AMERICAN SNIPER: Why it doesn’t matter if Chris Kyle was racist

Oscar-Nominated film American Sniper came to theaters on January 16^th, and since its release has not escaped a moment of controversy in the global media. The Clint Eastwood film follows the life of Chris Kyle, the most lethal sniper in U.S. history, on his four tours to Iraq. However, the film has faced controversy for the manner in which the Iraqis were portrayed in the film and has eventually simmered down to the debate over whether Chris Kyle himself was a racist.

A New York Post article discusses the main disagreement of the controversy; an NBC reporter allegedly described Kyle as having “racist tendencies towards Iraqis and Muslims when he was going on some of these…killing sprees in Iraq.” This led to an outrage by members of the military who were enraged that someone who nobly fought for his country could be questioned in character.

The truth of the matter is that Chris Kyle’s beliefs are irrelevant. The debate of his character is futile—it is impossible to know the inner thoughts and subtleties of this man. Conversely, this debate has acted as a scapegoat for a bigger question behind American Sniper: is this film inherently racist?

Throughout the film, the Iraqis are portrayed as brutal, dishonest people who will go to any means to eradicate the American soldiers. Some of the more poignant representations of this include an Iraqi terrorist drilling the head of a man as well as an Iraqi mother sending her young son on a suicide mission.

What American Sniper fails to achieve is a range of people and their beliefs. Where are the moderates? The film portrays the war between the two countries as a black and white matter; both sides believe that they are right without question or consideration of the other point of view. In an interview with an Iraqi interpreter for Chris Kyle during his tours, the interpreter described times that Kyle would laugh and joke with the Iraqi soldiers who helped them fight the extremist groups; yet, this aspect remained untouched in the film.

American Sniper does not fairly represent the real world, though it claims to be a biographical war film. This is not because of the “racist tendencies” of the man it was based on nor the extreme representations of the Iraqis in the film; this is because of the omission of all other groups in between which would have provided an increasingly well-rounded and complete snapshot of the entire story.

Why You Should Be Watching “American Crime”

Is Seth MacFarlane Racist?

Seth MacFarlane is well-known for producing “Family Guy,” “Bordertown,” “Ted,” and “American Dad!” While he got kind reviews, he was also criticized about his works. He’s works were mainly criticized by the people the reason because it contained racial discrimination content and people found it offensive. “Bordertown” for example, is a sitcom that follows families living in a Southwest desert town on the United States near Mexico border. According to Latin Times, “Bordertown” includes offensive humor that will most likely get under people’s skin and be considered racist such as Hispanic origin speaking very broken language. One of his famous animated sitcom “Family Guy” deal with a lot of racial discrimination.

Lacroix in her journal “High Stakes Stereotypes,” she chose an episode that featured Native Americans working the casino. In that episode, all the native workers in the casino wear name tags with names that are insulting as more and more characters appear. There are old characters and shirtless guy name with “Running Bear,” “Change for a Buck,” and “Watches You Pee” who was bathroom attendant in the men’s restroom (pg.9). Most of MacFarlane’s works portray stereotypes of different races.

When I watched “Family Guy” and saw racism content, I rather found it funny and didn’t find it offensive. I didn’t find it offensive because I just regarded it as a joke or a satire. However, I understand that a lot of people especially these days are sensitive about “jokes” that are included in the sitcoms. MacFarlane might intentionally stereotyped the characters according to their race to make his shows entertaining and to form sympathy with the viewers. I think there is a reason he keeps his way of portraying different race in stereotypical way even though he has been criticized reviews about the shows he produced. I think he should be more careful when forming characters of different race in his shows if he cares the negative reviews he is getting.

Closing the generational gap through film

Those of you who are reading this right now, how many of you are doing it from your own computer? Probably most, if not all of you. Why is that? Think about your parents. Did they have a laptop when they were your age? I doubt that your grandparents did. Our generation is popularly known for our knowledge with technology.

It is so common for me to go to class and see everyone with their laptops out. The way school is taught has changed so much. No longer do we sit with a textbook open and read 50 pages, hand write reports, or even open a dictionary. Now we have Google, Microsoft office, and Wikipedia. Has the classroom really changed that much? Yes, and most of it is due to our new found resources.

