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Anyone who’s been to the movies lately has seen the trailer for the new Will Smith movie “Focus,” a romantic crime drama about a con man and a femme fatale. While most Americans would not pay any mind to the fact that the female love interest is being played by a white actress, the trolliest of trolls have taken to the Internet to express their disdain for interracial romance on the big screen.
According to a recent VICE article, said trolls have smeared their racist rhetoric all over the comment section of the “Focus” YouTube trailer. One comment read: “Wake up White people. You see it, don’t you? Everywhere they push this. They have gotten bold, and the anti-white propaganda is everywhere in the media before your eyes. Are you going to stand for it? Are you going to just watch as your European race is annihilated in a very slow and cruel manner?” There were several other comments like this, but that’s not the issue.
An unfortunate symptom of today’s comment culture is the fact that any moronic thought can be demurely tossed into the web. Regardless, everyone knows that there are racists out there; according to a Gallop poll from 2013, 87% of adults in America approved of interracial marriage. Apparently, roughly 1 in 10 Americans wouldn’t approve of interracial relationships.
Yet, Hollywood has seemingly strayed away from striking a nerve with this small part of the population, especially with Will Smith movies. In “I, Robot,” the clear and present sexual tension between Smith and female lead Bridget Moynahan is never consummated. Smith also claimed that the reason Cameron Diaz wasn’t cast in the rom-com “Hitch” was because “Hollywood is nervous about a black man kissing a white woman on screen. That becomes massive news in the US. Outside America, it’s no big deal. But in the US, it’s still a racial issue.” Due to America’s lack of preparedness to see a black man kiss a white woman, Eva Mendes was cast in Diaz’s place.
While Hollywood itself isn’t racist, it surely does cater to whatever won’t draw criticism. If they feel like they’ll loose money, they won’t show an interracial couple kissing. It seems as if the public can only handle interracial couples in movies like “Guess Who,” where the race issue is the prominent factor. However, when interracial couples are featured naturally without connotation, American’s heads might explode with confusion.
Will Smith movies aren’t the only ones drawing this kind of attention. In the wake of a leaked email suggesting that Idris Elba play the next James Bond, the race trolls trolled away with the same type of nonsense. Prominent racist Rush Limbaugh lost his mind over the notion that Bond be played by a black man, saying, “Ian Fleming never created a black Brit to play James Bond; the character was always white, he was always Scottish.” It is worthy to note that the last four actors who played James Bond weren’t Scottish; they were all English with the exception of Pierce Brosnan, who is Irish. Elba seems like the perfect candidate to follow Daniel Craig, but only if Hollywood can stop pandering to the percentage of the population that “isn’t ready” for a black Bond.
Hollywood’s only real virtue is money. The real problem is American racism. While most of us don’t even notice these trivial and petty racial “issues,” Hollywood has considered the inherently racist portion of the population a large enough percentage to affect their overall revenue.
The truth is, the millennial generation is the first to truly ignore these petty differences; standing on the shoulders of those before us who fought tirelessly to rid the world of such ignorance. Only time will tell how long it will take for all of us to get on the same page.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Drew Chowbay at drew.chowbay@colorado.edu
