This is something my co-worker said earlier, in reference to Lawrence’s latest movie, “College Road Trip.” I kind of have to agree. It’s surprising that in a post-segregation , post-racist america, someone like Lawrence can make a career out of being a wide-eyed caricature. “Black Knight” was literally like an Al Jolson movie, a straight minstrel show - at one point, Lawrence even gets tarred and feathered.
What the hell is wrong with that guy? No, what’s wrong with the people that support his films? It’s so regressive that it’s unbelievable. Whenever I see him utter that “It a hoooodini pig!” in the commercials for his new movie, I literally feel like I just saw someone in blackface walk on and say “Massah.”
I don’t know what he’s done to the cause of civil rights, but I can tell you right now, if someone put a gun to my head and tried to force me to watch one of his movies, I’d take the bullet.
He’s just a silly comedian acting silly in movies. Are only white people allowed to do that? I would think the fact that anyone can do that and be successful is a step forward.
Comedians seem to have figured out that you can make a good living by doing really really dumb, but cheap comedies one after the other. Martin Lawrence isn’t the only one, and it’s not just black comedians (though they do seem to be the majority.) I’m not sure who the audience is, but there does seem to be a lot of them, and I’ll bet that they watch it because they like stupid stuff. Poor taste does not equal racism nor does have any likely chance for having any negative impact on race relations. If anything, stupid people cheering for black heroes, in stupid or films or not, is almost always going to be a good thing.
Will Ferrell acts like the same dumbass in every lousy comedy he does, all of which have been every bit as horrible as the junk Lawrence is in, but you don’t see people criticizing him for embarassing white people.
Will Ferrell makes me so ashamed to be white I started drawing on myself with a black sharpie, but I’m easily distracted so I got bored with that after a while.
Martin’s movies have been generally bad (Bad Boys wasn’t so awful, but that’s probably 'cuz Will Smith was in it). But I did love his television show. Just the name “Shenaynay” makes me giggle.
Y’know, when looking at the stuff about this film (promos, etc.), the thing that first came to my mind wasn’t “another wacky minstrelesque Martin Lawrence vehicle,” but “Disney pimping its child stars again” (Raven-Symoné, Brenda Song, etc.) Ever since the Disney Channel became a basic-cable network, Disney has been on top of the world with Hannah Montana and company producing great grosses for them. Heck, they even stuck Miley Cyrus in the Academy Awards, which ran on ABC. So, I guess the question here is: black stereotypes- are they so Raven? And what actually makes something “so Raven,” anyway?
The only people who would be misled are the ones who think that all black people are the same and therefore believe that if Martin Lawrence acts like an idiot, it means that all black people are idiots. And even then they’ll be okay as long as they’re able to understand the difference between fiction and reality.