Friday, February 11, 2011

And you thought the end of "Knowing" was bad: Wait until "I am Number Four" comes out

I am Number Four - why so many blond people?
Not since the end Knowing has a film had the potential to infuriate Black people like a movie coming out next Friday will.

Okay, so Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen was bad. But an incredibly popular young adult (YA) fiction book debuts next on February 18 in theaters that makes the end of Knowing look like a Tyler Perry casting call.

I am Number Four, the first part in a trilogy, will be criticized for having a virtually all-white cast (even worse, a ton of blonds) that the movie Thor thankfully will not have (Hollywood sanitized that Nordic tale by inserting a Black guy to play a Nordic God).

Other YA titles have been turned into lucrative franchises for studios (Harry Potter, Twilight, and the impending release of the Hunger Games trilogy), but I am Number Four has the potential to be universally lambasted for having a cast of nearly all-white characters. All-white and blond too.

You just can't do that anymore in Hollywood, with movies primarily bankrolled that depict white people as the bad guys. The end of Knowing was bad enough, with two white kids being saved from an earth engulfed in solar flares. Their saviors, of course, were incredibly white aliens.


I am Number Four is also a movie about white aliens, but this time the last of their species seeks refuge on earth from another alien civilization bent on wiping out every last trace of that civilizations existence:
Nine infant aliens, who closely resemble humans, flee their home planet, Lorien, to hide on Earth. An invading species, the Mogadorians, have destroyed their planet, and followed them to Earth to hunt them down. Each of the nine aliens is given a guardian and will develop superhuman powers on becoming an adult. Each is assigned a number. These last children of Lorien can be killed only in the sequence of their numbers. Numbers One, Two, and Three have been killed so far.

Number Four (Alex Pettyfer), also named John Smith, moves to Paradise, Ohio, disguised as an American high school student. He makes a friend, Sarah Hart (Dianna Agron), a sweet Midwestern girl who is a photographer. After being on the run his whole life, Number Four falls in love and now has something to stand up and fight for.
Has there ever been a film were the advanced alien civilization was Black?
Michael Bay, a man who has made many movies glorifying Pre-Obama America (watch the opening 10 minutes of Pearl Harbor to see a homage to a nation long gone), is the only man who could dare produce a film that has white aliens representing the last of their destroyed civilization.

Something tells us that a storm is brewing over this casting, much like the war that erupted over a casting call for all-white Hobbits in the upcoming adaptation of The Hobbit:
A casting director was fired from the production of Peter Jackson's upcoming Hobbit films after limiting the search for female hobbit extras to those with "light skin tones" and telling an actress that she was "too dark" for a role in the films, Agence France-Presse reports.

Naz Humphreys, a British woman who has Pakistani heritage, attended a casting call in New Zealand last week for The Hobbit. She waited in line for three hours hoping to be a hobbit, only to be told she had the wrong skin tone.

 The casting director, who was hired as an independent contractor, reportedly told auditioners at the casting call, "We are looking for light-skinned people... It's just the brief. You've got to look like a hobbit."
By filming The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers and Return of the King at the same time, Peter Jackson was able to ensure that irate Black people - mad about an all-white cast - couldn't demand a token Black casting.  I am Number Four will not be spared that same fate, with the other two books unpublished.

The end of Knowing was an upsetting experience for Black people and I am Number Four (which ostensibly is a film made to glorify the Nordic archetype) will offer an encore of that exact same nauseating feeling with a bunch of white aliens running around earth, saving the day yet again.

In Black Run America (BRA) anything that is all white or nearly white is inherently evil. A movie without diversity or awards show without Black people is an odious form of racial exclusion. What's with all these white aliens anyway? Does someone think that The Jetsons could have been a cartoon about another planet?

Trust us, someone is going to complain about I am Number Four. Where are the Black aliens?

I am Number Four is an incredibly racist movie, violating the rules of BRA. There, Stuff Black People Don't Like said it first.








25 comments:

Anonymous said...

