Lack of representation = systemic racism: Footloose is Exhibit A

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Football and Basketball are all black and white. Where is the representation among Latinos and Asians. Pales in comparison.

And don’t get me started on all the TV ads. The United States is almost 60% white, yet all we see now is black actors in just about everything. I get catalogues at home with all black models. That in itself shows a lack of diversity. Diversity is just a code name for hire more African Americans and disregard everyone else.

Do you consider Samoans a part of the Asian race. If so, the NFL has plenty of players of Samoan descent.

Samoans are Polynesian. No one in Samoa considers themselves part of the "Asian race."

Pacific Islanders are celebrated during AANHPI month in May.

Yes, but they are the P so distinct. They don't get their own month and maybe people think Asian is close enough. It's not like they can share any other month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I take your point OP. But I don’t think footloose is the best example — a film about an insular backwards conservative town afraid of change and modernity—integrating that group would have been difficult for the narrative.

But talk about any of the John Hughes movies, or Fast Times’s, or Bill and Teds, or clerks (I guess that’s 90s).

IMO, the worst offender is actually Friends.

I thought the show was good, but, c'mon.. young people in NYC, and no gay people or minorities? That is until Ross dated two different nonwhite women. I think I read that he thought it was also ridiculous that a show about young people in NYC had zero non white people.

I also read a long time ago that when there were a couple of Asian guest cast, they had to deal with racism.

Friends started in the 90s. Seinfeld was just as bad, actually.

Sex and the City as well.

[Anonymous]

Footloose had Black artists on the very popular soundtrack.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I take your point OP. But I don’t think footloose is the best example — a film about an insular backwards conservative town afraid of change and modernity—integrating that group would have been difficult for the narrative.

But talk about any of the John Hughes movies, or Fast Times’s, or Bill and Teds, or clerks (I guess that’s 90s).

IMO, the worst offender is actually Friends.

I thought the show was good, but, c'mon.. young people in NYC, and no gay people or minorities? That is until Ross dated two different nonwhite women. I think I read that he thought it was also ridiculous that a show about young people in NYC had zero non white people.

I also read a long time ago that when there were a couple of Asian guest cast, they had to deal with racism.

Friends started in the 90s. Seinfeld was just as bad, actually.

Really?

Main character is Jewish. His best friend (George) is half jewish/half catholic.

Recurring characters:

Jackie Childs - AA
Larry the Cook - AA
Mickey Abbott - Little Person
Babu Bhatt - Pakistani
Soup Nazi - Iranian (I think)

And the list goes on.

There's also episodes that address race head on, like when Jerry dates a Native American women, or when Elaine thinks she's dating a black man and he thinks he's dating a hispanic women

"So what, we're just a couple of white people?"

It actually did a great job of reflecting the diversity of the city, but also acknowledging the reality that people mostly stick to their tribe for their more personal connections.

You're wrong about Seinfeld

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember when they were outraged Dunkirk had no black characters.

A friggin WW2 movie in Europe where the English were trying to escape for their lives……and they’re mad because that historical story has no major presence of black people. Truly insane how DEI is a de facto cult. You can’t even tell stories from history now as they were.

Ok.

I’m the op if this thread…surprised to see it pop up again!

I’m fine with historical films using actors that make sense rather than inserting diversity for the sake of diversity. But any slavery-era film will have black and white actors. And black men did fight in WWII.

But if you rewatch mainstream movies from the 1980s primarily made for a teenage audience—like Footloose—you’ll realize Hollywood made a choice to not include black actors in even a token way. It begs the question…why?

The dance scene is what is most stark, particularly given this was the era of dance films and breakdancing.

Would you be upset if it were a film about an academic team? You know black people do things besides dance, right?

Bless your heart for trying to spur deep thought, but you have missed the point, Dear.

The point is I think it’s wrong for all the Hollywood films of the 80s targeting a teenage audience to not include any black actors…regardless of the setting or focus of the film.

Their choice to not even include at least a few black actors during a big dance scene at a time when Hollywood was churning out dance movies just baffles me. It seems like a choice they made rather than an oversight. I mean, imagine being on set as they choreographed the scene. It didn’t occur to anybody that the scene was perhaps shockingly white?

Wonder who choreographed the film.

I feel like you would be upset if they had included black actors in Footloose because it would be giving those towns false credit of diversity, whereas in rural Kansas it didn’t exist (and maybe still doesn’t).

I love that you pulled out the personal insult "bless your heart." It's okay to instead admit your own bias -- what did you think when you heard in 2019 that “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I take your point OP. But I don’t think footloose is the best example — a film about an insular backwards conservative town afraid of change and modernity—integrating that group would have been difficult for the narrative.

But talk about any of the John Hughes movies, or Fast Times’s, or Bill and Teds, or clerks (I guess that’s 90s).

IMO, the worst offender is actually Friends.

I thought the show was good, but, c'mon.. young people in NYC, and no gay people or minorities? That is until Ross dated two different nonwhite women. I think I read that he thought it was also ridiculous that a show about young people in NYC had zero non white people.

I also read a long time ago that when there were a couple of Asian guest cast, they had to deal with racism.

Friends started in the 90s. Seinfeld was just as bad, actually.

Really?

Main character is Jewish. His best friend (George) is half jewish/half catholic.

Recurring characters:

Jackie Childs - AA
Larry the Cook - AA
Mickey Abbott - Little Person
Babu Bhatt - Pakistani
Soup Nazi - Iranian (I think)

And the list goes on.