What else about the classroom has changed? According to an article titled “Teaching Criminological Theory:The Power of Film and Music” there are whole classes taught by using music and viewing films. The question in my mind is why haven’t I taken that class yet? Hmm…let me see would you rather take a final or watch a movie? For those of you about to endure finals week, I think we both know that answer.

So why is film or music valued in our education system? Why are they turning to film? It influences us more. “Teaching Criminological Theory” notes that while we spend only 5,000 hours of our lives reading we spend 20,000 hours of our lives watching television. Our generation has become more visual learners than textual learners.

We are so heavily influenced by what we see and more importantly what we consume. So when stereotypes are introduced to the way we consume information it is hard for us not to pay attention. When we constantly see the same minorities portrayed the same way, that is how our mind starts to view them.

The truth is that stereotypes are present in our films, our television, and movies. The question is why? According to an article titled “Portrayal of Minorities in the Film, Media, and Entertainment Industries” the answer is money. The money that the networks, producers, and even actors make outweigh the guilt of what they are showing. In the end, it is just business.

The truth is that if they really wanted to, they could include these stereotypes in a positive light. How? You could always belittle the people that believe in the stereotypes to show that they don’t agree with them. One way the article suggested was to show the stereotype as the minority rather than the majority of the people they are portraying.

One thing is for sure, either way our generation will consume it.

Why Race Should Not Make The Man Behind Spider-Man

As soon as Sony Pictures announced its landmark deal with Marvel Studios to recast Spider-man in Walt Disney’s superhero cinematic universe, the Internet lit up with rumors and speculation about just who could play Marvel Comics’ beloved wall-crawler.

That Spider-man need be a masculine young adult has never been in question these past fifty years (there’s Spider-Woman for the ladies), but what race Spider-man’s belonged to over suddenly became a much realer question than ever. Could Spider-man be black? Could Spider-man be Hispanic?

Among the most popular suggestions has been to make him both – namely as Miles Morales, the Afro-Hispanic Spider-man of writer Brian Michael Bendis’ 2011 story-arc. As Ora C. McWilliams of the University of Kansas points out, race itself could be more than skin deep for the character. “Morales speaks to a different audience and can say different things than Parker can,” she writes.“Spider-Man has universal appeal, but the race of his secret identity changes the dynamic of the character, leading to new modes of representation and fan consumption.” Morales is, in short, part of the new norm.

For decades, Spider-man’s embodied a singular image – that of a troubled teenage high-school student named Peter Parker struggling with the responsibilities that came with his secret identity. When Parker was created, he may have been just another caucasian male, but he was a younger, realer one than his square-jawed peers to so many younger eyes. The Spider-man of 1964 was simply a character of this time – one in which 85 percent of the babies born in the US were caucasian. Now, when caucasian Americans make up just 43 percent of US citizens, that time has changed and so has his fans.

Superheroes, of course, have been nothing if not forces for change. It was only last year that audiences were introduced to Anthony Mackie’s Falcon in Captain America: The Winter Soldier – a movie that also saw Marvel’s classically caucasian World War II veteran, Nick Fury, played by African-American actor Samuel L. Jackson. That is not to discount the growing prospect of seeing DC Comics’ African-American Green Lantern, John Stewart, and Marvel’s self-explanatory Black Panther on the big screen next year.

That superheroes are adapting to the changing sea of the mainstream has always been their appeal, but tradition is a hard tide to tame. Miles Morales should be a compromise everyone can get behind. Older fans can have their Peter Parker while Sony and Marvel’s new film can meanwhile spotlight someone new – something Hollywood’s sequel machine is not well adept at. If history has told us anything, there is only one Peter Parker,   but any man can put on Spider-man’s mask, now can’t they?

