Diversixploitation: Manipulating Multiculturalism Ruins Movies

Diversixploitation

Manipulating Multiculturalism Ruins Movies

The world recently mourned the loss of Gordon Parks, a multitalented artist/musician/author who rose to prominence composing powerful photo essays for Life magazine. Among Parks’ other achievements was the original film version of Shaft, an adaptation of Ernest Tidyman’s novel about a heterodox black detective. Parks’ film was, at the time, somewhat groundbreaking in that its protagonist managed to be awash in a sea of clichés both black (Panthers-style radicals and old-school Harlem gangsters) and white (Mafiosos and police bureaucrats) without being defined by either of them. John Shaft, as portrayed by Richard Roundtree, was a three-dimensional character: a wisecracking, tough-talking solo operator in the mold of Philip Marlowe, only hip and socially conscious as well. Ironically, despite the perception of increased tolerance over the past 30 years, there is little room for a character such as Shaft (complex black male lead) in today’s Hollywood.

With some notable exceptions, the status quo of today’s film industry is one of subtle racism fueled by the desire to conform to politically correct archetypes. Consider, for instance, the recent trend of racial diversification/racial inversion in film remakes. On the surface, this seems like an unmitigated positive. After all, the film industry in the first half of the 20^th century was notoriously whitewashed and full of one-dimensional stereotypes. Why, therefore, would remaking a film with a more diverse cast be a bad thing?

To answer this, I direct your attention to a pair of pitiful examples from last year: the Cedric the Entertainer/Mike Epps version of The Honeymooners and the Bernie Mac/Ashton Kutcher version of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (shortened to Guess Who).

The original Honeymooners was a popular television series in the mid-1950s that eventually became the basis for The Flintstones. The show featured scheming bus driver Ralph Kramden, his wife, Alice, and their neighbors/friends, Ed and Trixie Norton.

On the surface, little changed in the remake save for the skin color of the principals. Cedric plays scheming Ralph to Epps’ Ed Norton. The characters names and occupations are roughly the same, as is the setting (New York City). Despite this, the movie was a colossal failure.

This really should come as no surprise, if for no other reason than Cedric and Epps are not Jackie Gleason and Art Carney. They aren’t even close. This isn’t a knock on Cedric’s talent – his “Eddie” character in Barbershop was hysterical, but there he was paired with a competent director and allowed to improvise. In The Honeymooners, he was limited to reinterpreting a character more or less perfected by Gleason over the course of a television run. Given those expectations, it was almost inevitable that he (and the surrounding production) fall significantly short.

Why, therefore, was this monstrosity made? The answer, in my opinion, lies in diversixploitation: the phenomenon of making/remaking lousy films with racially/ethnically/sexually diverse casts for the purpose of drawing in diverse or diversity-receptive viewers. In other words, if a slick producer makes the lead a black guy, maybe some blacks and white urban teens will be more likely to see movie (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). Beneath the politically correct veneer of multiculturalism lays a very bigoted profit motive which, ironically, often fails to turn a profit.

Diversixploitation is both an updated version of and antidote to blaxploitation, a controversial 70s film trend. Blaxploitation films, though often made by white filmmakers, were often specifically designed to lure black audiences into theaters. They were also crude, poorly made and laden with offensive race and gender stereotypes. Eventually they generated so much backlash that the NAACP came a’gunning and the genre died off by the end of the decade. But what those critics failed to realize at the time was that the genre, though rooted in clichés, gave black actors both a chance to work and a chance to show off their abilities. Richard Roundtree made Shaft an icon, Ron O’Neal turned Superfly into more than a common drug dealer and Pam Grier’s Foxy Brown was actually, in some ways, a positive female role model. Thus, these actors and characters managed to survive the blaxploitation moment and live on in the cultural imagination.

Diversixploitation, like its 70s counterpart, aims for targeted audiences, revels in clichés and is notably cheap on the quality end. However, whereas blaxploitation actually provided opportunities for black actors and filmmakers, diversixploitation seems content to confine them for petty amusement.

That brings us to the second example, Guess Who. The original film had what was at the time an edgy theme: white college girl brings home somewhat older black fiancée to wealthy, supposedly open-minded parents expecting their approval. It had a top-flight cast (Sydney Poitier, Kate Hepburn and the final appearance of Spencer Tracy) and, despite the social issues raised, didn’t drown in preachy self-seriousness.

The remake, on the other hand, eschewed social significance in favor of cheap laughs. Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher, stepping in for Tracy and Potier, bring nothing to the roles save for the ability and willingness to make jackasses out of themselves. Sadly, this is one of the few cases where a remake would have had something to offer. Guess Who could have given us a look at how older blacks, having lived through anti-miscegenation laws, view interracial romances among their children. Instead, the film doesn’t seem to want to say anything more than “OMFG! He’s a white boy! Let’s crack some jokes, y’all.” If that isn’t exploitation, I don’t know what is.

None of this is to say, of course, that including more diverse casts in remakes is a bad thing. Indeed, quite the opposite can be true – provided the actors involved are allowed to actually do some acting and aren’t merely token representations of a society hung up on the need for diversity.

A good example is the 1997 version of 12 Angry Men. Directed by William Friedkin, it hewed closely to the stellar original of 40 years prior, albeit in a way that seems notably less dated. The jury, for instance, isn’t all white. However, instead of simply changing races arbitrarily for the sake of diversity appeal, the afro-American actors involved are given an opportunity to do something with their characters. Case in point: Mykelti Williamson stepped into the racist juror role initially inhabited by Ed Begley Sr. But since casual overt racism is thankfully out of fashion these days (covert is another matter), Williamson had to improvise. He ended up playing the bigoted juror as a quasi-Nation of Islam type and did so effectively. In the wrong hands, a more diversified remake could have been ’12 Angry Black Men and the Token White Defendant.’ But because the film included a stronger selling point than ‘look, there’s black people!,’ what we are left with is a quality film that rivals the original.

Likewise, Four Brothers – John Singleton’s loose reworking of The Sons of Katie Elder – succeeded because it played to the strengths of its participants rather than exploiting their racial differences to fill seats. Singleton didn’t try to turn Mark Wahlberg into John Wayne (he was instead allowed to stay loose and crack jokes), nor did he attempt to have Andre Benjamin try become “Dean Martin, only black” Instead, he left the characters free to do their own thing while focusing on the themes of a classic western: brotherhood and frontier justice (or, in this case, street justice).

Diversixploitation and its associated maladies – tokenism and stereotyping (including, and, perhaps especially, the ‘positive’ variety) have, fortunately, met with significant backlash. The Wayans Brothers and the South Park guys (Trey Parker and Matt Stone) regularly make a mockery of the politically correct need for token characters. Minority filmmakers have refused to play into the expectations that they make minority-centric films for targeted, minority-centric audiences. Taiwanese-born Ang Lee, in case you missed it, has been knee-deep in superheroes (Hulk) and gay cowboys (Brokeback Mountain) these past few years. Even Crash, with its heavy-handedness and somewhat confused message, managed to throw a monkey wrench into the diversixploitation cookie-cutter.

Suffice it to say, some will deny that diversixploitation exists or insist that it is a necessary remedy to years of minority under/misrepresentation in film. But if that’s the case and there is nothing wrong with arbitrary and shallow diversification efforts, then why not make the next Shaft a Jewish white guy?