There's also episodes that address race head on, like when Jerry dates a Native American women, or when Elaine thinks she's dating a black man and he thinks he's dating a hispanic women

"So what, we're just a couple of white people?"

It actually did a great job of reflecting the diversity of the city, but also acknowledging the reality that people mostly stick to their tribe for their more personal connections.

You're wrong about Seinfeld

+1

People just want to cast dispersions on things from previous eras for no good reason.

Seinfeld did a fine job representing NYC from the perspective of a mid-30s jewish guy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What percentage of rural Kansas was Black in 1984?

+1. SEriously. Even in my public high school in So California there were none then. And that wasn't Kansas

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What percentage of rural Kansas was Black in 1984?

6%

But does it matter?

Movies are made for a national and ultimately global audience.

America was 12% black in 1984.

And they opted to only have white kids in the big dance scene. Probably 100 kids, and all are white. They feature dancers, including a blue eyed blonde hair guy doing MJ-esque breakdancing moves, and it didn’t occur to anyone on the set to add any diversity?

As an 11 year old at the time. I noticed it.

[Anonymous]

How many of you, in your twenties, living in a city, had a diverse group of friends. Sure, at work I had friends of different races and sexual orientation, but the people I hung with were all white. I suspect that’s the same of most of you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in a bible thinking Midwest town with ZERO minorities. This could have been my town.

I grew up in the Midwest in a town of about 10,000. There was one Black kid, two Asians and one Latino in our high school.

I felt like I grew up in Footloose, just in northern Ohio, population 3000. We had exactly one black family in town. It would have been weird to have added minorities to that movie.

+1, I grew up in a Footloose-esque town and it really was very white. To be accurate they might have included a handful of black or hispanic kids, but part of the point of the movie is how homogenous and close-minded this tiny town is. The whiteness and the lameness is sort of part of the point.

Now, the way the Chicago is portrayed in John Hughes movies, and his treatment of Asian characters? Yikes.

I don't know if you folks talking about your small homogenous towns were likely Sundowns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It must be exhausting to constantly have “representation” on your mind.

Watched any NBA games lately?

Watch Sweetwater on Hulu. It's enlightening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I remember when they were outraged Dunkirk had no black characters.

A friggin WW2 movie in Europe where the English were trying to escape for their lives……and they’re mad because that historical story has no major presence of black people. Truly insane how DEI is a de facto cult. You can’t even tell stories from history now as they were.

The question becomes, who is the target audience for these films, we can't keep putting out these period films and have that excuse. These folks have ALWAYS existed in this country. You just never bothered to notice. That's why you're upset. The background wants the foreground.

My grandfather fought in WW2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In some movies race of the actors matters as it is relevant to the storyline. I don't think it is wrong to reflect historical facts and truths and it is confusing to tell a story with visial inaccuracies.

In other movies, race of the actors is irrelevant and doesn't create any inaccuracy at all.

I grew up in a very rural area - all white. My hgh school was big was there was ony one for the region and had 2000 plus kids. We had 3 kids who weren't white. In my junior year, the first black student arrived. I look back now and absolutely shudder at our ignorance in how we treated that student. Everyone was fascinated by him and wanted to be his friend because he was black and that was new and exciting.

If there was a movie about my highschool using a very diverse cast, it wouldn't really reflect at all the reality of our experience, his experience or the context / culture of the school.

Think of the Rosa Parks Story movie. If she had walked off the bus into a crowd of diverse races and into a school with a diverse looking cast, it wouldn't really have the same impact.

Ma'am, what school? Are you confusing grown Rosa Parks who was a secretary and the child Ruby Bridges?? This is why ya'll need to go back to school/pick up a book. I once saw a quote 'We have to have a PhD in white culture, we just need you to get a GED in Black culture, please'

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I take your point OP. But I don’t think footloose is the best example — a film about an insular backwards conservative town afraid of change and modernity—integrating that group would have been difficult for the narrative.

But talk about any of the John Hughes movies, or Fast Times’s, or Bill and Teds, or clerks (I guess that’s 90s).

IMO, the worst offender is actually Friends.

I thought the show was good, but, c'mon.. young people in NYC, and no gay people or minorities? That is until Ross dated two different nonwhite women. I think I read that he thought it was also ridiculous that a show about young people in NYC had zero non white people.

I also read a long time ago that when there were a couple of Asian guest cast, they had to deal with racism.

Friends started in the 90s. Seinfeld was just as bad, actually.

Fun fact. Our neighbor was on an episode of Cheers. He's Black. He was as part of some sort of military escort. He was active duty Air Force - can't remember the episode. Not an actor though.

Cheers seems to be a big offender as well. I was watching a bunch of highlights on youtube because of the Frasier remake, and the only people of color were the cigar-store Indian and a few extras who pass out of frame. There is so much diversity of personality/social class/education in the show, but scarce minorities.

I think that this was done consciously/strategically, under the theory that any diversity that exceeds the levels actually existing in friend groups would ring false and diminish the comedy and hurt ratings. Also I think it played to white people’s (maybe all people’s?) subconscious desire to surround themselves only with people they’re totally comfortable with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People, Footloose was set in Beaumont, Texas. Not Kansas.

Carry on.

No it wasn’t. The town was BOMONT.

There are no mountains near Beaumont, TX.

Now you can carry on!

It was Texas. That’s what made the mountains in the movie so ridiculous. It was filmed in UT, though.

Nope. Films set in "small towns" usually use fictional towns, like this did. Bomont, Georgia.

Based on Elmore City, Oklahoma, which did ban dancing, and filmed mostly in Utah County, Utah.

https://thecinemaholic.com/where-was-footloose-1984-filmed/