Of all the many objectionable things about Green Book (and believe me, there are many), it's the way the movie plays to White America's distorted view of itself that most offends my sensibilities. PSA: White America, you are not that guy, the savior, the I-would-have-stood-up-if-I-had-been-there guy. Isn't it time to stop pretending that you are? Y'all voted Donald John Trump your king. Seriously, stop. No one is buying this shit.
In the fictional movie Green Book, cuz come on, that story is about as true to life as is the story of Black Panther, we are treated to a White man who teaches a Black genius how to eat fried chicken; a White man who teaches a Black man about jazz (in the 1960s); a White man who "stands up for a Negro". And we're expected to buy it. Even as the family of the Black man says it's fiction.
The objectionableness quotient of this film is off the charts.
First, it must be pointed out - because apparently this still needs to be pointed out - that some material should not be trivialized or ytsplained. I ain't never seen anybody attempt to Nazi-splain the Holocaust and yet we are routinely treated to Whitesplanations of the racial violence and terror of the Black existence. Why is that? Why is this OK?
Second, it must be pointed out that there's an enormous difference between the lived experience of Black folk that gave rise to the creation of the actual Green Book and the narrative of the film of the same name. In that difference lies every lie, every half-truth, and every justisplanation that White people are taught about American history. As a result, the problems with this story are legion but they stem largely from one thing: White interpretation of impact based on a psychological need to avoid any and all semblance of culpability.
Green Book is but the four hundredth chapter of the never-ending saga of How White America Sees Itself (a journey of 400 years). The movie Hidden Figures, was chapter 399.
In Hidden Figures Theodore Melfi, the director, created an entirely fictional scene to introduce a White savior moment. When asked why, Melfi offered that he didn’t see a problem with adding a White hero into the story.
Green Books' writers (Peter Farrelly, Brian Currie and Rick Vallelonga) are doing much the same thing here. They are protecting that most valuable and crucial of psychic inheritances of whiteness - plausible deniability. In so doing they are securing the future for their children, a future in which Whiteness saves the day it first destroyed; a future in which the fact of the destruction is buried deep under the salvation that they bring. Melfi, Farrelly, Currie, Vallelonga and others will continue to do their 'job' as long as there's one person out there who can be convinced that the White savior did indeed save the day; and there's one person whose fragility requires them to hold such a belief rather than to acknowledge the truth. In other words, forever. They'll be doing this forever.
If you were That Guy there would have been no need for a Civil Rights movement. If you were That Guy there would have been no Rosewood massacre or Move bombing. If you were That Guy there would have been no Emmett Till, nor would there TODAY be any bullet holes in his site of death marker.
If you 'were That Guy there would be no Susan Smith or Timothy Loehmann. Were you That Guy Emantic Bradford Jr. wouldn't be dead and Dylan Roof alive. You're not the guy you keep celebrating in movies. Truly, you're not. You could try to be though but you're too busy patting yourselves in the back for already being that which you can't even see in the distance.
The self-congratulatory tone of movies such as this is not in the least bit surprising to Black folk. We have long understood what ytness needs; it needs a salve, a pass and a cookie. Ytness gets all three with the movie Green Book. And what, you might ask, does Blackness get? The usual, nothing; stomach-churning nothingness. We get White people who can point at the odious in the film and not see themselves, but who are in fact not really all that far removed from that odiousness. We get White savior wannabes by the thousands where few existed then or exist today. We get White self-congratulation while our boys and men, girls and women still end up dead in the street. But you? You get an Oscar-winning cookie movie. But Get Out and Blackkklansman get no Oscar love cuz those movies discomfit you.
We see what you did there. We see what you always do. We are not surprised. Carry on.
In the fictional movie Green Book, cuz come on, that story is about as true to life as is the story of Black Panther, we are treated to a White man who teaches a Black genius how to eat fried chicken; a White man who teaches a Black man about jazz (in the 1960s); a White man who "stands up for a Negro". And we're expected to buy it. Even as the family of the Black man says it's fiction.
The objectionableness quotient of this film is off the charts.
First, it must be pointed out - because apparently this still needs to be pointed out - that some material should not be trivialized or ytsplained. I ain't never seen anybody attempt to Nazi-splain the Holocaust and yet we are routinely treated to Whitesplanations of the racial violence and terror of the Black existence. Why is that? Why is this OK?
Second, it must be pointed out that there's an enormous difference between the lived experience of Black folk that gave rise to the creation of the actual Green Book and the narrative of the film of the same name. In that difference lies every lie, every half-truth, and every justisplanation that White people are taught about American history. As a result, the problems with this story are legion but they stem largely from one thing: White interpretation of impact based on a psychological need to avoid any and all semblance of culpability.
Green Book is but the four hundredth chapter of the never-ending saga of How White America Sees Itself (a journey of 400 years). The movie Hidden Figures, was chapter 399.
In Hidden Figures Theodore Melfi, the director, created an entirely fictional scene to introduce a White savior moment. When asked why, Melfi offered that he didn’t see a problem with adding a White hero into the story.
Green Books' writers (Peter Farrelly, Brian Currie and Rick Vallelonga) are doing much the same thing here. They are protecting that most valuable and crucial of psychic inheritances of whiteness - plausible deniability. In so doing they are securing the future for their children, a future in which Whiteness saves the day it first destroyed; a future in which the fact of the destruction is buried deep under the salvation that they bring. Melfi, Farrelly, Currie, Vallelonga and others will continue to do their 'job' as long as there's one person out there who can be convinced that the White savior did indeed save the day; and there's one person whose fragility requires them to hold such a belief rather than to acknowledge the truth. In other words, forever. They'll be doing this forever.
Here's the truth that ain't nobody want to talk about: White America, in the main, you are not the guy who flouts the rules in defense of Blackness. You write these movies because you think you are, but you aren't. Ask me how I know.
If you 'were That Guy there would be no Susan Smith or Timothy Loehmann. Were you That Guy Emantic Bradford Jr. wouldn't be dead and Dylan Roof alive. You're not the guy you keep celebrating in movies. Truly, you're not. You could try to be though but you're too busy patting yourselves in the back for already being that which you can't even see in the distance.
The self-congratulatory tone of movies such as this is not in the least bit surprising to Black folk. We have long understood what ytness needs; it needs a salve, a pass and a cookie. Ytness gets all three with the movie Green Book. And what, you might ask, does Blackness get? The usual, nothing; stomach-churning nothingness. We get White people who can point at the odious in the film and not see themselves, but who are in fact not really all that far removed from that odiousness. We get White savior wannabes by the thousands where few existed then or exist today. We get White self-congratulation while our boys and men, girls and women still end up dead in the street. But you? You get an Oscar-winning cookie movie. But Get Out and Blackkklansman get no Oscar love cuz those movies discomfit you.
We see what you did there. We see what you always do. We are not surprised. Carry on.
