#311. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

Stuff Black People Don't Like would love it if everyone in America would read. This is not be to the case nor will it ever be, as we live in a country where 25 percent of the country doesn't even bother to pick up a book:

"One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices."

Worse, in Detroit where 9 out 10 people are Black people, the illiteracy rate is approaching levels never before seen in the United States:

"It’s no coincidence that Detroit has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the country and has classified over 47% of adults as functionally illiterate, according to the National Institute for Literacy. To make matters worse, Detroit has a higher illiteracy rate than countries in Africa -- where the children have never seen a book."

However, Americans do love to see movies, as in 2008 the top 10 movies out of Hollywood brought in just under $3 billion at the domestic box office. This number does not include DVD rentals or sales revenue.

Movies will always be the medium whereby people can have their minds manipulated to believe anything. Edward Bernay wrote an important book on propaganda and had this to say, which can be linked to what happens when people watch movies:

"Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.

Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere of politics or business in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind."

Remember this fact, as we bring you today's entry.

"Do you know where there are any personages of historical significance around here?" asked Bill S. Preston, esquire, one of the co-creators of the important band Wyld Stallyans. You see, this band will bring about world peace:

"Hi, welcome to the future. San Dimas California 2688. And I'm telling you it's great here. The air is clean, the water's clean, even the dirt, it's clean. Bowling averages are way up, mini-golf scores are way down. And we have more excellent water slides than any other planet we communicate with. I'm telling you this place is great! But it almost wasn't. You see, 700 years ago, the two great ones, ran into a few problems. So now I have to travel back in time to help them out. If I should fail to keep these two on the correct path, the basis of our society will be in danger. Don't worry, it'll all make sense. I'm a professional."

The movie in question? Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, a movie about two white dudes from California that are destined to start a rock band that will in turn bring about world peace and an unprecedented era of prosperity. However, Preston and Ted "Theodore" Logan - played by Keanu Reeves - must first pass their high school history final.

If world peace is to come to fruition, then these band mates must pass their history class, so Rufus - a character from the future played by George Carlin - goes back in time to help out the dynamic duo.

Sound confusing? Try this explanation of the plot:

"The film opens in the future San Dimas, California, with Rufus (George Carlin) preparing to use a time-traveling phone booth to travel back to 1988 to make sure that Bill S. Preston, Esq. (Alex Winter) and Theodore "Ted" Logan (Keanu Reeves) remain together as the band "Wyld Stallyns", as their music is the core of the future's Utopian society. Rufus finds that Bill and Ted are on the verge of failing their high school history class, and should Ted fail, his father, police captain Logan (Hal Langdon) will ship him off to an Alaskan military academy, effectively ending the pair's dreams of forming a band. As the two try to write a history report by asking customers questions at a local Circle K, Rufus introduces himself to them.

Though Bill and Ted are skeptical of Rufus' claims, they are convinced when future versions of themselves land nearby and explain the situation to them. Rufus shows Bill and Ted how the time machine works by taking them back to see Napoleon Bonaparte (Terry Camilleri) preparing for battle. Rufus returns to the present and leaves the two with the time machine; after Rufus leaves, they discover that Napoleon was dragged with them back to the present, and get an idea: to pass their history exam, they will go back in time and kidnap other historical figures and have them explain what they think of the San Dimas of the present. Bill and Ted leave Napoleon with Ted's younger brother Deacon while they travel back to the past."

Black people enjoy this movie, up until Bill and Ted decide to journey into the past to find "personages of historical influence" for in their journey in the past, they fail to get any Black people to help out their history project!

Who do they get instead?:

"Bill and Ted first collect Billy the Kid (Dan Shor) and Socrates (Tony Steedman) (whom they refer to as /ˈsoʊkreɪts/ "So-Crates"), who are both confused but eager to help the pair. When they travel to 15th Century England, they become smitten with Princess Elizabeth (Kimberley Kates) and Princess Joanna (Diane Franklin), but fall into trouble with their father the King; they manage to escape with the help of Billy and Socrates and continue traveling through time. Soon, they have collected Sigmund Freud (Rod Loomis), Ludwig van Beethoven (Clifford David), Genghis Khan (Al Leong), Joan of Arc (Jane Wiedlin), and Abraham Lincoln (Robert V. Barron)."

So, Bill and Ted journey back in time and garner the help from six white people and a mongol. Black people have the great advantage of being from the continent where life is said to begin, yet strangely, no great Black civilizations exist there nor is there any evidence a great Black civilization ever existed.

Black people find the fact that Bill and Ted didn't get any Black people strange, when confronted with the fact that the currently accepted "Out of Africa" theory has all of civilization and the earth's many people originating from that continent.

If this theory were true, why is there no evidence that intelligent life has ever existed there, through ruins of a great past civilization? Black people don't like this historical fact one bit.

Now, it is true that most historical Black people fall into two categories: entertainer or civil rights activist (entertainer includes singer, athlete or movie star). It is hard to come up with other Black people that are famous that don't fit into either of these categories (most famous Black innovators are precisely famous for being pillars that hold up the civil rights movement).

Interestingly, Black people find it mystifying that Bill and Ted steadfastly refused to go to Ancient Egypt to get a Black person to testify to that Nubian civilization that built the pyramids, but that would run counter to historical fact:

"The second and more pernicious mission of the Afrocentrists is to create a past that never existed—a past in which Africa was at the center of world history. This is done primarily by tracing key elements of Western civilization and contemporary culture to African roots, and crucially to ancient Egypt.

If it can be demonstrated that major strands in Western philosophy, literature, and mathematics originated in the land of the pharaohs, and if it can also be shown that ancient Egypt was an “African” civilization in more than the narrowly geographic sense, then large parts of Western learning and culture can be claimed and celebrated as African. Many a forest has fallen in service to this cause, and many an American student is now being taught that Socrates was black and other such non-facts."

Black people refuse to believe that Ancient Egypt was not created except through the hard work of Black people. Where those Black people went is still a mystery, but Black people believe with all their heart, despite no evidence to the contrary, that Ancient Egypt is their civilization.


It is through the help of white people and a Mongol that Bill and Ted are able to unite the world in peace. Nary a Black person helps in this crusade.

Stuff Black People Don't Like includes Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, a seemingly innocent 1980s film that drives a dagger deep into the heart of Black people whenever they sit down to view it. For Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman and ... getting fuzzy here ... Marcus Garvey perhaps (?) should be included in the historical panoply that ensure the world is saved and that Bill and Ted pass history.

Sadly, the contributions of Black people - from America or from Africa - are left out of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. A clear cut case of Euro centrism? Or, a clear cut case of historical accuracy? No one reads anymore. People watch movies. And Black people worry that Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure will derail all the great hopes that Afro-centrism had for white people everywhere.