one I'm writing, but also gay relationships (I'm a little extra aware of this specific point, for obvious reasons, but do take to heart the comments I made about racial and disability minorities too) existing in mainstream movies. Early in the movie S*W*A*T, an already-down-on-his-luck Colin Farrell gets dumped by Ashley Scott. The scene exists only to further kick Farrell's character down a few notches; Scott is not in any other parts of the movie. What if instead of Ashley Scott, it was Channing Tatum doing the dumping? Same exact story otherwise. Do you think that would ever happen?

This has kinda been on my mind for a couple days.

I can't think of any movies that fit that but two books do come to mind. A novel I read about a year ago called Dead Sea and a comic I read recently called Saga.

Dead Sea is a zombie apocalypse story. The main character is gay but it only really gets discussed for a second when one of the children he is saving uses a gay slur and he explains that it's not nice.

In Saga the two main characters are a couple. He is white and she is black, they never bring attention to it (or at least haven't yet, it is a comic so it's ongoing).


Edit: I just remembered that the guy from Dead Sea is also black. And that didn't come up in the story aside from when he is first described.

[Runesmith]

I can't think of any movies that fit that but two books do come to mind. A novel I read about a year ago called Dead Sea and a comic I read recently called Saga.

Dead Sea is a zombie apocalypse story. The main character is gay but it only really gets discussed for a second when one of the children he is saving uses a gay slur and he explains that it's not nice.

In Saga the two main characters are a couple. He is white and she is black, they never bring attention to it (or at least haven't yet, it is a comic so it's ongoing).


Edit: I just remembered that the guy from Dead Sea is also black. And that didn't come up in the story aside from when he is first described.

Those are both great examples. I'm going to have to look into them; they look pretty interesting.

Also, Firefly and Serenity - Wash (white man) and Zoe (Latina, specifically Cuban) are both married and if I recall correctly nothing is ever mentioned about their ethnicities. I only saw the first season of Heroes, but was anything mentioned about the ethnicities of Nikki (white woman) and D.L. (African-American man)?