this movie isn't just about one man's struggle with a black child's hair

February 3, 2015 11:22 AM

This movie is two hours of black people walking up to white people and yelling "BLACK" and white people yelling "WHY YOU GOTTA MAKE IT ABOUT RACE" over and over again.

Ijeoma Oluo (previously) has written a handy guide to writer/director Mike Bender's recently-released "dramedy" for The Stranger: Boobs, Booze, and Black People Hair: A Very Thorough Review of Black or White. More under the fold!

Other work by Ijeoma Oluo: @ijeomaoluo [Twitter], Her Honest Life [blog], When You Suddenly Find Out You're White [Storify], Dance Champions and Charity Cases [The Moth], Every Internet Conversation With Dudes, Ever [Medium], 25 Activities Black People Should Avoid Around Cops [NYMag].

//

Zeba Blay, for Indiewire's Shadow and Act: Nuance-Deprived "Race" Movie 'Black or White' is Actually About White Frustration

It's a movie about race that doesn't actually want to talk about race. Here, the focal point is the wealthy white man who we're encouraged to root for, from the very beginning, simply by virtue of the fact that he's in 90% of every scene. Octavia Spencer, once again, is called on to play a variation of the sassy black woman - her acting, as usual, is great, but she's given little else to do than suck her teeth and roll her eyes, and provide both comic relief and obstacle for Elliot to overcome.

In fact, well-meaning or not, this movie is teeming with black stereotypes and stock characters that only show glimpses of depth, thanks to the actors, and not the script. There's Anthony Mackie as the uppity Ivy-League educated lawyer who accuses Elliot of being racist (giving way to a five minute monologue in which Elliot essentially complains about the "race card"). There's Eloise's crack-addicted absentee father. There's even her math tutor Duvan, a heavily accented academic from some unnamed African country, who tells stories of genocide, village life, and being chased down as a boy by gazelles. Seriously?

[...]

This isn't a movie about race, although it would have us believe so. It's a movie about white frustration, about the fear and anxiety of being called out as racist.

Other work by Zeba Blay: @zblay [Twitter], Film Memory [blog], Two Brown Girls [weekly pop culture podcast, co-hosted with Fariha Róisín], Ethnic Cleansing: Colorblind Casting in Cloud Atlas [Hyperallergic], When I Created My OKCupid Profile, I Wasn't Prepared for the Horror Story That Is Online Dating While Black [XOJane].

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ReBecca Theodore-Vachon, for Forbes: Dear Hollywood: Let's Stop Making Movies Like 'Black or White'

"Black or White" is the Iggy Azalea of race films – it operates under the guise of being progressive and furthering the "conversation" about race, but only serves to exalt Whiteness by marginalizing Blackness. The movie is chock full of Black tropes and stereotypes; the overbearing matriarch who coddles and enables her son's inexcusable behavior, the "Angry Black Man" ([Anthony] Mackie) and the "Magical Negro" with Duvan (Mpho Koaho), who starts off as a math tutor for Eloise, but soon finds himself dispensing wise advice and becoming a personal chauffeur to Elliot when he’s too drunk to drive.

You would think in 2015 Hollywood would have evolved from such reductive narratives about race, but according to Dr. Jason Johnson, a political analyst and a professor of political science at Hiram College, it's business as usual. "It is part of a genre movie we have always had, that's making a comeback which I like to call the "Reasonable White Man" movie," Johnson explains. "They are films that are ostensibly about race but are extended polemics where so-called progressive Whites are saying 'I'm the only one who has a reasonable perspective on this and Blacks are irrational and unreasonable.'"

Other work by ReBecca Theodore-Vachon: @FilmFatale_NYC [Twitter], Film Fatale NYC [blog], @CinemaInNoir & Cinema in Noir Online Radio [weekly movie podcast, co-hosted with Candice Frederick and Kimberly Renee], The Women of Selma: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement [RogerEbert.com], Joy and Triumph: Reclaiming the Image of Black Women in Cinema [RogerEbert.com].

posted by divined by radio (56 comments total)

> For the next hour, it’s just Kevin Costner wandering around with a tumbler full of Scotch looking like a kid doing an impression of a drunk grown-up.

