Soul Man (1986)

Interracial sexism

What does make America being America?

Certainly, it is an ability to see personal serious problems from different points of views, while laughing at them and being at the end of a day proud Americans regardless race, faith and other sometimes troubling sex-life differences.

Mark, a lustful sexy youngster from a rich upper class Californian family, established in Harvard as an Afro-American grant recipient acquires new knowledge of a native country and practically demonstrates developments in steadily challenging interracial problems faced since a very foundation of the Land of Free.

Surprisingly, this very much segregation-motivated work has became one of my favourite movies for an intelligently depicting optimism of positive outcomes time brings about.

And actors are IT.
October 24, 2007

Colorblind when it comes to Laughter!!!!!

I like this movie. I tell you why. As first you think, wow that is so uncool and very mean spirited way to get a scholar. But at the end of the movie, you see that there was a "moral and a reflection of the cultures." Even though this movie wasn't a true story, we get to see the both sides of the spectrum. I thought this movie has some great parts. Like picking Thomas to be in the basketball team because they thought he was good. The Roll Call of "Right On!" Classic! When he went to the Kitchen without the Mask, "Look'n good momma, look'n good!" And it was his mother?!?!?! "I'm taking Law..." Friend said, "I thought you were taken?" "That was before I knew the professor was a Brutha!" I thought for James Earl Jones to take his role, I thought it was a cool thing for him to do. Would of thought he would be uptight for this. I would of thought for sure he would of thought the script is overboard and racist. Another classic part, when he (James) said, "Next time here's my phone number, if you go to jail again call me, I will bring your books!!" Come on, classic. It had a love story feel to it, that sometimes like Thomas said, "I never expected to fall in love with her." I got so use to seeing Thomas with the color pill change treatment that when at the end, I was like "Oh, that is what he looks like." But one think that was an eye opener was those two white kids with those racist jokes (realist though that there's some that do that) in the end got Karma!!! Reminds me of "White Chicks" from the Wayans, that was a good movie, and we see how white chicks act and "yes" like this movie, there's exaggeration, but all for the laughs of how we see things. I like this movie. A very classic comedy!
April 21, 2007

Soul Train

As we continue to be stifled by the almost unbearable, oppressive air of political correctness by the people who constantly complain about oppression, there is no doubt in my mind that Soul Man could not be made today.

For centuries, people have been using comedy as a way to explore issues that would be seen as didactic if addressed with a straight face. Literature giants like Voltaire used comedy to address social issues, with his story Candide being one of the funniest things I've ever read. Soul Man addresses racial issues in America; but because it's done with humor instead of drama, people see it as "making fun of" minorities rather than "helping" minorities.

Soul Man is a humorous film trying to help those who obviously have no sense of humor. A spoiled, rich white kid takes a lot of tanning pills, gets a jheri curl, and steals a scholarship meant for a black Harvard applicant because his father decided to stop supporting him. He finds out later he stole the scholarship from a woman (Rae Dawn Chong) who deserved it ten times more than he. C Thomas Howell grows and becomes more sensitive to black issues and blacks in general as he spends this brief period as a black man and falls in love with a black woman. He gains character and wisdom. And as he told his professor, played by James Earl Jones, he will never know what it's like to be black, because no matter how bad it got, he could always get out.

It doesn't make fun of blacks. It makes fun of whites who have their own closed-minded impressions. The stereotypical scenes in the movie come from the ignorance of the white characters, not the ignorance of the moviemakers.

Even though C. Thomas Howell's career unfairly suffered because of this BOLD movie, he did meet and end up marrying Rae Dawn Chong.
August 18, 2006

A Classic!

This is a pure classic. Comedy gold. Everyone is at the top of their game in it, James Earl Jones C. Thomas Howell, Rae Dawn Chong, Arye Gross, a pre-Seinfeld Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The commentary by Steve Miner and C. Thomas Howell is cool and informative. They are bewildered at all the controversy this film caused, and so am I. Because in the 80's, I never heard any controversy about this film, because I was a kid, enjoying it. Anyone that says this film is racist is ignorant, or has no sense of humor. I wager both. This film pokes fun at stereotypes. Have fun with it. The more you make it taboo, the greater the backlash will be. Like I said, this is a classic. The 80's was the best decade ever. May 29, 2006

Typical Hollywood Race film

As of this writing I am watching this on HD. Back in the day when this came on cable, I thought that it was foolish because the guy looked more like an Indian(black toom but Asian) than a regular African-American. Seeing it on HD, you see that the make up looks even worse.

This is you typical film in Hollywood designed to not only make fun of black by pretending to teach whites how they feel subconciously about blacks, but it is also an overtly racist film by trying show that a white man was shut out of an education by a mandatory black quota. They don't fool me. This is typical racism in film in the 1980's. Only After Spike Lee made it big did things begin to change. No more "N" words(without a black in the film), no more black or "soul brother" jokes, no more black women wh want to sex white guys(they never show the black guys sexing black women of course...) and no more idiot films such as these. This film has ALL of the black stereotypes in the book, not excluding the black basketball specialist. You know, kind of what you see in commercials today! A black man in sports. While the forcefullness these types of films has changed, the images are still here today, just disguised to make black people think that they are looking cool and being recognized. Blacks in Hollywood are only being recognized for sports, music, dance and all out foolishness.

Looking at it today, it seems totally foolish. It is worth watching just to see it, but as with most films, this is designed to brainwash the audience. Not for the postive of blacks, but for the subliminal "reverse racism" story. Every film has a messege and this film's messege is that black mave experience racism, but they get over and hurt white people in the end. January 21, 2006

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