USA Today calls THE BEST MAN HOLIDAY “Race-Themed Film”

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By Funnel Cake Flowers, The Urban Chameleon News Reporter

USA today calls Black Man Holiday I mean Best Man Holiday a Race-Themed film

Awww snap white people you done messed up again and let me guess you have no idea why.

Allow me to explain, to translate. You see Black people want nothing more than to fit into the fabric of society here in the United States of America. You know the country that was built on the backs of our ancestors but yet and still we are considered outsiders. I know you keep telling us, “That’s bullshit! You gotta Black president, what more do you want, everything is equal.

But it’s really not and USA Today’s comment was evidence of that. For if we were really considered equal, and Black people in Black films and non-Black films were common I guarantee you we wouldn’t be having this conversation. There would be no need to point out that The Black Man Holiday, (excuse me) I mean The Best Man Holiday is a “race-themed film.”

And the thing that really hurts is that I’m sure, NO! certain, that the Black people involved in Black Man Holiday (excuse me) The Best Man Holiday were not striving to make a Black film…just a film…people…just a film. And you ruined it white people.

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How the Urban Chameleon Came to be

Why now are "SLAVE FILMS" being produced?

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor
Ayoka Chenzira

There is a disconnect between the lived experiences of contemporary Black America and the movies. One reason is that there simply aren't enough films featuring the lived experiences of people of color that are greenlit for production. Not that the stories or screenplays aren't there -- they are not being made.

This period of what is being called "slave films" is discomforting. On the one hand so many people are unfamiliar with that period in American history. Common thought also suggests that so many of us think that slavery was such a long time ago -- so we do need films that show that part of the county's despicable history.

That said, in many ways, the films about slavery are not telling us anything new and in fact continue to highlight the same premise and archetypes -- that slavery was terrible not because people were stolen from their homelands, bought and sold and insured (by still surviving U.S. insurance companies) but because the white slave owners were sadistic. Cut to -- let me show you how sadistic. The sadistic (often well to do) slave owner and his seemingly powerless wife are finally challenged by the well-meaning white man who will essentially become the turnkey hero through an act of kindness or bravery. This of course disallows for the historical evidence of how many slaves survived, rebelled and escaped. It also closes the door on a deeper visual rhetoric about how slavery was part of a knotty American fabric -- common -- ubiquitous -- often without fanfare. It's residue still has death grip on modern day America.

You can tell a great deal about a culture through its art and specifically through its national cinema. Not only by what is produced but what is absent. Timing is everything -- so the question does remain -- why now are "slave films" being produced? We often hear that screenplays by African American filmmakers cannot be found. I have a science fiction film and am adapting the novels of Pearl Cleage to the screen, others that I know have dramas, comedies and historical pieces. What they have in common is a modern day take on African American lives -- and points of view that we seldom see expressed in American cinema. The absence of this work on screen is very telling about American culture.

Follow Ayoka Chenzira on Twitter @ayomentary 

How the Urban Chameleon Came to be