See, now that I would watch. Too bad about the rest of the movie, which sounds like it's aimed at people who thought Crash was too nuanced.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:28 AM on February 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

I don't see color, I just see people to scam french fries from.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:32 AM on February 3, 2015 [9 favorites]

I've been calling it Dances with Black People for two weeks now, since I saw the first trailer.
posted by TwoStride at 11:32 AM on February 3, 2015 [26 favorites]

Hilarious review. I had wanted to see it because the kid was cute -- I had thought she was Quvenzhane at first -- and there's Octavia Spencer. But I had assumed, naturally, that the arc of the story would involve the "junkie" father turning out to be a good guy. It didn't occur to me that they would be so lazy and awful as to actually, wholeheartedly accept and promulgate the stereotype of the crackhead absentee illiterate black father. But then, that's me, always assuming a modicum of human decency in people.
posted by Countess Elena at 11:33 AM on February 3, 2015 [8 favorites]

Ugh, Costner, ugh.

I mean, that's what I said when I saw the trailer. That and "Is this movie going to be as racist as it looks?"

Thank you, reviewers for watching it and answering that question.

So now to answer the question; is this worse than Waterworld? What about Prince of Thieves? The Bodyguard? The Postman? If I had a stronger stomach, I would watch all of Costner's movies and develop a system for ranking them by badness.

But I do not.
posted by emjaybee at 11:33 AM on February 3, 2015 [5 favorites]

I don't see color, I just see people to scam french fries from.

These are mozz sticks, dude.
posted by jonmc at 11:37 AM on February 3, 2015 [4 favorites]

It didn't occur to me that they would be so lazy and awful as to actually, wholeheartedly accept and promulgate the stereotype of the crackhead absentee illiterate black father.

The crackhead absentee illiterate black father that was somehow irresistible to the white protagonist's privileged white daughter. The white daughter who died after the negro seed corrupted her uterus.


Is it me or is this movie kind of racist?
posted by yonega at 11:42 AM on February 3, 2015 [14 favorites]

I expected better from the writer, director and star of The Sex Monster.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:54 AM on February 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

is this worse than Waterworld? What about Prince of Thieves? The Bodyguard? The Postman?

The Postman is a titan of bad movie classics. I will put it up there with Zardoz any day of the week. Prince of Thieves is more enjoyable in that regard than Waterworld, but WW isn't awful, just not quite as "great" as it could have been if they'd stretched a little more.

I have not seen The Bodyguard.

If you haven't seen it, you should watch The Guardian.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 11:54 AM on February 3, 2015

I've been calling it Dances with Black People for two weeks now, since I saw the first trailer.

Except that lays the blame at Kevin Costner's feet, when it should properly be laid at Mike Binder's feet, who wrote and directed this. I don't blame Costner for showing up and cashing a check, but Mike Binder is an asshole.
posted by gladly at 12:01 PM on February 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

The internet is for movies like cell phones, I think, in that every movie I see since Google became a thing, since Youtube became a thing, whatever, it's changed how I watch. I'm extra-sensitive to plot points where it's patently obvious that an intelligent person with a computer and an internet connection would have looked something up. Okay, he's not a young guy, but he's supposed to be a lawyer, a working professional. If my mom can Google stuff, Kevin Costner can Google stuff. Which is to say, the internet is actually full of advice on how to handle black hair if you happen to be a white person suddenly in charge of this for a young child. There are Youtube tutorials. This, in particular, seems like a bit of spectacularly lazy writing or directing--it renders the main character entirely unsympathetic, because he's not even attempting to do the minimum level of caring. Conveniently, here, the writer and the director are the same guy, so at least we know whose fault it is.
posted by Sequence at 12:07 PM on February 3, 2015 [11 favorites]

I saw this preview and the one in which Costner appears to play white savior for a young Latino boys' cross-country team before Selma. If I hadn't believed that trope was real before, I was pretty convinced after that.
posted by sallybrown at 12:11 PM on February 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

I had wanted to see it because the kid was cute

I saw the trailer and I thought OH GOD THIS IS THE WORST and then I read that Stranger review and now I kind of want to see it. Double-bill it with The Boy Next Door and you've got yourself an evening.

(I, too, would pay good money to see an hour of Kevin Costner wandering around with a tumbler full of Scotch looking like a kid doing an impression of a drunk grown-up.)

The Postman is a titan of bad movie classics. I will put it up there with Zardoz any day of the week.

Those are honestly two of my favorite movies ever.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:14 PM on February 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

Ugh, reminds me of my least favorite part of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, when the white man whose been racist the whole movie/play monologues about how both sides are equally bad and can't we all just get along because srsly, he's totally not racist you guys!

