October 26, 2006
MIXED-UP COMPANY
I'm not a big fan of political correctness. Hypersensitivity to ethnic and sociological differences can be more divisive than helpful. Still, it's interesting to wander upon a cinematic time capsule to reveal some insight into how how far we've come in matters of racial sensitivity or rather, lack of blockheaded-ness in that respect, over the last 30 years.
Today I stumbled upon a movie called Mixed Company starring Barbara Harris and Joe Bologna. The latter's character plays the coach of the Phoenix Suns--an actual NBA team--and the former is his wife. In the movie, the wife cajoles her reluctant husband into adopting an African-American, Vietnamese, and Native American boy girl and then boy into their family when they already have three children of their own. The tagline of the movie is "SURE YOU'LL LAUGH--IT AIN'T HAPPENING TO YOU!"
I think it would be instructive to screen this movie before college audiences around the country. There were few instances where I even contemplated thinking about laughter. It was more of a cringe-inducer. The strange thing is, I think this was supposed to an appeal to liberal toleration of minorities and the saving power of family over racial intolerance. Nonetheless, I was transfixed for an hour and a half by scene after scene of a through-the-looking glass peak at what American life must have been for minorities.
When the coach's wife drags him to a foster home picnic trying to convince him to adopt more children, the sympathetic and well-meaning social worker explains that one of the girls is the offspring of an American GI and a Vietnamese woman. "She's a mongrel. They found her abandoned in a 'hooch'" using a verbal pause in place of those little parentheses fingers people put up in the air. This was delivered completely straight without a hint of irony. It sounds like she's shopping puppies out of a storefront.
That is just the tip of the iceberg as far as this movie goes and the only quote I could grab my pen and notebook in time for. There are far far worse. The thing is this was supposed to be a progressively liberal picture of the times. I'm still against political correctness and over-sensitivity to racial affiliation--I think it's self-destructive to a healthy society--but I now have a much better appreciation of why the progress we've recently made was necessary.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at October 26, 2006 11:05 PM
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