American movies don't always do a good job of depicting American reality--and no, not just because a guy wearing a Spidey suit doesn't actually fling himself around the skyscrapers of Manhattan.
Cultural observer Lynn Hirschberg argues that globalization has made it almost impossible for American movies to depict actual American life. Movies like The Ice Storm or American Beauty, grounded in the weirdly muted conflicts and compromises of life in particular American suburban cultures (and their ex-natural landscapes) are ever less likely, because the global audience will not relate to them.
Wandering through Cannes and fighting my way into screenings, I felt a growing frustration that what I loved about American movies (and, by extension, about America) was in short supply, and when I mentioned this to Walter F. Parkes, head of motion pictures at DreamWorks SKG, he said: "I know what you're talking about." Parkes, like most of the big studio heads, is in a bind: corporate finances dictate that they cast the widest net possible. That has become the mandate of the studio president. DreamWorks, for instance, made "Shrek 2" and is trying to parlay the $436 million success of the film (it is currently the third-highest-grossing movie of all time) into a profitable I.P.O. for its animation division. "Films are the one product that we have that's the first choice around the world," Parkes continued. "So, then, the questions to ask are: Is this the one place that people's fears about globalization are coming to fruition? Is America dominating world culture through the movies it produces? And if so, does that come with certain responsibilities beyond economic ones? These are questions that we have to ask ourselves. And they are different questions than we asked even five years ago."
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...When you look at the big international hits of the year, it is easy to understand why the world views America with a certain disgust. Shrek may be a lovable (and Scottish) ogre, but nearly every other global hero in American movies is bellicose, intellectually limited, stuck in ancient times or locked in a sci-fi fantasy. American films used to be an advertisement for life in the states -- there was sophistication, depth, the allure of a cool, complex manner. Now most big studio films aren't interested in America, preferring to depict an invented, imagined world, or one filled with easily recognizable plot devices. "Our movies no longer reflect our culture," said a top studio executive who did not wish to be identified. "They have become gross, distorted exaggerations. And I think America is growing into those exaggerated images."
That sounds like a pretty bleak picture, if you (no matter where you are) love movies that explore life in the U.S., whether via drama, adventure, or comedy. Given the reach of Hollywood--America's biggest exports are its films and television--it can't help but skew the way the world views the U.S.
There is a much more fundamental way that American movies fail to reflect American life, though: in the colors of the cast.
Although I don't have a reference at my fingertips, it's well-established that U.S. movies use white actors much, much more than those who are black, Asian, or Latino.
Actress Sandra Oh recently described the impact of global culture as well as local myopia on her career:
Q. Why are so few Asian actors working in Hollywood? The Screen Actors Guild just released new job figures that show a decline in the number of Asian actors. I mean there's you, Lucy Liu and Margaret Cho, and then I have to stop and think.
A. And can we even name a male Asian actor? It's because Hollywood imports Asian stars who already have worldwide appeal. They're wonderful actors, all of them, but Hollywood wants them because Hong Kong and Chinese action movies are so popular now.
Q. So it makes more sense to cast a Maggie Cheung or Gong Li from China than Sandra Oh from Canada?
A. Absolutely. And the same thing is true of Latino actors, except for J. Lo, who is a global entity. And Queen [Latifah.] She's got such credibility. A lot of women wind up producing themselves, but I don't. I just want to act. Just give me good writing because what I do well is [expletive] interpret words. But sometimes I don't think they know who I am.
Q. Who do "they" think you are?
A. People ask me what I'm writing. They think I'm Sandra Tsing Loh. Or they ask about stand-up. "No, that's Margaret Cho." I really think there is this kind of glomming, that they think we are somehow all the same person.
Even the spectacular evening at the Academy Awards a few years ago, when for the first time, two black actors--Denzel Washington and Halle Berry--took both the Best Actor and Actress awards, was not much of a victory in some eyes. Berry won for a portrayl of a prostitute down and out waitress (it's a truism that women of any ethnicity usually win Best Actress when they play prostitutes, sexpots, or victims), and Washington for a "bad cop," a character type he'd long avoided because blacks are so often portrayed as criminals or corrupt on American screens.
Not every story is about every kind of American. But each day I move through a city that includes people of all classes who are black, brown, tan, olive and pink. There are a lot of stories to tell there, and surely there's a creative and artistically valid way to tell them.
So I was excited to read about this film remake of an old American tv show, the Honeymooners, with a black cast. Cedric the Entertainer takes on Ralph Kramden, a character fused into the national psyche for generations by comic Jackie Gleason, and Mike Epps picks up Art Carney's mantle as Ed Norton. It's called a "grand risk" by the people involved, but it makes perfect sense if you want to transpose this mid-20th century story of economic aspiration into a 21st century mode. Director John Schultz told the New York Times, "This story, the one we are telling, has nothing to do with race. If one guy is a volatile bus driver who wants to get rich quick and the other is his happy-go-lucky friend, what does that have to do with race? It is a classic, quintessentially American story."
The Times' David Carr writes:
At a time when the best rapper in the world may be a white guy and the best golfer in the world may be a black guy, it should not be surprising that the roles of two men who think their middle-class aspirations are just one caper away from fulfillment are black. Black life, which has been rendered by the movies in cartoonish ways - no more or less than thugs and sports stars - is, in the main, a working-class struggle.So while the original "Honeymooners" opened a window for many 1950's Americans on the "real" New York - a tough palooka of a city with a heart of gold where people struggled not to get over, but to get by - Paramount's new version catches up to the ways that the city has changed, while at the same time, underscoring the fact that the struggle is held in common by all sorts of people. (Although, film industry economics being what they are, the archetypal New York story, in which the city serves as something of a character in the film, was largely shot in ... Dublin.)The film also promises to become a milestone in a process that is slowly prying some of the strongest black film talents out of a cinematic urban ghetto and bringing them into the mainstream.
I'm looking forward to it.
