Whitewashing "A Christmas Story": The Lost Black Actors in a New Holiday Classic
December 25, 2010 5:14 PM   Subscribe

 
If this isn't parody, it deserves to be.
posted by Miko at 5:40 PM on December 25, 2010 [4 favorites]


my life began in the 40's in a small town in wisconsin very similar to the one in which "a christmas" story takes place. for better or for worse, however, there were no blacks in the 40's. it was well into the 50's when a marching band from milwaukee paraded through town and my sister ran off with a black trumpet player. he was absolutely splendid in his blue satin pants and red tunic, swinging that gold horn from side to side and breathing as heavily as one of the horses at the end of the parade.
posted by kitchenrat at 5:47 PM on December 25, 2010


Not to be denied, several black Americans responded to the casting call for A Christmas Story. They were determined that the presence of black Americans in this nostalgic vision of America's past be acknowledged.

Or maybe, like every other actor who auditions for every other throwaway holiday studio film ever, they just wanted a SAG credit and a paycheck.

To celebrate a crack addict holdup man who had one nonspeaking cameo in a movie one time as "the sad mix of Hollywood fame, drugs, and the trauma he suffered while filming" seems a bit of a stretch.
posted by ook at 5:48 PM on December 25, 2010 [3 favorites]


Complete parody. Arrested on Christmas day, high on crack, holding people up using a sawed off Red Ryder? It's pretty good.
posted by msali at 5:53 PM on December 25, 2010


What does this have to do with Lost?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:58 PM on December 25, 2010


What does this have to do with Lost?

They'll tie up all the plot lines, I'm sure.
posted by nomadicink at 6:15 PM on December 25, 2010


Yeah I can't take this seriously, shit lines up too perfectly
posted by tehloki at 6:20 PM on December 25, 2010 [1 favorite]


What am I supposed to be looking at?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:23 PM on December 25, 2010


Yeah, ok, I'm a sucker. When he posted the same story last year he tagged it 'satire, humor.' Not real clear what it is he's supposed to be satirizing, unless it's obsessive single-issue bloggers. Which is what he appears to be. Unless the whole site is one big straightfaced high-effort lampoon of itself in which case I don't even

i just can't tell anymore i dont know; ever since the Bush years it's been impossible to tell the crazy from the deadly serious
posted by ook at 6:26 PM on December 25, 2010 [3 favorites]


it's my understanding that the kid who played flick is now living in hawaii and won't get within 20 feet of a freezer
posted by pyramid termite at 7:18 PM on December 25, 2010 [3 favorites]


You know what cracks me up, I was just watching this tonight, on DVD thank you, and it struck me as a little jab in the beginning. There are black carolers in the opening scenes (Before looking in Higbie's corner window.) to remind us of blacks in this 'idyllic' world of Ralphie et al.

I liked discovering that this time around it felt as though Clark was reminding us and the overly-nostalgic viewer that black people were/are a part of our lives.
posted by CarlRossi at 7:34 PM on December 25, 2010


Well you know, if you want to drop by the actual house where they filmed it and be all like, "Hey, how come there ain't no brothers on the wall?", you can.
posted by fungible at 8:57 PM on December 25, 2010


Jean Shepherd wept.
posted by Spatch at 9:33 PM on December 25, 2010 [1 favorite]


There are black carolers in the opening scenes (Before looking in Higbie's corner window.) to remind us of blacks in this 'idyllic' world of Ralphie et al.

I don't think it's to remind "us" of anything. It's actually just accurate. A Christmas Story is adapted very faithfully from the semi-fictionalized autobiographical writings by Jean Shepherd, who lived in Hammond, Indiana as a ki. Hammond was one of many Midwestern cities which drew in large black populations during the Great Migration. Regardless of what our idea of an "idyllic" nostalgic America looks like, there were plenty of black people around in the time and the place this movie depicts. The presence of black actors in the film - albeit as extras - is just another aspect of what is one of the film's most remarkable qualities, its utterly painstaking realism in recreating a specific setting at a specific time in history.
posted by Miko at 9:51 PM on December 25, 2010 [4 favorites]


I don't understand what I'm reading here. Is this some weird parody? Where is the context? I'm looking at the rest of the site and I admit I'm just lost here.
posted by QuarterlyProphet at 10:21 PM on December 25, 2010


I suspect the same film, telling the same story, but based on a book written by a black guy from Hammond, IN, wouldn't have a whole lot of white people in it.

I grew up on the south side of Chicago, in a fairly integrated community, and went to a fully integrated school. Many of those same kinds of vignettes occurred. My movie would have kids and parents of all the races represented in my school.

It is "idyllic" because it is told from the sensibility of a little kid, who remembers fondly a time when *his* life was simpler. If he never saw any black people, then he isn't going to remember them or put them in the story.

I'm probably taking this far more seriously than I should.
posted by gjc at 10:50 PM on December 25, 2010


i don't believe it for a second, but attica has several percy joneses listed on its prisoner docket.

i just watched this movie a couple times yesterday. my first thought on this post was, 'whoa! what black actors in 'a christmas story?' so there's that.
posted by msconduct at 4:49 AM on December 26, 2010


A Christmas Story is set in pre-World War 2, 1940s Indiana...

I lol'd.
posted by Evilspork at 6:59 AM on December 26, 2010


attica has several percy joneses listed on its prisoner docket

It's an extremely common name. Jones is the fourth most common surname in the US and Percy is a very common given name.
posted by Miko at 7:00 AM on December 26, 2010


One of the tags for the article is "satire," so I'm guessing it's fiction.

I clicked on the author's name and it looks like everything he writes is fiction, or at least humorous.

And that last line? "In our next installment we bring you the story of Little Red Ryder, once an innocent young school child, now a fallen woman..."

Total giveaway.
posted by merelyglib at 11:07 AM on December 26, 2010


Here's a Youtube video of Percy Jones. I hope you like fusion jazz.
posted by box at 11:10 AM on December 26, 2010


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