After Reading One Too Many Smug Sneering Movie Reviews

I read this column by Johanna Schneller awhile ago and it really stuck with me. It also reminded me of why I get pissed when I hear people denigrating movies like Crazy Rich Asians as nothing special, or calling movies like The Fault in Our Stars "sick lit" and automatically assuming that they are worthless. Sure, Crazy Rich Asians was a little formulaic and the male lead was a little too good to be true. Sure, there are stories about young people dying of cancer that are exploitative and melodramatic. But here's the thing - for every groundbreaking movie starring mostly white people, there are probably a hundred crappy ones. Don't Asian people or black people or Hispanic people deserve to see themselves represented in movies with clunky dialogue and ridiculous car chases and cringy sex scenes just as much as white people?

And people with cancer or other debilitating diseases? So they get representation in a cheesy romantic movie - big fucking deal. Ever seen literally anything by Nicholas Sparks? The Twilight movies, hello? It's really not fair that people disparage these movies or demand that movies with diverse casts have to be beyond reproach.

I'm tired and I feel crappy and this deserves a better post, but I keep forgetting to write it, so I'm just saying it - we are at basic step-one representation for minorities. Let them have their crappy, eye-rolling, trashy romances, brainless action movies and ridiculous thrillers. Then we can move on to demanding better quality representation for everyone.

Besides, Crazy Rich Asians became the most successful romantic comedy of the last ten years, which means it could pave the way for "more stories about less crazy rich Asians" as this Vox article states.

But take a hint from Schneller and do check out Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. It's amazing.


Comments

Peady @Tempered with Kindness said…
Exactly!

I read the book and it was a lot. The movie had to be a lot!

We need these stories.

Great post.

Look at you go!!!
November 22, 2019 at 1:36 PM
Swistle said…
I so agree. I was very STRUCK by the Wonder Woman movie, and a male acquaintance was like "SHRUG it wasn't so amazing on every single level and in every single way" and I was so annoyed (read: enraged) at how somehow a movie with a female lead had to be PERFECT, while all his male-superhero movies did not have to meet that standard. HUH, I GUESS LET'S HAVE TONS MORE FEMALE-SUPERHERO MOVIES, THEN, SO WE CAN GET SOME PRACTICE AT BEING PERFECT
November 22, 2019 at 2:53 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Super Dark Times

Image
 To my American friends, I'm sorry. Not in any kind of distanced, pitying, smug way, because I believe we are headed in a similar direction here in Canada, and I am sad and sick at heart. I told myself I wasn't hoping for the other outcome because I was afraid to, but I realize that I absolutely was, because I was not prepared for how bad this would feel.  Some random thoughts I am having about the whole thing. 1. I'm going to try not to hate anyone. For a while at least. I am totally cool with anyone else hating people that helped this happen. A lot of them did it out of hate. Some did it out of ignorance. Some are struggling and desperate and thought this was a solution. I know that's not an excuse, but it makes me think of when I read The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi. He said that he didn't feel like he could judge people who betrayed their fellow Jews for favours from their captors, because he was never given the opportunity and if he had he couldn't ...
Read more

Books Read in 2021: Four-Star YA Horror

Image
I am pretty well ensconced in the January doldrums. We are in a deep freeze, and after the major snow dump on Monday I never catch it snowing, and yet there are a few centimetres on the driveway by every evening. I'm happy with my decision not to take any office shifts for a few weeks - it's incredibly stressful, will only be more so now that people are pissed that we're not supposed to be reporting Covid cases, and I don't even get paid my regular library rate. But it does sort of make the days run together. I try to walk Lucy, but it's so cold she starts dancing around lifting up one paw after the other for me to warm with my mittens. We've tried paw covers but haven't found any that fit. So I walk her around the block and then bring her home and keep walking. It's been cold but not very windy, so walking is quite pleasant (I'm finally not too warm!)  I am rewatching The Golden Girls, which I don't think I ever watched all the way through befor...
Read more

I'm Sick

 Seriously you guys, I am SO SICK, and I have been stupidly engaging in presenteeism even though I am STRONGLY DISAPPROVING when other people do it. It's not because I think I owe anything to the school board (oh my goodness I do not). It's not because I have delusions of grandeur about how important my job is - wait, maybe I do, because at some of my schools my classes have already missed two weeks of library because of EQAO (which necessitated students writing exams in the library), and it's almost the end of the year, which means most of the librarians are closing the library to circulation soon if not now, and I really didn't want to make them miss one of the last library periods.  Also, and I am putting myself out there so try to be kind, I have realized that there is a dumb little part of people-pleasing oldest-child self that always suspects that if I call in sick people think I'm faking, so it's a tiny bit gratifying to go in and have people say oh my GO...
Read more