Yes, perhaps just a coincidence, 'cause there are only a couple of colors to depict a character's transformation to evil: black or green or red mostly, maybe even purple. But, the mega movie Spider Man 3 (which i will be seeing next weekend) exists in American history and in this same body of ideas, in the same society we have a history of casually identifying African-Americans and many other non-European/non-"white" people with the color black and also attributing negative human qualities to those people. So, given this history, is it somewhat insensitive to use a black suit to symbolize Spidey's turn towards the dark side? Probably. Specially when there doesn't seem to be any African-American or other dark skinned characters in heroic & positive & significant/major roles in Spidey 3? Yup, probably. But I guess the blame should go to the comic book, since Venom has always been depicted in that medium the way he is being depicted in Spidey 3. Didn't seem as noticeable or irritating in the comics though. On second thought, I'll skip Spidey 3, I'll be too distracted & annoyed by the black suit & possible tie to racism issue (& the lack of minority actors most likely - let me know if i am wrong on this one) to enjoy the flick & the popcorn, will save my $10-$20 for Pirates 3.
UPDATES:
New York Times' Manohla Dargis briefly questions the choice to use black to depict evil in Spidey 3: "Though there’s something dubious about the idea that black still conveys evil in our culture, pop or otherwise (tell it to Batman and Barack Obama, for starters),..." Read her full review here.
Chuck Tryon has a review of the movie here, definitely not very excited about seeing the movie after reading that, now that I know about all the problems in the flick.
- Sujewa
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1 comment:
Spidey 3 is terrible. See my review. The black costume is certainly questionable, but it actually looks cool against the night sky. I'd say that a film that features only one recurring black character (Bill Nunn as the assistant editor) isn't really racist except by omission (there are, after all, black and brown people in New York City).
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