Elba…Idris Elba

We all know the iconic James Bond. The British secret agent, also known as 007. The man who took down odd job, the man who bested Gold Finger, then he took to the stars and saved the world…again. If you are not familiar with any of these plots and villains, than I am sure that you are more familiar with the catch phrase that has been forever engraved into our minds since the first book of James Bond hit the shelves in 1953, “Bond, James Bond”. I am sure we are thinking of the same person now. Concerning the history of James Bond, the character has been played by eight different white males, the last one being Daniel Craig. Recently, Sony studios was hacked which spilled the beans on many of Sony’s upcoming projects, one of them being the potential next actor for the iconic James Bond role. The next James Bond role could be played by Idris Elba, who is black, and that is perfectly fine.

However, Rush Limbaugh does not think that this man is right for the job, because of his race. In an article produced by BBC, which details Rush Limbaugh’s fit about the next James bond, Limbaugh goes on to iterate that “it’s probably racist to even point this out” but “He was white and Scottish, Period. That is who James Bond is.” It is important to point out that Rush Limbaugh brings an intriguing argument to the table, basically stating that the role calls for a white man, and not a black man; although, his logic is inherently wrong. Not because it is racist, but because it is irrelevant what race plays James Bond, for James Bond is nothing more than an idea, an idea that inspires people to use the tag line “Bond, James Bond” and knowing the actor Idris Elba, he can full fill this role and inspire the audience.

Some could argue that a black James Bond could hinder box office sales. A study achieved by Indiana University shed light on why producers are uneasy about casting minorities as major characters in films, the reason is that there is a “fear that the white audiences will largely avoid such films”. The results showed a correlation between black actors casted as a main role and whites avoiding such films. The correlation was actually the strongest in regards of the romantic films.

While James Bond films tend to have some steamy romance buried within the plot of each movie, it is by no means a romantic film. But, it is hard to ignore statistical evidence brought forth by the above study, nonetheless James Bond with a black actor does still have hope. A black actor offers something new to the James Bond series, and could revive the currently dormant series. Also, Idris Ebla is the actor, have you heard his voice? He sounds like he already is James Bond.

Is minority representation the pathway to success?

It has seemed to become common knowledge that minorities are inadequately represented on television. However, the representation of minorities on television have been changing for two reasons—firstly because there has been a rise in social support for inclusion of minorities in television and secondly because racial issues in television have been attracting the attention of mass media.

An article from The Guardian looks back on the fall television season of 2014, focusing on the seven new projects that included main characters of a minority race. This may not seem like much but is a huge increase from the one minority show produced in 2013, which was shortly canceled after airing. Shows like Blackish, a sitcom featuring an African-American family, as well as Fresh off the Boat which follows a Chinese family moving to Florida have consistently been featured by the news as unique and exciting programs—the first of their kind in years.

This move is not just about fairness or equality. If diversity wasn’t making money for the networks, it wouldn’t be happening. In a UCLA study in 2013, greater diversity in broadcast and cable shows was linked to higher ratings.

In the news, representation of race has been shifting, too. Since a study by Dixon, Azocar, and Casas in 2003 supported the overrepresentation of whites as victims in officers and the underrepresentation of African-Americans in the same roles, it has been widely accepted that the news does not necessarily represent reality. However, a more recent study performed at UCLA reworks this study focusing on both broadcast and cable news.

In this study, the results showed that the TV accurately depicted the correct amount of white violent perpetrators but actually underrepresented black violent perpetrators by 20%. Furthermore, the number of black victims was also underrepresented by 26%. Even worse are the misrepresentations of minority groups that are far less focused on than black or white. While only 47% of immigrant suspects are Latino, yet the news represents 97% of the suspects as Latino. Furthermore, while only 6% of terror suspects in the United States are Muslim, the news shows 81% of suspects as Muslim.

These statistics really tell it all; if the news, which is often considered a representation of reality, is so drastically representing minorities as criminal, it is only natural that the fictional shows created follow these guidelines and avoid making minority protagonist characters. As television shows begin to fight these stereotypes to coincide with increasing public support for accurate minority representation, it is time for the news industry to follow suit.

Disney: Another Outlet For Racism

Most of us at some point have seen a Disney movie. They are the classic movies that most children watch. I personally have seen just about all of them. When I was a child, the idea or racial stereotyping never occurred to me. Now that I am more educated, I see the subtle amounts of racial discrimination that were added throughout the movies.

