stfuconfederates:

I decided to take a look over every film that’s ever won best picture at the Academy Awards, to get a little bit of context. From 1927-2010, there were 12 films in which I could remember a Black character. 12.

Examples: A Black soldier under the command of a white sergeant, a ‘racist’ Black cop…

My favorite example is “In the Heat of the Night” (1967): a black cop from Philadelphia is traveling through Mississippi when he arrested by racist cops who saw a strange black guy and assumed he committed a recent murder. Once they sort it out, his captain orders him to stick around and help the small-town rednecks solve the crime.

It’s a very good movie, all things considered, in that Sidney Poitier is awesome. They catch the real killer, and the not-as-racist-as-everybody-else sheriff comes to like the guy he tried to frame for murder. They shake hands and the black guy goes back to Philadelphia, and the South continues to suck.

It won Best Picture for 1967. Rod Steiger won Best Actor for playing the learns-how-not-to-be-racist white sheriff. Hollywood pats itself on the back.

As long as I’m at it: Edward Zwick:

• “Glory” (1989): about the first black regiment of soldiers in the U.S. Civil War. Starring Matthew Broderick. Denzel Washington won Best Supporting Actor.
• “The Last Samurai” (2003): about the encroachment of Western culture in Japan. Starring Tom Cruise. Ken Watanabe was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
• “Blood Diamond” (2006): about the diamond trade in conflict-ridden west Africa. Starring Leonardo Diaprio and Jennifer Connelly. Djimon Hounsou was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. (Although in this this one, at least DiCaprio played an African-born character instead of an American, but we still have Jennifer Connelly to interpret events for us.)

See a pattern here? Basically, he has made a bunch of movies specifically about events directly affecting PoC’s told from the point of view of white people. IMHO, Denzel Washington, Ken Watanabe, and Djimon Hounsou acted circles around everyone else in those movies.