At least the racism mom fired her more vocally racist employee and realized she was racist.
posted by Deoridhe at 12:18 PM on February 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

Waterworld is great. Then again I saw it at the dollar theatre in college ca. 1995 and smoked a joint the size of a crayon first.
posted by asockpuppet at 12:29 PM on February 3, 2015 [5 favorites]

I'm just going to leave this here for Mr. Costner: Vanilla Care for Chocolate Hair.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 12:36 PM on February 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

Boobs, Booze, and Black People Hair: A Very Thorough Review of Black or White

This was HILARIOUS and wincey at the same time.
posted by zutalors! at 12:38 PM on February 3, 2015

So this is basically Accidental Racist, the movie?
posted by officer_fred at 12:50 PM on February 3, 2015 [4 favorites]

Except that lays the blame at Kevin Costner's feet, when it should properly be laid at Mike Binder's feet, who wrote and directed this. I don't blame Costner for showing up and cashing a check, but Mike Binder is an asshole.

Costner co-produced and provided half of the funding for the film, so rather than showing up and cashing a check, he actually wound up spending $4,500,000 to ensure Black or White would make it to the big screen. Even beyond money matters, Costner's interview about it for Vulture makes a pretty strong case for laying a fair share of blame at his feet, too. To wit:

In his new biracial-custody-fight drama Black or White, [the n-word] is employed by both black and white characters. Its presence in the script by writer-director Mike Binder may have been a red flag for investors, and Costner had to bankroll most of the movie himself. "One of the reasons I financed this film is so the script that I read — the script I just could not ignore — would not become a casualty of conventional movie­making," he declares. "If we back away from using that word that so many of us have used — and maybe not always in anger, but also in ignorance or in a joke or in a time that is no longer appropriate — then we lose a lot of the drama. So much of what movies are about is what the people in them get to say. So it had to stay."

Welcome to Barf City, population: everyone who just read that.
posted by divined by radio at 1:11 PM on February 3, 2015 [25 favorites]

Welcome to Barf City, population: everyone who just read that.

I hate racism but I love that it makes people make hilarious comments like this.
posted by zutalors! at 1:15 PM on February 3, 2015 [7 favorites]

I don't see color, I just see people to scam french fries from.


#YesAllSeagulls.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:15 PM on February 3, 2015 [19 favorites]

I was at a party last Saturday night, and when the near-stranger I was talking with found out I like bad movies he literally grabbed me by the shoulders and shouted "OH MY GOD HAVE YOU SEEN THE BODYGUARD? YOU HAVE TO WATCH THE BODYGUARD! YOU HAVE TO!!!!!"

> The Postman is a titan of bad movie classics. I will put it up there with Zardoz any day of the week.

I've been told The Postman is boring-bad instead of good-bad, but that is an intriguingly strong endorsement.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:17 PM on February 3, 2015

Boobs, Booze, and Black People Hair: A Very Thorough Review of Black or White

Thank you for posting this, as I could get all my cringe-y enjoyment from reading that excellent review and totally skip the film.
posted by kalimac at 1:20 PM on February 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

is this worse than Waterworld? What about Prince of Thieves? The Bodyguard? The Postman?


*cough*American Flyers*cough*
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:22 PM on February 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

"I've been calling it Dances with Black People for two weeks now, since I saw the first trailer."

Same. I just cried a tear realizing that just over the horizon is an automated snark bot that will be indistinguishable from our artisanal, handcrafted zings.

"I've been told The Postman is boring-bad instead of good-bad, but that is an intriguingly strong endorsement."

That's what I heard too, but in the context of a review of Book of Eli, which apparently makes Postman look riveting.
posted by klangklangston at 1:23 PM on February 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

gladly: I don't blame Costner for showing up and cashing a check, but Mike Binder is an asshole.

divined by radio: Costner co-produced and provided half of the funding for the film, so rather than showing up and cashing a check, he actually wound up spending $4,500,000 to ensure Black or White would make it to the big screen. Even beyond money matters, Costner's interview about it for Vulture makes a pretty strong case for laying a fair share of blame at his feet, too.

I'll go you one further (or shorter, or whatever): Costner read the racist-trope-filled script and signed on to do it.

A glowing biopic of David Duke would be less evil, because at least it would be obvious in its racism.
posted by IAmBroom at 1:31 PM on February 3, 2015 [4 favorites]

I'll go you one further (or shorter, or whatever): Costner read the racist-trope-filled script and signed on to do it.

I didn't realize that Costner had put up so much of the financing for this movie, and that does mean he's certainly culpable. I hate Binder from his sexist piece of shit, "Mind of a Married Man," so I was perhaps too-ready to condemn him.

But, I don't blame actors for taking roles in shitty movies. Financing shitty movies -- you bet.
posted by gladly at 1:39 PM on February 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

I've been told The Postman is boring-bad instead of good-bad

I will always love it.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:41 PM on February 3, 2015

I've been told The Postman is boring-bad instead of good-bad

I will always love it.


