Antoine Fuqua. I love his movies and not just because he is a black film director but also not just because he makes good films.
He is one of my favorite directors for a combination of things. For one, in many ways I believe he represents at least artistically where black film makers need to be.
Antoine Fuqua is street. He is from the hood. However you would never know that by looking at his films. He uses something that I wish more black artist took advantage of these days and that is their imagination.
I get so tired of reading interviews with black artists who make excuses as to why all of their work centers on urban ghetto life with “I have to write about what I know and where I come from.”
Bullshit.
With that attitude black writers will never come up with a “Star Trek” or “Star Wars”. We would never be able to come up with “Star Wars” if we limit ourselves to writing about only what we see out of our window.
Antoine Fuqua is in England directing King Arthur . A film about white people, in England , back when there was nothing but white people in England .
There isn’t a black person anywhere in the film. And if you watch the film, just like was the case with “The Replacement Killers”, “Tears of the Sun” or “Training Day", three films which he also directed, if someone hadn’t told you that he was black or if you hadn’t caught his name on the credits you would have never known that he was black.
Now I am not saying that black directors need to hide their ethnicity. I am saying that you should be able to do both.
You should be able to direct a film about Rosa Parks but also be able to write and direct a film about Grigory Rasputin.
You shouldn’t have to go unemployed for years waiting on some movie studio to come along looking for someone to direct the sequel to “Brown Sugar”.
If the opportunity to write and direct Terminator 4 comes along your way you should be able to handle that too.
Now I understand the prevailing opinion is that black writers and artists have this obligation to the black community because the belief is that “if we don’t tell our story who else will?” but is that all we can do?
Is that the only way we can tell it?
Aren’t there certain universal themes that run through the black experience that could be translated with a little imagination into some other kind of genre other than your typical “black kid struggles to overcome the dangerous pitfalls his urban environment presents for him,” film?
Why can’t you write a sci-fi movie about how one race of aliens treats the other race of aliens like shit and the shit on alien race finds a unlikely spiritual leader in a philandering, one time drug dealer turned minister with suspect public speaking skills who energizes a militant movement to kick the ruling races ass?
It would be the same thing as the Elijah Muhammad story except you wouldn’t have to pay Louis Farrakhan any royalties.
Plus we would have an excuse to make some spaceships and shit.
Where are the black films like “Terms of Endearment”?
We don’t get cancer?
Why does Quentin Tarantino have the gall to believe he can sit down and write a Kung-Fu film? He is probably the furthest thing from a head priest in the white locus clan as you can get. I bet he can’t lift his leg up high enough to climb on a horse let alone kick somebody in the teeth.
But see, he doesn’t let his race limit his imagination and what he can do.
Are you telling me that black people didn’t grow up looking at Kung Fu Theater on Saturday afternoon just like everyone else?
I know I did.
No if we write a Kung-Fu movie the hero is named Bruce Leroy and it’s got to be a spoof on Kung-Fu films, like “we better not make a serious film about something other than drug addiction or gang violence. We wouldn’t want Hollywood to think we don’t know our place.”
I am tired of that shit.
We didn’t watch GI Joe or He-Man growing up like everyone else? Why doesn’t someone black out there write the script for a GI Joe live action film?
Just don’t try to change Roadblock’s name to "Roadblack" and make him the leader of the Joes because you know damn well he wasn’t.
And another thing I hate is the fact that when we make movies about us being successful in business, as was the case in Boomerang, everybody in the motherfucker was black. All the clients were black, all the employees were black. It’s like suddenly we exist only in an all black world. How many black people do you know work at a company with 150 employees and all of them are black?
Shit, how many black people work anywhere where everyone they work with is black?
I mean, even when we do a superhero film the meteorite has to land in the inner city, like that is the only place we exist, someone touches it, it grants him fantastic powers then he ends up fighting crime in his own fucking neighborhood.
It never occurs to the writer to have him save the world. Unless of course the world is being threatened by a super-villain whose base of operations is in the basement of a Church’s Chicken franchise.
Did you ever think what if Superman did that? What if he just hung around Smallville all day? Smallville doesn’t even have a bank. And if they do it is tucked away in the corner of a Piggly Wiggly.
In Smallville, they probably have one grocery store, one Video Palace and one car wash.
If a black person had written Superman his alter-ego would be a guy who owns a pawn shop and his love interest would be the hooker with a heart of gold.
And I understand the argument that no one else is going to tell our story so we have an obligation to our people to tell our own story when we get a chance to do it but why are we only telling one friggin story?
Why is everything so street? I remember when the Cosby show was popular on television all you heard from people is how the Cosby show was so unrealistic.
That wasn’t entirely fair. How could anything be more unrealistic than “Good times”? Where were all of the people calling that show “unrealistic”?
132 of the 133 episodes were about if something could go wrong to ruin their dreams it would and it did.
That was the single most depressing fucking show in television history.
And it didn’t make it any easier to take with them ending each show with a family hug and a “well at least we have each other.”
I didn’t grow up in the hood. I didn’t grow up with pimps and drug pushers and gangs outside my door. I never went to sleep with bullets whizzing over my head.
Where are the black films that reflect the diversity of the black experience here in America ?
Are some of us successful? Don’t some of us go to college? I think it is more realistic that a medical student meet a law student at grad school than a medical student going back home and marrying some hood rat whose only aspiration in life was doing people’s nails.
And if we are as diverse as I believe we are, then I would like to see more of our black artists reflecting that diversity in their works.
The only way we are going to be able to truly be represented in every facet of society is to participate in every facet of society.
You might not have a say so in where you are born but you have total say so in whether or not you stay there.
Expand your horizons. Open up to new ideas. Go somewhere. See something new.
And when you do write that script, when you do stop limiting yourself to writing only about what you see out of your window and some movie studio decides to produce it and it comes time to cast actors in the movie please, I beg of you, please give some actual black actors some work.
And out of all of the black actors out there in the world that are out of work, why do we keep casting some non-acting rapper in it?
If it’s a rap movie ok, fine. Put rappers in it.
I am not against rapper’s trying to diversify how they get their dollars but so far, with the exception of Ice T, these motherfuckers aren’t even acting.
They are just placing their rap persona on screen.
Ask yourself, have you ever seen Ice Cube play anybody else but “ Craig ” from “Friday”?
And I am not picking on Ice Cube, but damn. ”Barbershop” was Craig with a barbershop. ”Anaconda” was Craig fighting a snake.
”All About The Benjamins” was Craig the bounty hunter with Da Da … basically still playing Da Da.
It’s getting so bad that if they ever made a film about Toussaint Louverture they wouldn’t even hold an audition for the part they would just hand it to DMX.
When they start letting Glynn Turman or Morris Chestnut rap a few bars on their albums then maybe I will open up to Dr. Dre in Hamlet.
And for the record, I am not against rappers acting, just take some fucking acting classes or let some real black actors get back to work until you do.
The Rock wants to be an actor. He is going to play a fag in his next movie. I think that is sweet. It shows that he is trying to actually play a character that is nothing like himself.
Why won’t you ever see Ice Cube play a fag in a movie?
The only reason I can come up with is that “ Craig ” is straight.
Give Antoine Fuqua credit. I’m sure there was a lot of pressure to cast Busta Rhymes as Sir Lancelot but he held his ground.
alleged lynching may have been over a girl. really? They say all it takes to make something a habit is to do it for 6 weeks.
Each year for 67 years straight, there were at least 100 reported lynching of black men in this country.
