A book that just appeared on my cataloging shelf: Multicultural Films: a Reference Guide, by Janice R. Welsch and J. Q. Adams. Hey, I bet you didn’t know The Matrix and X-Men were multicultural films! ‘Cause, you know, with the black people! *sigh*
Not only that, but Soylent Green is apparently multicultural as well. “African Americans have survived and are viable though very little racial/ethnic diversity is shown despite New York’s population of over 40 million people.” Congratu…lations?
(And lest you think this is a Leonard Maltin-style book of long lists and capsule reviews, let me assure you that it’s only 231 p. long and each write-up is at least a page. The “Intercultural Films” section, in which all these dubious selections are found (along with more reasonable choices like The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love and Lone Star), contains 43 films.)
2 responses so far ↓
1 martini_corona // Dec 6, 2005 at 2:35 pm
X-Men comics actually deal with diversity and discrimination and prejudice quite a bit, in terms of regular human vs. mutant. “Mutant,” of course, can stand in for race or sexuality or whatever (different authors have dealt with it differently). The films aren’t as smart about it, but they do show Magneto in a concentration camp (and how that experience influences his later philosophy).
The tastiest Soylent Green is made of people… of all colors.
2 J // Dec 6, 2005 at 9:32 pm
if one considers the cultures that inform the mythology of the matrix, it actually could be considered incredibly multicultural, but that doesn’t automatically read unless you’re overeducated like me
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