Sarah Edwards for NBC, describing this March release film, said: “Steve Martin plays the typical uptight white guy.”  (She just loved the movie.)

Teamed with Martin is a rapper-turned-actress, a black woman he meets via the internet, and who in the clip shown enters his living quarters, saying, “I absolutely love what you’ve done with the place.  It’s so … sterile.”

From there, of course, the stupid (un-cool) white man's noveau step-and-fetchit awkwardness generates guffaws as he is introduced to the myriad and far superior  elements of modern black American culture which have done so much to improve life in our inner-cities.  The South Bronx, for example.  A paradise, particularly for children.  Portions of Los Angeles.  The black wards of Chicago.  Washington, D.C.   No driveby shootings there like they have in white areas.

Our suggestion is that the next Martin film should be titled, Cleaning up the Hood.   He should do it in blackface.  The story could be as follows.  Muhammed “Do-rag” Jones (Martin) meets a woman on the internet.  She turns out to be white upper middle class.  As she walks into his home, she says, “I absolutely love what you’ve done with the place.  It’s so … full of stolen appliances and hypodermic needles.

From there, she could introduce Martin to white, Christian, mid-American male culture, which would include speaking proper English, not doing drugs, working hard at getting good grades in school, wearing a suit and tie, getting off welfare and finding a good job, getting married before having children and listening to music that doesn’t champion criminal acts.

Turnabout is fair play, is it not?  The present Martin film is a putdown of  traditional white male American culture.  The next one should trash modern black male American culture.   Besides, a symphony by Beethoven is a better piece of music than "Rape Your F-ing Mother and Kill a F-ing Cop" by Cool Heroin. 

Now, really.  You're not going to say that just by switching from gangster rap to classical music the same story becomes racist, are you?  Would you like to see a hypocrite?  Quick, look in a mirror.

By the way, if you believe that films, like cigarette advertising, can affect the behavior of children, you might think twice about letting your children see this movie.  It isn't about how studying hard will get you a Masters in aeronautical engineering.  If your kids are white, they will come out of the theatre believing traditional white cultural values are stupid.  If your kids are black, they will come out of the threatre believing modern urban black culture is the key to a great life.

If you have a working brain, you know better  Uncool white guys have  most of the valuable patents, most of the top corporate jobs, most of the best real estate and most of the corporate jets.  Only about 20% of them inherited their status.  The 80% who earned it didn't get it by learning how to break dance and speak ebonics.

Better to have an uncool kid who becomes the CEO of General Electric than a cool one who dies at fifteen in a gang bang.  If you do a little research, you'll probably discover that NBC's film critic, Sarah Edwards, who doesn't like uptight white guys, is married to one -- and their kids go to schools that teach them how to speak English, not ghetto street language.   If this description isn't an accurate portrayal of her, it is of virtually all of her female associates at NBC.  They know the difference between "cool" and "financially successful."

African-American culture isn't African culture. Even their famous holiday, Kwanza (Swahili for "first fruit"), is an American invention. (Probably Berkeley in the 80's)  Real Africans these days wear suits and ties, work in high rise buildings and send their kids to Cambridge.  And, most of them, by the way, are Christians, not animalists or Moslems.

Real Africans have no interest in the themes celebrated in this film.  They want to make something out of themselves, their children and their country, and understand that playing a jazzy saxophone or good basketball won't cut the mustard.  They know why they have mass starvation and Europe and America do not.

It's about modern agriculture, engineering, pure science and business.

Uncool white things.

(LL)

© 2003 Oregon Magazine