On the whole...

As is my nature, I have put off actually posting until the last minute. Having read the books early in the break, I have found the need to go back and look over the subject matter. Surprisingly, it seems to me that very little sunk in. Heroes in Hard Times took a long time to wade through, and, as a result, I took little from it. I realize that tthe author was reporting his personal study, but commenting on example after example after example tends to wear on the nerves of the reader. He states that the white male usually is the "hero" of a cop action movie. I mostly agree with this, but I found Lethal Weapon to have fairly balanced race/hero roles. Mel Gibson does have the ridiculously long martial arts scene at the end, but it is Danny Glover that takes out the head villan. And in the case of Beverly Hills Cop, Eddie Murphy is the hero; he is a hero that often makes fools of the white cops and acutally brings about change in their society, if you will. Eddie Murphy, needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), is not white. Framing Blackness was also difficult for me to wade through. I think that I was turned off by the author's bias early on. That is not to say that I do not appreciate how far the portrayal of African Americans in movies has come over the decades, but he goes looking for trouble where there doesn't seem to be any.

I can't claim that I have a great grasp on the subject material. I have seen nearly none of the movies mentioned, and, unfortunately for me, I formed mental blocks early in the readings. The two movies assigned to us were enjoyable (minus the music of Beverly Hills Cop...). Despite the difficulty I have had thus far, I am interested to see where this class will lead us in exploring this subject.