I’m just saying
I saw the Sex and the City movie on Friday and wanted to post this right after I saw it, but I didn’t want to spoil anything for Julia. I’ve seen every episode of SATC, several times. And to my recollection, there has been one African American actor in one episode. Other than that, it’s a sea of white. Now, I’m not the kind of person who needs every ethnic group represented in every episode of a show. But I was rather pleased to see an African American actress in a solid supporting position in the SATC movie… for about 2 seconds. Until I realised that this woman was playing Carrie’s personal assistant. You know, that person who keeps track of rich people’s lives and reads their mail so they don’t have to. And I thought “Really?!” The one African American actress in the whole show/movie is playing a modern day servant? Did no one else think this was a tad bit wrong. I mean, it’d be a different story if SATC had a history of good representation of minorities, but to have the only minority ever play the role of someone who waits on the white woman, I mean come on. Maybe I’ve been in DC too long that I see slights where none exist, but I don’t think so. It just seemed tacky.
3 comments so far
Leave a reply
It was probably an unintended slight, which is part of the problem. White people don’t realize how exclusive their life is, and so the problem remains unchanged UNTIL they realize and change it.
I don’t think it’s as unintentional or innocent as Kacie thinks. Film, like short stories or novels or commercials, are very intentional and if they wanted to represent minorities well or be NOT racist cliche, they would’ve. Their audience is significantly white, middle-upper class, non-critical, homogeneous, insert-label-stereotype-here, etc. so who’s paying them to care? No one. I don’t think you’re overly sensitive. I don’t think I’m overly sensitive. Clearly unacceptable from any viewpoint except the one I’ve mentioned. And yes, I am prejudiced against that specific population of American but I don’t think that makes the reality of the problem you identified less true.
[...] that he always knew that Jennifer Hudson’s character would be African American. So that answers the question of intentional race. The intentional racism question will probably never be answered. [...]