SBPDL,

No one is going to care about "I am Number Four".
Blacks and whites are going to be downloading this predictable garbage on line free.

Steve said...

I'm sure someone will complain. They had to have a black Vulcan in Star Trek.
This movie looks like a revamp of Escape to Witch Mountain from the 70s. No blacks in that either if I remember correctly.

Anonymous said...

I am Number Four is Twilight with space aliens.

bupkiss o'toole said...

I am so sick of the saturation of Unmentionables in the media this is a refreshing departure. Hope it's a trend.

Anonymous said...

As a sci-fi fan myself the whole equal representation of blacks in alien species has always driven me crazy. I first noticed it with the Star Trek franchise and since then it seems to be everywhere. My view is this, Just because the human species is cursed with backward, violent, and less intelligent blacks. Why is it likely that any and all humanoid alien species would also have to share the same curse?

I know this isn't really relevant, it's just one of the things that I can't stand in our multi-cultural, liberal controlled world.

I guess the only good thing about the situation is that without black Vulcans, Star Trek fans couldn't refer to Obama as president Tuvac.

Anonymous said...

Man suffers gunshot, police seek assailant, no names or descriptions or pics.

Strange...

http://www.wpbf.com/news/26844721/detail.html

Desiree said...

At this point, I couldn't care less if blacks were in so-called 'white' films, especially something like the Hollywood weekend blockbuster. I can barely stand to watch these new, more mainstream films anyway: they are filled with predictable and annoying tropes.

That will be the destiny of any and every minority, not just blacks, in these types of films.

As quiet as it's kept, black people don't care about being in 'white' movies. We've been here, side-by-side, with whites for centuries and we have grown accustomed to seeing you guys in ads, TV, films, etc., etc. because we know that that's how it has to be. We will buy a $10 ticket and see it just like everyone else.

If we want to be in film, we should make our own movies. Every black story made into film is about abuse, sorrow, etc... or Madea. It's twisted. Can someone please make something worth watching? A black 'Welcome to the Dollhouse' would be nice.

I will say, this trailer did look very 'blond'. But white people like seeing themselves in everything. Just not a big deal anymore; should it change - yes, but, I won't hold my breath.........

Anonymous said...

Steve,

"I'm sure someone will complain. They had to have a black Vulcan in Star Trek."

Trust me no one cares enough to complain. Any complaining will be nothing more that phony "controversy" used to generate buzz for a movie that can be downloaded online or purchased in one of those evil black barbershops for five bucks.


Vulcans can black, because just like goblins, witches , and wizards. They aren't real.

Anonymous said...

If they don't have blacks in it, it is a prime candidate for a lawsuit from the NAACP, Sharpton and Jackson to get extortion money from YT. The only alternative for these race hustlers is to get job and that isn't going to happen. They have plenty of mammy's babies to pay for. Lets face it victimology pays.

Anonymous said...

"Trust me no one cares enough to complain."

Trust me. You don't know shit.

Blacks complaining about "under-representation" has been going on for decades.

Anonymous said...

"Vulcans can black, because just like goblins, witches , and wizards. They aren't real."

This is why blacks play engineers, rocket scientists, and physicists.

Because they aren't real.

Stuff Black People Don't Like said...

Tim Burton was attacked for not having Black children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:

http://www.globalpolitician.com/print.asp?id=3237

Elizabeth Wright wrote an interesting piece harping on the theme of Black History Month Heroes at Alt Right:

http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/zeitgeist/negrophilia/

Anonymous said...

So help me...if they sully the excellent franchise that Peter Jackson has created with some PC, "we-gots-to-show-some-black-folk" bullsh*t, I will wage a one man campaign to provide one-star reviews for any product related to this film for the rest of my days here on this f*cked-up topsy-turvy planet.

p.s.
@Desiree - How are you defining "trope" in relation to your post?

Stuff Black People Don't Like said...

