Your Favorite Movie is Racist

Happy Holidays! For our 2020 Holiday Special we're talking about Gremlins, Joe Dante's 1984 classic starring Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, and Gizmo! We LOVE this movie. We also notice some mystical-Asian-xenophobia-black-guy-dies-first action going on. Let's talk!

In the season finale of our show, we dive into the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. These films had all the makings of something inclusive and special: a diverse cast, intriguing new characters and incredibly talented directors and writers. What we got was a mixed bag, with most of the best story stuff going to the white characters and muddled mix of story directions given to the PoCs. Oh, Disney... Oh, Lucasfilm... Oh, whoever...

War! The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy tells the story of Anakin Skywalker's growth into a Jedi Knight and subsequent turn to the Dark Side of the Force.  Also... more than 20 years later Jar Jar Binks still feels hella racist, as do those Trade Federation Viceroy guys. Watto too. Don't forget Watto. But yeah Darth Vader! WOOO!  

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. . . . 
STAR WARS 
Episode X: The Racism Discussed

Sorry. I'm not clever. But yeah we talked about the original Star Wars Trilogy. It's one of the biggest franchises of all time and it all started with these movies. We love them. We love them a lot. There's also some racism up in here, and we're talking about it. I've got a bad feeling about this. 

In 1984, the world was introduced to John Hughes as a director in his first feature film, 16 Candles. This film featured Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall and kicked off an entire era of '80s teen romantic comedies, the stuff Hughes is known for to this day. It also plays a loud gong sound every time its only Asian character shows up. Yikes. 

Who doesn't love Indiana Jones? These adventure movies kicked off in 1981 with Raiders of the Lost Ark and the entire series was directed by Steven Spielberg and starred Harrison Ford in one of his most iconic roles. Indiana Jones is a lot of fun. It's also a lot of colonization propaganda. Yikes! We had some things to say about this one. 

Sergio Leone's 1966 film The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is considered by many to be the definitive spaghetti western, featuring an incredible cast, an iconic score and groundbreaking cinematography. It also has brown-face. 

We're sad that the world lost Chadwick Boseman. We wanted to talk about a movie of his that means a lot to us, Black Panther. We'll miss him.

The Princess and the Frog brought us to the first black Disney princess in Tiana. It marked the end of an era as the studio had already made the leap to computer-generated animation and it was powerful moment in mainstream representation. So how could it be racist? Let's dig into it. 

After a two-week break, we're giving y'all a double-sized episode! We're discussing The Karate Kid (1984) and The Karate Kid Part 2 (1986), both directed by John G. Avildsen and starring Ralph Macchio and Noriyuki "Pat" Morita as Daniel LaRusso and Mr. Miyagi. WE LOVE THESE MOVIES, and we're having a layered conversation about the greatness and the racist of the series.