In my mind, you just sang that like Whitney Houston.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:47 PM on February 3, 2015 [20 favorites]

I've been told The Postman is boring-bad instead of good-bad, but that is an intriguingly strong endorsement.

It is not whacked out of its skull like Zardoz, nor is it a "this can't get any more ridiculous oh wait it just did" kinetic thrillride like Stealth, but it in the realm of self-serious post-apocalyptica it certainly outshines the Book of Eli (although my goodness I love that first fight) or the Road. I can completely understand why people might find it boring. For me, it really strikes the right note of over-the-top earnestness married to a silly premise, although I admit I am a sucker for post-apocalyptic movies of a certain, Mad Max-derived stripe.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 1:49 PM on February 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

Wow, Costner sounds a lot like Liam Neeson in that trailer.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:01 PM on February 3, 2015

When we went to see "Selma," the trailer for "White Man Loves Mixed Race Child ANYWAY" played back to back with the one for "Same White Man Saves Gifted Latino Kids From An Uncaring World.

This played to an audience full of black women who had just come in from a BlackLivesMatter demonstration on the adjascent street.

Good times.
posted by zennie at 2:13 PM on February 3, 2015 [19 favorites]

Sequence: "hich is to say, the internet is actually full of advice on how to handle black hair if you happen to be a white person suddenly in charge of this for a young child. There are Youtube tutorials. "

A friend of mine (who is white) last year got sudden, temporary custody of a little girl, who is black, and whose prior guardian had ... treated her hair like white hair and then ignored it. It was really really bad. My friend basically knew enough to know she didn't know what to do, and she texted me late at night to ask if I knew of a good salon she could go to (because I was involved in creating the beautician program at the local high school and knew a lot of salon people), that would be good with a little girl who had a LOT OF SHIT GOING ON but my friend at least wanted her hair to look nice for school and to fix this one little thing. I was like "Oh shit" and called my most well-connected female black friend at 10:30 p.m. even though I was pretty sure she'd be asleep and left a message because DUDE. (My husband was like, "You cannot call people at 10:30 at night" and I was like "No, this one's okay, she wouldn't want me to wait!") And then my friend called ME back at 11:30 p.m. and was like "OKAY I HAVE SENT OUT THE ALERT" and she had gotten a really great hairdresser who's great with kids to clear her schedule the next day to take this little girl, rescue and style her hair, and teach my friend (and the little girl) what she needed to know for everyday haircare. The little girl was the belle of the salon the next day and everybody was super-nice about teaching my friend what she needed to know and hooking her up with resources for white moms caring for black hair. My friend was a little anxious about seeming ignorant and being out of her element, but she said everyone could not have been nicer or more generous or more understanding, and very pretty hair was achieved for starting a new school!

Which is to say, Jesus, Kevin Costner, make a phone call! Like, look in the yellow pages and start calling salons. It is not hard.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:14 PM on February 3, 2015 [59 favorites]

When we went to see "Selma," the trailer for "White Man Loves Mixed Race Child ANYWAY" played back to back with "Same White Man Saves Gifted Latino Kids From An Uncaring World.


Yeah, just came in here to say, that though I may be wrong, I feel comfortable, in a "guilty until proven innocent" way, totally judging Costner based on the movies he chooses for himself.

It falls in the "I'm not calling you 'bad', but I am calling you 'not good'" category.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:24 PM on February 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

If I had a stronger stomach, I would watch all of Costner's movies and develop a system for ranking them by badness.

#1) All movies in which he plays an aging sports star.
(Bull Durham, Tin Cup, even that other movie with Travolta's wife)
#2) Field of Dreams
#3-99) Any other Kevin Costner movie.
posted by madajb at 2:25 PM on February 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

madajb is correct. Kevin Costner is good in movies in which he's an aging sports star. He is not good in movies where he's a Hero. Or, more precisely, movies with Kevin Costner as a hero are not good.

And that's about it.
posted by suelac at 2:36 PM on February 3, 2015

I will admit that I have a fondness for The Postman but that's because
1) I haven't actually seen it
but 2) some friends and I still like to yell "Riiiiiide, POST-MAN!" all epic like in one of the trailers for it

also holy cow you guys, that movie takes place in 2013!
posted by TwoStride at 3:10 PM on February 3, 2015

The Postman rather presciently predicted what kind of shape the USPS would be in by 2013, then.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 3:13 PM on February 3, 2015 [8 favorites]

Ijeoma Oluo just published the amazing piece "Why Don't We Talk About Africa" this morning, and I was just about to post her brother Ahamefule Oluo's piece "My Father Is an African Immigrant and My Mother Is a White Girl from Kansas and I Am Not the President of the United States (Or, How to Disappoint Your Absent Father in 20 Words or Less)." Good stuff, all of it!
posted by ChuraChura at 3:16 PM on February 3, 2015 [9 favorites]

madajb is correct. Kevin Costner is good in movies in which he's an aging sports star. He is not good in movies where he's a Hero. Or, more precisely, movies with Kevin Costner as a hero are not good.

