I was scrolling down in disbelief, looking at who won for Best Director (Forrest F***ing Gump) and Best Actor (Forrest F***ing Gump again), and something I saw in the list of Best Supporting Actor nominees drove the rage at Forrest Gump out of my mind.
Included in that list was Samuel L. Jackson for his role as Jules in Pulp Fiction. Nominee - not winner, mind - for Best Supporting Actor.
You might think Pulp Fiction is Vincent Vega's story, but as I see it, it was Jules all the way. Jules simply satisfies all the requirements of the hero's role. Consider the following:
- The protagonist is supposed to mirror the audience's cluelessness at the beginning of a story: Vincent Vega is the man who holds all the answers in both major opening conversations, the Quarter Pounder With Cheese and the Foot Massage.
- The protagonist, after being educated a little during the segue-in, must show a strong, cool side of his/her personality in the course of his/her daily activities, before the plot begins to happen: it is Jules who truly "gets into character" and takes over in the living-room scene with Brett.
- The protagonist must not die in the middle of the movie, especially not in a completely unnoticed way: self-explanatory.
- The protagonist must face a crisis and a moment of choice at the movie's climax and handle it alone: self-explanatory.
- The protagonist must have an epiphany: Vince never does change in the movie (except perhaps for getting that little crush on Mia, but that's not big). Jules is the one who has the moment of truth.
- The protagonist's epiphany must change his/her life in a way that is relevant to the plot: Jules would be dead along with Vince if it weren't for him quitting.
No, there's only one reason why John Travolta got lead actor billing in this movie, and Samuel L. Jackson got stuck with supporting actor, and that reason is ugly.
Living in USA has shattered a number of my naive illusions about the way people are and the way life works, but none so thoroughly as my pre-USA-days belief that racism was mostly a blight of days past. I am constantly surprised when it surfaces - sometimes subtly, sometimes merely in an unofficial way that is quite blatant nevertheless. I've seen it, first hand, many times. I'm not a very social creature, especially not here, but even I've noticed how in little ways and big ways, black people come up against discrimination in the most insidious forms.
But I'm no one to point fingers, because (here's a big confession) I myself have started being wary/steering clear of black Americans I meet. I am beginning to see that their culture is different from that of white America and even that of minorities in America - and not in a good way. The black kids I've met in college have been uniformly dull, rowdy (to put it politely) and offensive in the worst ways.
Does this mean I think black people are more likely to, say, jump me than other minorities and whites? Probably. Will I view back people with more suspicion than I do other minorities and whites? Sometimes, I suppose - when it comes to people of the lower social classes. Am I going to discriminate against black people professionally? NO WAY - not even to the extent of having preconcieved expectations of them.
So here's the question: do I blame white Americans for their racist attitude?
The answer is yes. As I see it, white Americans draw from their specific experiences to make broad, negative generalisations about the black community. That's always wrong. Even if there are such things are "common community characteristics", there are always going to be exceptions. Every culture has its iconoclasts. And to give credit where it's due, the black media, at least, seems to be aware of the negative aspects of black culture, and there are explicit movements away from these attitudes, which guarantees that there will be significant numbers of black people who defy their stereotype. As far as I have seen, this doesn't seem to matter to white Americans. They're eager to tar the whole community with the same brush and be done with it.
And that leads to spectacular injustices like Samuel L. Jackson being denied the title of lead role despite having played it, simply because a white actor alongside him had a significant enough supporting role to get away with the title of 'lead'. It's not right.
That's all.
PS: Yeah, yeah, it's not politically correct to say the things I'm saying, yadda yadda yadda, but look, I can back up everything I've said with solid reasoning, so I'm standing by it without apology. If it's true, somebody's got to say it.
Having lived in Singapore and the US, I must say that the racism I encountered in Singapore was blatant and vicious. I had experiences where people refused to sit beside me in the MRT trains because of my skin color. I must say compared to that the US has been a blessed and wonderful place (yes, even in the Deep South). That is all.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't mind answering, may I ask what race you are?
ReplyDeleteRacism in Singapore *is* alive and well, I've had first hand experience of it, too. It's just that I naively expected the US to be different in this regard because of its image - the land of the free and whatnot. Over here, I'm not the one being discriminated against, but I sense that it's only because there are other groups to target whose skin is darker than mine.
I honestly can't understand that attitude, which seems to be more or less universal. What is it with lighter skin tones being preferred the world over, even in black Africa? It's extremely weird, and too uniform a preference to be coincidental, I think.
Yeah, I am Indian too, and I think you are right about the skin color part in the US :(
ReplyDeleteHey Nan
ReplyDeleteDon't you think that racism is simply an overt manifestation of this "being wary" that you describe? How are you not making a negative generalization if you are more likely to suspicious of a black person? Furthermore, people(the masses, not the statisticians) always draw from specific experiences to make generalizations of any kind. Its difficult to ask a white person to treat a black the same if he/she has been mugged by the black person and statistically blacks are more likely to commit crimes. I'm not justifying racism but its definitely not just the white man's fault in this case. The black community needs to resolve its image crisis too by committing lesser crimes.
Sushee, you have a point, though I still think there's a difference between me being wary of being jumped and some business owner not employing a black person because she thinks this person is irresponsible.
ReplyDeleteBoth of us are relying on a stereotype to make judgements (me: "street crime is perpetrated by black people"; business owner: "Black people aren't responsible"), but our positions are different. I'm not in a position to *favour* anybody else over these black guys, or deny opportunities, so what I'm doing has no effect on anybody, except maybe to hurt people's feelings if they knew what I was thinking.
If I were in the position of this business owner, I would be honour-bound to not look beyond qualifications, track record and other such things that are relevant to the job I'm offering when choosing a candidate.
I think there's a considerable difference here.
I just thought of a good example.. If *I* avoid black people on the basis of my stereotype, I'm not harming anyone... but if, say, a cop acted on the same stereotype and let white people get away with more stuff, simply by seeing the things they do in a positive light, and you know, handcuff and imprison black people for every little thing they do (which is definitely the way things work now), that would be wrong. I guess what you *do* with your stereotype ends up mattering more than having the stereotype itself.. though the latter is nothing to be proud of.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the image problem will definitely not be resolved simply by correcting the underlying problem - it's never so simple. PR is the way the world works. Black people need to not only dissociate themselves from crime, they need to do so very publicly, with lots of horn-blowing etc. :)
True Nanni, I agree with you about the cop example and the people in authority analogy. I guess these people in authority are duty bound to look beyond stereotypes and certain personal experiences to ensure that "official" racism does not occur. Although I think the unofficial form is quite important. I was told by a very reliable source that Aussies are racist. But the 10 days I spent in Brisbane, (Brissie is supposedly heart of Aussie racist state Queensland) were very pleasant. Could not detect any overt or subtle forms of racism.
ReplyDeleteAussies have always seemed friendly and welcoming to me too, but they've got their own second-class citizens. Look at how they treat their aborigines! Bill Bryson wrote very incisively about this in "In a Sunburned Country".. if you can lay your hands on this book, get it, it's awesome!
ReplyDelete