NYT: All The Shit That's Fit To Stir
Make no mistake… NYT is still the most important paper in my world, followed closely by the Wall Street Journal.
That said… the attention desperation level over the keeps rising.
The “look at me!” of the day is a bizarre piece of non-reportage – primarily worthless because it is so lacking in anything factual – is about Disney’s The Princess & The Frog. The ENTIRE source of the headline – “Her Prince Has Come. Critics, Too” – is three points of online reference. A comment by a woman with an AOL blog, the comment of “a former columnist at The Charlotte Observer, (who was quoted by) London
“Have we forgotten that the progressive comedy of Norman Lear started with a bigot named Archie Bunker, his dry cleaner, George Jefferson, and his cousin Maude
Great analysis, I should add. You provide a heck of a lot more context than Barnes does, and get to the main issues in a way he doesn’t come close to. You have to wonder what his editors were thinking (or weren’t) when they ran a piece that has essentially no evidence at all for its claims. A journalism prof would give this an ‘F.’ But this is the NYT, they don’t need to worry about trivia like that.
Ha, I was going to say the same thing, Blackcloud.
Aside from that, agree, agree, agree with Poland. Great piece. Perfect. Bravo. Dy-no-mite!
The stupidity of the movie’s critics is so vast and profound (for example:
Indeed, very good piece Dave.
The quote about New Orleans is pretty idiotic, but I can see why some people have a problem with the Prince being light-skinned and/or latin. It’s pretty common for black actors or actresses to be given a latin love interest in a movie rather than another black person (e.g. Will Smith and Eva Mendes in Hitch) so it won’t be thought of as a “black movie” and limit the audience.
http://www.urbanmecca.com/artman/publish/article_228.shtml
Thanks, Blackcloud.
Bitte, David.
I think you’re being a little hard on Barnes. Are you certain he even chose the headline? The headline on the very top of my browser reads, “Does Tiana, Disney’s First Black Princess, Conquer Stereotypes?” I mean, look at the headline YOU chose to go with for your entry.
I love the last quote of the Barnes piece. To me, self-righteous hyper-sensitivity toward race is as offensive as racial ignorance.
And people never take into account Original Intent. Bob Clampett went to see a performance of Duke Ellington’s “Jump For Joy” when it played in L.A. in the early ’40s. He was so impressed with the show that he went backstage afterwards to congratulate everyone. Several of the musicians mentioned that they could never get work in the movies. Clampett promised to do something about that, and promptly hired them to do the soundtracks for two cartoons, TIN PAN ALLEY CATS and COAL BLACK AND DE SEBBEN DWARVES, both now considered classics by animation fans…and both were withdrawn from circulation decades ago because they’re considered “racist.” But Clampett made them to CELEBRATE the great music of that era, and he was as far from a racist as one could get.
Yeah, but COAL BLACK AND DE SEBBEN DWARVES is undeniably racist when viewed today, so the point is rather moot. As a piece of entertainment for children, it simply isn’t acceptable except in an educational environment.
“Dis gon’ be GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!”
Seriously?
My point was that they were not INTENDED to be racist, even if they seem so now. Times change, attitudes change. Even something as simple as smoking now looks odd in pictures as recent as a decade ago. One needs to be able to take into account the era when the film was made before passing judgment on its creators.
I think a lot of that stuff really was meant to be racist…maybe not “fuck you” racist, but “fun” racist.