I am not the only one who identifies the hints that Disney stuck into its movies. In an article published by Entertainment Weekly, they note 14 specific instances of racism in classic children movies.  In a Startribune article, author Steve Persall mentions 8 specific instances where discrimination occurs in Disney movies. Both of these articles mention “Fantasia”, “Dumbo”, and “Lady and the Tramp.”

Lets examine these racist acts then shall we?
“Fantasia”- Originally released in 1940, a centaur named Sunflower who was dark skinned half-human and half-donkey appeared in the original release. Sunflower had one role and that was to be the servant of the bigger paler skinned centaurs that were half-human and half-horse. What happened to Sunflower after 1969? Disney removed the scene entirely and just left the paler skin centaurs in the movie.

“Dumbo”-Just about an elephant learning to fly? There is 2 main examples in this film that I should address. One is the lazy, black crow who speaks with broken English, in the stereotypical black southern way. If that isn’t bad enough, the leader of the crows name is Jim Crow. (Don’t know what Jim Crow is? Google it). The second racist feature presented in Dumbo is when the black faceless circus characters when working were singing the “Song of the Roustabouts.” Some of the lyrics include “We slave until we’re almost dead” and “Pull that rope, you hairy ape.” Just a coincidence that they made black workers slave while comparing them to apes? Not likely.

“Lady and the Tramp”- This movie goes to show you that it is not just black stereotypes that Disney played to. The Siamese cats in “Lady and the Tramp” Si and Am are drawn with slanted eyes and introduced by the sound of a gong. They play the role of slinky thieves meant to portray Asian stereotypes from the WWII era.

Those are just a few examples they are many others throughout Disney’s history. As much as I loved these movies as a child, I have to think about with the amount of discrimination they contain if I’m willing to show them to my kids someday.

The Oscars: Whose Hollywood is it again?

When Hollywood’s best and brightest convene this weekend for the 87th Academy Awards, it will be with the usual fanfare. The winning smiles, the fashion faux pas, the teary-eyed speeches – that is just the melodrama of the red carpet for you. What will not be so typical this Oscar night is who will ascend the stage for that coveted statuette.

For the first time since 2011 and the second since 1998, every acting nominee is Caucasian – most notably without David Oyelowo among their ranks, whose acclaimed performance as the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. turned heads. Such a homogenized image of “the world’s preeminent movie-related organization” is hard to ignore in a show that saw the African-American led Twelve Years a Slave walk away with Best Picture only two Oscars ago.

For a long time now, Hollywood’s struggled to catch up with the very demographics it has sought to convert in recent years. Of the 3,932 speaking characters depicted in America’s biggest box office hits between 2007 and 2013, 74 percent were Caucasian. Latinos, by contrast, made up less than 5 percent despite comprising 16.3 percent of the US population and buying nearly a quarter of US movie tickets on average. Likewise, nearly 17 percent of the films studied had no speaking African-American characters, despite African-Americans making up over 12 percent of US citizens.

That the Oscars have been a rather disingenuous place for a while is nothing new to the award show’s increasing criticisms by the moviegoing mainstream. It’s not hard to imagine why if you see through the tinted looking glass, according to the LA Times. Among academy voters, 94 percent are Caucasian and 77 percent of them are male, with every other minority checking in at or less than 2 percent. That its demographics could be coincidence is unbelievable given the results in question. With competition from the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs, the Oscars has every reason to maintain its lofty pedestal, but clearly at the cost of biting the hands that feed it.

Racial representation is hardly the Oscars’ problem alone. People want to see stories about their own experiences – that is natural. Hollywood wants to tell stories about Caucasian men. Its audience is clearly ready for something different and it has been for a long time. If the customer has always right for Hollywood, than they can afford to see the Oscars as the broken byproduct it is.

What to do about racism in film…

Exodus: Gods and Kings has ignited a fire within the public’s eyes, because the public claim that the movie’s director, Ridley Scott, made a poor decision — and possible racist one — casting predominantly white actors as the leads of the movie. Exodus: Gods and Kings follows Egyptian Prince Moses and his journey through hardships. The key word in the previous sentence is Egyptian, not to be confused with white, because in the public’s eye Ridley Scott was confused. For example, the main character cast of the movie includes; Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, Maria Valverde, Aaron Paul, Sigourney Weaver, and frighteningly the list could go on. The similarity between all of these actors is that they are all white, interestingly, the public is spot on with its criticism with the amount of white actors playing Egyptian roles. In lieu of this uproar, I took it upon myself to investigate other potentially racist films, and see what other writers had to say about them, and answer the question: why do we keep seeing films with racist elements in them?