And that's about it.

madajb is not correct. There are many gradations of badness in the Costner Corpus. I suspect I look for different things in a Costner movie from you two.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 3:17 PM on February 3, 2015

Postman is worth it for the sudden appearance of Tom Petty playing himself in the post apocalyptic world. That's right, he makes it through alright and then proceeds, in the most nasally Tom Petty voice to declare to Costner that "hey man, where I come from, yooooour famous." Gets me every time.
posted by boubelium at 3:59 PM on February 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

madajb,

#3) Mr. Brooks - Because any movie where Dane Cook is put down by a sociopathic Costner character who hallucinates his best friend (William Hurt) and works to protect his equally sociopathic daughter from her sloppy first kill without letting her know that he is also a sociopath. It is a movie with so little normal human context it is almost art. In no way is it good art.
posted by Ignorantsavage at 4:01 PM on February 3, 2015

Which takes place after Costner says "I know you. You're famous!"

The idea of Tom Petty shepherding a post-apocalyptic community is one of the best/most hilarious moments in that movie. I like to imagine another community in Detroit huddled around Bob Seger.
posted by octobersurprise at 4:08 PM on February 3, 2015 [10 favorites]

"Man, fuck this, I'm moving to Billy Idol's place!"
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 4:23 PM on February 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

See I think you can set up a Kevin Costner Category of "20 century pseudo historical drama" that he does alright in. JFK and the Untouchables were watchable.
posted by gryftir at 5:06 PM on February 3, 2015

I'll settle for a "Dane Cook is killed" category.
posted by Rat Spatula at 5:57 PM on February 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

Coincidentally, this is trending on Buzzfeed: Dad takes cosmetology lessons to do daughter's hair
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:10 PM on February 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

The Postman was a great book for its genre, and I screamed when I heard Kevin Costner had his ham-handed hands on it. Please all y'all go read The Postman.
posted by 2soxy4mypuppet at 7:13 PM on February 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

I thought that Costner was fading into worn-out character roles, in which he wasn't terrible, and I could actually stomach that lazy-mouthed, slouching, wooden faced, GUY!-guy of no real interest.

Now he is coming back as "leading-man", and I do not approve.

The film looks execrable for entirely different reasons.
posted by allthinky at 7:37 PM on February 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

Please all y'all go read The Postman.

It was alright.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 8:04 PM on February 3, 2015

Dane-Cook-is-Killed is really a cross-genre dream. Kevin Costner has already done it once. Let's get someone else. Say Willem Dafoe as a disgraced priest who has to save orphans and Dane Cook as the unnamed henchman of a drug lord who has to kill the orphans before they can testify. Dane Cook as the boyfriend who dies at the beginning of an Amy Adams film where she has to find herself again as the revelations of his cheating and criminal activities come to light. The movie where Kevin Costner is killed by Dane Cook only to be hunted down by the wolves raised by Costner's character. Dane Cook and Kevin Costner having to sit through a racial sensitivity course (previously on Metafilter) and then live in Watts for six months. That might count as reality TV worth watching.
posted by Ignorantsavage at 8:17 PM on February 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

JFK and the Untouchables were watchable.

Untouchables goes downhill fast after Connery exits stage left.
posted by madajb at 9:10 PM on February 3, 2015

Ignorantsavage -

I admit, I have not seen it, but Netflix has it, so added to the queue.
posted by madajb at 9:13 PM on February 3, 2015

"3 Days to Kill" was non-terrible. It was far more a Luc Besson movie with Kevin Costner in it than it was a Kevin Costner movie.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 11:30 PM on February 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

Jesus. This movie sounds vomitous.

Oh well, one more thing not to take any notice of.
posted by glasseyes at 1:41 PM on February 4, 2015

When some friends of mine adopted a multiracial daughter, they actually took classes set up specifically to teach white parents how to care for their children's hair. I believe it was set up as an offshoot of the adoption support group they were in; however, as residents of one of the only states with legal Open Adoption, there may be a more robust adoption community than in other locations.
posted by Juliet Banana at 4:27 PM on February 4, 2015