August 2008

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August 2008 

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Editor’s Note

Shades of Black

For a gross-out, over-the-top, even adolescent, comedy, Tropic Thunder has stirred up some very interesting conversation. Namely, what constitutes blackface in 2008?

 

The taboo practice of a white actor painting his or her face black to impersonate someone of African descent may be the most loaded and offensive image in entertainment. And for good reason. Historically, blackface has propagated and reinforced the worst stereotypes of Africans and African-Americans.

 

So when pictures of Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder began to surface, the immediate reaction was, “What the *$%?”

 

But Downey’s not playing a black man in the film, he’s playing a white method actor who is so overconfident in his ability — and right — to play any part that he takes on the role of a black man. Essentially, the movie is making fun of a white actor who has the audacity to play a black man.

 

And it’s certainly not the only recent example of a white actor putting on black makeup.

 

Saturday Night Live uses white actors to impersonate famous black figures all the time. In addition to his dead-on impressions of Sean Connery and Bill Clinton, Darrell Hammond does a pretty good Jesse Jackson. And Fred Armisen — who’s of German, Japanese and Venezuelan descent — is sure hoping Barack Obama becomes the next American President, because he’s been tapped to play the black Democrat on the show.

 

Downey’s Tropic Thunder co-star Jack Black even had a blackface scene in this past February’s Be Kind Rewind. Again, it was for a movie within the movie, and seeing Black’s character in an Afro wig engendered discomfort in his on-screen crew, which served to point out how inappropriate it was.

 

Ultimately, whether or not even a satire of blackface is offensive is up to the individual.

 

In “Is Downey Bulletproof?,” the actor who many feel can do no wrong gives his take on the character — calling his belief that he can play a black man a “dysfunction.”

 

Kevin Costner’s known for the unusual number of baseball movies he’s made (Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, For Love of the Game, The Upside of Anger), but the number of political flicks in his filmography is catching up as he adds Swing Vote, to JFK and Thirteen Days. This time, Costner plays a man who — through circumstances too strange to explain here — gets to decide who will be the next President of the United States. In “The Whole World in His Hands,” Costner talks politics — his own, and those in the movie.

 

Rainn Wilson’s new comedy, The Rocker, is neither controversial, nor political. It’s just a light, fun, summer movie about an aging drummer who gets a second chance at rock ’n’ roll stardom as part of a high school band. Read “Heavy Rainn” to find out how Wilson got sweaty for the role.

 

And we have “From Indy to Indie,” our interview with Harrison Ford about his supporting part in the upcoming drama Crossing Over, a socially conscious film about immigration that will probably make less money than that other movie he released this year.

Marni Weisz, editor


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    As the largest motion picture exhibitor in Canada, Cineplex Entertainment operates 130 theatres with 1,347 screens serving more than 70 million guests annually. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Cineplex Entertainment operates theatres from British Columbia to Quebec and is the largest exhibitor of digital, 3D and IMAX projection technologies in the country.