Surprisingly, I found that there are many films with potential subliminal racist elements within them. Subliminal meaning: at first glance one might not see the film as racist, but it very much so could be at a second glance. I found two articles online that rated all films with potential racist grounds. The first article, from Complex Magazine, takes fifty movies and rates them in numerical order. Gremlins happens to be number fifty, while The Birth of a Nation is rated number one. The writer of this article argues that most of these movies are racist, because they pick on stereotypes, and use the stereotypes in a negative way. For example, the Gremlins may be depicting little, green skinned, monster, but the actions of the monsters, such as break dancing and looting, are based off of negative stereotypes of the poor black community. The second article by, What Culture, takes a similar approach discussing racism among films, because the article also points out stereotypes within films. Another similarity this article has with Complex Magazine’s article is that there is a cross-over between what movies were selected to make the list. For instance, there were eight total movies that were similar between the two, in fact, The Birth of a Nation made the cut as number one for both articles. So, clearly there is agreement among journalist that certain movies could be considered racist.

However, these articles both fall short for discussing why Hollywood believes it is okay to, for example, cast white actors for Egyptians, or use negative stereotypes, in their films. The truth is, the blame falls on two parties, the first being Hollywood, and the second being the customers (yes, us). Hollywood makes the films, so at the end of the day whatever comes out of their many studios is essentially their idea, their product. This is where the customer comes in, Hollywood runs their movies through “test audiences”, meaning before their movie hits theaters, a small sample size of people have already seen the movie. These “test audiences” have the power of deciding what they like or what they do not like about the movie. The unfortunate truth about the “test audience” is that they can sometimes dislike certain elements within a film. A good example of this is the movie, Romeo Must Die. The movie follows a plot similar to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet; however, this film decides to cast an Asian man (Jet Li) and a black women (Aaliyah). Apparently, Romeo and Juliet’s final kiss scene between Jet Li and Aaliyah did not test will with the “test audience”, so the producers ripped it out completely.

This relationship between Hollywood and the consumer is relatively simple: Hollywood makes movies based on what people will go and pay to see. So, if we were to find a solution to this problem with racism in film the answer is relatively simple. The public should not pay to go see these potentially racist films. One could take a step farther, and join the crowds of people who are in an uproar over the film Exodus: Gods and Kings.

Asian Americans come to the surface after two decades

“Fresh Off the Boat” is an ABC sitcom based on memoir Eddie Huang wrote about his childhood as Taiwanese immigrants in Orlando, Florida. This sitcom is under the spotlight due to the fact that it focuses on featuring Asian America and consists of Asian American actors. In an interview from the New York Times, Huang said the reason to choose to sign up with ABC network was because ABC is one of the most powerful network, and he hopes to change the perception of Asian American that has been portrayed in the past. Regardless of growing population of Asian Americans, they were mostly treated as an invisible and were not representative in the mainstream media. In an interview with Los Angeles Times, Randall park who is well-known for his role in the recent movie The Interview said even though there are a lot of Asian American actors in Hollywood, they have less opportunity to become leading men compared to white actors and this is the norm in Hollywood. He also showed his excitement of playing a leading role because he always played fourth or fifth lead on a show.

It is true that the Asian Americans are underrepresented among other races. However, I think people are becoming more aware of recognizing racial diversity through school courses, school club, or community club. It is surprising that “Fresh Off the Boat” is the first show in 20 years that presents Asian American race and it is good to gather attention from critics and audiences whether their views are negative or positive because it means they do care about the race. However, it was ironic when the song Huang picked was criticized by producers the reason because they were worried what Americans will think. On the other hand, it was understandable because their main targeted audiences are white men rather than other races. The NY times and LA times well conveyed about preference of race in the TV show in film industry.