Theroot.com published an article on "Black Vulcans":

http://www.theroot.com/blogs/browntable/case-black-vulcan

You could probably find an article written on the casting of Captain America as a white guy only and why he should be Black. Oh wait, here's one.

http://bossip.com/227336/why-cant-captain-america-be-black-thatd-really-be-something-to-marvel-over/

There's a huge uproar over Thor that many people who are allocated no voice in the mainstream media have attempted to make, and those controlling the direction of the acceptable conversation have scoffed at.

Stuff Black People Don't Like is trying to finish a book on this very topic, before Thor debuts at the box office.

Hirsch said...

The problem with most modern sci-fi movies is that they suck. There was a nice little boom in the 70s and 80s (Logan's Run, Blade Runner), but except for Minority Report, what the hell really good speculative movies have been made in the last few years? "The Arrival" with Charlie Sheen was underrated.

As for Avatar, it was a very good looking but unoriginal rip off an old Ursula Leguin story. Octavia Butler was a better than average science fiction writer, and was also black. Yaphet Kotto didn't really seem to detract from the original "Alien" with his blackness, though that movie was more Lovecraftian horror than sci-fi.

Basically, my point is that Avatar sucked.

Anonymous said...

http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0096615/

This is interesting. An excerpt:

More than 20 years after Star Wars (1977) was released, David Prowse, who played Darth Vader, is still grumbling about the fact that George Lucas decided to replace his voice with James Earl Jones'. In an interview with the Canadian Press, Prowse claims that he was the victim of a kind of reverse racism. Since there were no black members in the original cast, Prowse claims, the Lucas production company "were worried to death about black people boycotting the movie. ... The only thing they could do at that last stage was to take my voice off and give Darth Vader an obvious black voice."

OneSTDV said...

There is no greater example of liberal/PC hollywood than 2012:

2012: Hollywood Liberalism Personified

Desiree said...

This is why blacks play engineers, rocket scientists, and physicists.

Because they aren't real.


You wish they weren't real, you tool. Watch NOVA Science Now and enjoy the smiling 'Sambo' that is Neil Degrasse Tyson.

And don't you dare say he's an astrophysicist because he may have some 'white blood' in his veins. Most black people do. I imagine if he was a sociologist like 'high yella' Michael Eric Dyson, you'd just say typical black person.

Degrasse Tyson's father was a sociologist and his mother studied aging. If most black people had upbringings like his, going to science schools instead of, say, a shitty public school, there would be more black physicists.

Trust me, there will be no white physicists coming out of my old high school...

Personally, I loathe physics; there is no importance to it unless you are an engineer; you believe knowing the 'why it works' is just as relevant as the 'how it works' (Newsflash: its not); or you enjoy pulling your hair out. Or maybe I'm pissed because my prof is an ass. I am a chemistry kind of girl. Beautiful discipline; it is in everything.

You know, it would do most (white) people well on this site to use a qualifier.


@Desiree - How are you defining "trope" in relation to your post?

You know, the typical and fuzzy-slipper-like (meaning predictable) conventions that are found in TV and film. You know, 'mighty whitey' saving the day (e.g. Avatar or Dancing with Wolves) or the 'wise and/or mystical negro' (e.g. The Stand is a book but the adaptation with Ruby Dee was too much).

A tired, stock convention that makes watching the Hollywood blockbuster a masochistic exercise.

Basically, if they cannot make a black person 3-dimensional and non-stereotypical, just keep us out, please. I honestly believe they put blacks in film for white people's benefit. Black people really don't give a shit. If it looks good, we'll see it. Period.

However, I am perplexed as to why that trailer is so 'blond'. White people love blond hair. Red hair is much more interesting and rare; I'd like to see a redhead. Every woman knows blond hair on a guy is less attractive than dark hair, as it is a sign of youth and weakness. He's not our superhero. As a young girl, I always thought John Smith from Pocahontas was way less attractive than Prince Eric from the Little Mermaid. Pocahontas should have always went with her own kind, Koko-um; he was a damned sexy cartoon character.

Someone once got fired for suggesting that Disney should make cartoon pornos. What a bunch of tight-asses; it's an awesome idea. Preferably an S&M themed one featuring Ursula and Aladdin. I hate Aladdin. What a fag but he was hot. Death to that street rat.

