Shut Up Fool Awards- Red Tails Opening Weekend Edition

The Lucasfilm produced movie about the Tuskegee Airmen entitled Red Tails starts today at your local multiplex. 

The TransGriot is definitely going to do her part and go see it since I want to send the message for Hollywood to make more action flicks and movies featuring my people and American heroes like the Tuskegee Airmen.

BTW if you do go, so that this movie gets the proper box office credit, make sure when they sell you the ticket it specifically says it's for Red Tails so it doesn't get pencil whipped out of any hard earned box office dollars we pluck down for this movie.

Now that I've done my part to remind y'all that a good movie is in the local cinema we need to support, time to move on to my usual Friday business here at TransGriot of shedding light on the fool, fools or group of fools that deserve to be called out for their ignorance, arrogance and stupidity,

As usual we had a bumper crop of candidates for our award.  Group ones for Fox Noise and the GOP, Rick Perry (adios from the presidential race mofo), Ron Paul, Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC), Rep Eric Cantor (R-VA). Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Gretchen Carlson, Rick Santorum, Ruth Jacobs, Derek McCoy, James Dobson, RuPaul, Pat Buchanan, Patrick Wooden and Mitt Romney

Honorable mention goes to Republifool Kansas House Speaker Mike O'Neal, who was double dipping on the anti-Obama racism.  Just last month he sent out a racist e-mail referring to the FLOTUS as Mrs YoMama and comparing her to the Grinch.  Then he followed it up with another e-mail citing Psalm 109:8 that wishes for a leader's death that wingers have been aiming at the POTUS since 2009.

"At last -- I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up -- it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!"

Our winner this week is Newton Leroy Gingrich.  

He's been quite busy doubling down on the GOP Southern Strategy 2.0 racism that has propelled him to a position in which he's on the verge of possibly knocking off Willard in South Carolina.  

Whether it's repeating his call during a GOP debate held on Martin Luther King, Jr Day for kids to be employed as janitors, and Black people needing to demand jobs instead of food stamps, acknowledging the thanks of a South Carolina event goer for putting Juan Williams 'in his place', dissing his second ex-wife and blaming the media for his divorce, Newt more than earned this week's award.






Newton Leroy Gingrich, shut the HELL up fool.

 

Not Even George Lucas Has An Easy Time Getting Money For A Film When It Has An All Black Cast

Guest post from Renee of Womanist Musings, who is all that and four bags of ketchup flavored potato chips.

For people of colour, a trip to the cinema usually means paying our hard earned money to see a film with few Black actors that reflects a White perspective.  As much as I despise Tyler Perry, his films are some of the few in which can be certain to see an all Black cast.  Movies that star marginalized people, and tell our history are notoriously difficult to fund, because there is the belief that Black films aren't marketable. Even for the amazingly brilliant Malcolm X, directed by Spike Lee, Lee had to depend on support from Black celebrities to bring the film to market. If said movie attempts to tell the history of a marginalized community, one can be certain that a White protagonist will be found to frame the story around eg., Dances with Wolves, Amistad, Ghosts of Mississippi etc,.  

George Lucas appeared on The Daily Show to discuss the difficulty he had getting funding for Red Tails which stars Cubing Gooding Jr., and Terrence Howard Baby Wipes, and is directed by Anthony Hemingway.  It is a large budget movie, with an all Black cast, directed by a Black director, about the Tuskegee Airmen.  Though a film has already been produced about the Tuskegee Airmen, one movie cannot possibly encapsulate what the bravery they displayed in the face open hatred and a brutal war.

Like all things Black, the journey to the big screen has not been an easy path. "It's because it's an all-black movie. There's no major white roles in it at all...I showed it to all of them and they said no. We don't know how to market a movie like this," Lucas said.

While I appreciate Lucas' efforts to bring this movie to the big screen, the sense of White saviour that he displayed in an article published by USA Today is troubling.

"I realize that by accident I've now put the black film community at risk (with Red Tails, whose $58 million budget far exceeds typical all-black productions). I'm saying, if this doesn't work, there's a good chance you'll stay where you are for quite a while. It'll be harder for you guys to break out of that (lower-budget) mold. But if I can break through with this movie, then hopefully there will be someone else out there saying let's make a prequel and sequel, and soon you have more Tyler Perrys out there." (source)

Is that his plea for all Black folk to take their butts to the theater and buy a ticket?  If we support this film, created through the generosity of a White man, then it will left us on up out of the ghetto.  Black cinema is completely dependent upon the success of this movie and we all need to be aware, that hoping for the day when we use our own agency and resources to correct an imbalance is unrealistic.

The idea that what we need is more Tyler Perry's, tells me that Lucas has no real understanding of the Black community.  Perry's movies make money because they are all about coonery and buffoonery and they regularly present a genderized minstrel show, which actively oppresses Black women, therefore; I fail to see how a proliferation of these types of movies would be a good thing for Black people.  We don't simply need more Black films made, we need quality Black movies made that accurately depict our lives, hopes and dreams.

Lucas may believe that he has the inside track on what Black people want, because he has a Black wife, but he is still a White man.  Taking on the White man's burden is racist and paternalistic.  We don't need to be saved by a White man.  Lucas' comments take away much of the joy that I have in this production, because they diminish the hard work that Black actors, directors and producers are currently engaged in to tell our stories.

Black people have always fought hard for our own freedom and agency.  We have never stood idly by while Whiteness assassinates our character and diminishes our opportunities.  Nothing has ever been handed to us, and the very idea that this movie represents a magnanimous gift from a White man to not only lift us out of oppression, but save us as well is nonsense. In the history of the world, no powerful group has ever willingly handed over power to a group that it oppresses, and therefore the suggestion that benevolent Whiteness will save us is beyond ridiculous; it's a lie that White people tell themselves to assuage whatever faux guilt they may be feeling for their ongoing privilege.

Thanks for the movie George, but we have always made our own way in this world and we will continue to do so, but here's a cookie for your troubles.

Take Notes ABC....

This is the way you do a gender bending theme tastefully instead of that piss poor ripoff of Bosom Buddies you're trying to pimp in Work It.   If you can't cast a transwoman to do it, cast either a cis female or an actor who looks and acts convincingly female to do so

Actor Victor Rueda playing Azucena in the Spanish movie Entre Las Piernas (Between Your Legs)