;-)

joe-6 said...

Hirsch
Avatar was so ridiculous. A friend lent me his DVD. I watched the first ten minutes then started skipping around. Those feline humanoids with long tails were laughable .... I had no sympathy for that computer generated species and the rest of the computer generated mess

The best sci-fi was 20-25 years ago. Terminator 1 and 2, Total Recall, Alien, Blade Runner which anticipated the Los Angeles of today. Contact was good. The Arrival was a good B movie. We need some nasty edgy sci-fi but all we get is wimpy rot. Post apocalyptic Zombie movies are not sciFi

Percy Kittens Reloaded said...

Desiree wrote:
If we want to be in film, we should make our own movies. Every black story made into film is about abuse, sorrow, etc... or Madea. It's twisted. Can someone please make something worth watching?

Whose fault is that? Black people are other black people's worst enemy. You make something that is "your own" (Good Times, The Jeffersons, The PJ's, The Cosby Show, Homeboyz In Outer Space, BET, etc....) and your fellow black Americans say its either too exploitative (Coffy, Black Ceaser, Cleopatra Jones, Foxy Brown, Superfly, Shaft, Uptown Saturday Night) or it is too idealistic (Cosby) and does not reflect the struggles and daily life situations of hard-working, lower-and-middle class black Americans.

Here's a perfect example: 'Precious' star Gabourey Sidibe says that there needs to be more films about people like her:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/12/us-berlin-kravitz-idUSTRE71B2E320110212

Oscar-nominated actress Gabourey Sidibe, who stars in a new street drama tackling violence, mental illness, and drugs, told the Berlin film festival on Saturday that Hollywood should better reflect the real world.

"Yelling to the Sky" is actress-turned-director Victoria Mahoney's debut feature. She also wrote and produced it.

"I think there needs to be more stories like that (Yelling To The Sky) because my life has never looked like anything that Hollywood has produced."


While "your" people, Desiree, we're making Return of Superfly, George Lucas was trying to develop cutting edge special f/x for a movie he was trying to film called STAR WARS. While Precious was in development, James Cameron was trying to create a totally realistic computer-based 3-D, CGI-world for a movie he was filming called AVATAR.

The problem isn't a failure of opportunity; it's a failure of imagination. If you're looking to put a face to the problem, look at Gabourey Sidibe; a woman whose sole credentials for the movie "Precious" involved being fat and black, one of which she had no control over. Instead of pushing forward and being an innovator..instead of entertaining us and dazzling us, she wants the rest of the world to see her suffering...her despair. Rather than be inspired about going into outer space (Star Trek, Avatar), defeating an evil empire (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars), saving the world (pick any James Bond movie), exploring our oceans and seas (The Abyss) or contemplating the possibility of visitors from other planets (Close Encounters of the Third Kind), Gabourey wants to shovel the same old shit to film consumers that they've always been given: movies about knocked up welfare queens, ghetto violence, drug dependency, poverty and illiteracy. I could step outside onto my front porch and see that. Why would I pay 10 dollars to go see something that I can see for free in my neighborhood?

And when Gabourey says that Hollywood should make more films that "reflect the real world", she means making less movies that actually earn a profit, and throw more money into more films that are going to be nothing more than a financial shit-hole. That sort of backwards financial thinking is why so much of black America can't get out of poverty; they don't create or invent anything that people want, and they want people to invest and to subsidize their misery and their lifestyle choices.

Anonymous said...

I thought that putting the black lady in Cotton commercials was rather progressive.

Anonymous said...

"That sort of backwards financial thinking is why so much of black America can't get out of poverty; they don't create or invent anything that people want, and they want people to invest and to subsidize their misery and their lifestyle choices."

Don't forget to factor in general laziness. And the fact that blacks hate, distrust, and desire to kill other black people, and that they don't support other black's efforts in business. And that black "entrepreneurship" normally equates the illegal casual economies of drugs, theft, welfare fraud, prostitution, stolen goods and general street hustling. In order to create something new and innovative, you must exert your individuality and have a higher than average IQ.

Blacks shall not express creativity in fear of losing their Black Membership Card.

Plus, getting edumacated is acting white. Being successful is acting white. Black people already know that black-owned or black-created anything is only a cheap, plastic, low standard imitation of the white version. I have heard blacks openly refuse to support the black-owned version of a business when they have the opportunity. They use terms like "janky" and "ghetto". Black people do not create quality, just ask any other black person.

We should listen to black people, they know more about the pathology of their own black culture than we ever will.

Percy Kittens Reloaded said...

Anonymous wrote: "Don't forget to factor in general laziness. And the fact that blacks hate, distrust, and desire to kill other black people, and that they don't support other black's efforts in business. And that black "entrepreneurship" normally equates the illegal casual economies of drugs, theft, welfare fraud, prostitution, stolen goods and general street hustling. In order to create something new and innovative, you must exert your individuality and have a higher than average IQ."

After your comments regarding my comments, I went back and looked at my last sentence again; the part about Gabourey Sidibe wanting others to subsidize her misery and life choices. That might seem harsh or unfair to some, but if you really think long and hard about it, it's exactly true. And by "subsidize" I mean pay her, or others, to act in film or television projects that depict poverty, illiteracy, gang-banging, promiscuity, drug use, single-motherhood, delinquent fathers/dads, etc....And it's not just exclusive to film and television. It's also in "rap" music.

I can't even name all the rappers who have put out albums about how 'hard it is for a pimp out there', or Fantasia singing about the struggles of being a single mother (and she's knocked up yet again with a new baby by her married boyfriend) in her song BABY MAMA.

That's what sells to other black people...and, to some degree, people in other countries who watch American film and listen to American songs to try and understand our culture and learn English.

Can anyone name, offhand, any song from a white singer comparable to BABY MAMA or IT'S HARD OUT HERE FOR A PIMP?

Gabourey, and people like her, want to make money off their poor lifestyle choices and decisions, and they want Hollywood to abandon successful, money-making business models in order to throw money down a drain by financing films about living in the ghetto.

Anonymous said...

"And by "subsidize" I mean pay her, or others, to act in film or television projects that depict poverty, illiteracy, gang-banging, promiscuity, drug use, single-motherhood, delinquent fathers/dads, etc...."

Yes, Percy, you are correct, and blacks shall never NEVER let whitey off the hook for past transgressions. Blacks in Hollywood also want to perpetuate the myths of institutionalized racism, the legacy of slavery, the cycle of poverty, the endless "struggle". They must always bring their grievances to the forefront so that whites do not get sidetracked. These ideas keep whites feeling guilty so that they will keep emptying their pockets for blacks.

Black movies, media outlets, rap songs and TV shows which highlight these common black themes only serve to "keep hope alive" for eventual financial reparations from evil whitey. If the word got out that blacks were doing well and the "struggle" was finally over, blacks would have to practice personal responsibility and they ain't havin' that. Blacks can not succeed on their own and they know it.

I heard a very wealthy black law partner once tell me that blacks (he is included) will never, ever admit that they are finally free of white oppression. He makes sure he rants about his black grievances at the law practice to make sure the old white men never forget. He never meets the white partners after work hours, he does not want them to see him actually spending money and enjoying his life. He also cheats on his loyal black wife with many many blond white women, and insisted on hiring a white female secretary at the firm. Even this educated black man knows the consequences of making such a statement. He would have never had his law degree paid for, passed his exams, and given entry to a successful law firm had he admitted that the struggle is finally over for the black man.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget, black culture is VERY different from white culture. Like, almost opposite. You are horrified by the way in which they *choose* to live, but they are perfectly fine with it. Proud of it! No stigma at all.

Just ask them how much they love being black and all that goes along with it. Whites keep striving for something better, blacks are "keepin' it real." and regress.

Ever see a black man strut down the street, pimpin' in his new threads? Would you ever do this? Huge difference.