The casual racism of the 80s and other wacky prejudices.

[jaykays hat]

Originally Posted by giovannisorta

Jet Li's character in the Expendables was called Ying Yang or Ching Chang or something. It's not a major plotpoint, but still, it is 2010.

His name was Ying Yang. Don't see where the problem is? It seems to me that white people have more of a problem with not wanting to offend other races than the other races have with being offended. If Jet Li found the name to be racist then he would have got them to change it. I suppose Jason Statham's character being called Lee Christmas would be deemed offensive to non Christians, where does it all end.

[Jeffbiscuits]

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't find it offensive if a british character in a Chinese/Eastern film were called John Smith.

[jimmyjames]

Trading Places is pretty shocking to watch in terms of racism nowadays - Don Ameche's character comes out with some shocking views regarding black people and the "n" word is dropped liberally through the film. But the most heinous bit is when Dan Aykroyd shows up in blackface as a rasta... my jaw hit the floor. I guess we've come a long way in 20 years if this sort of thing was perfectly ok in the 80s!

[jaykays hat]

A whole bunch of my black friends love that film, so yet again its white people finding it offensive towards black people when black people are finding the film hilarious and not offensive at all. What my friends do find offensive though is white people presuming that they will be offended.

This film is about the ignorance of the white men and the coolness of the black guy, so its not really racist at all unless whites get offended by the film showing them as stupid and ignorant.

[volorg]

The thing that me and my friends resented the most growing up was that the black character always died 1st. It was like Hollywood said, ok we have to have a black guy, but please can we make sure he is killed off in the 1st reel, we don;t want to put off middle america. We used to time it to see how long he (it was always a he) would last.

George A Romero satirized this in Night of the Living Dead, making the black guy the hero, tho he gets killed at the end.

[malorla]

There's a moment in one of the John Hughes films, I think it's 16 candles, where the "hot guy" basically hands over his "hot girl" so-drunk-she's-passed-out girlfriend to the "charming nerd" and says he could probably violate her any-which-way and she wouldn't notice/remember which is uncomfortable, for me.

And the Man with the Golden Gun is unintentionally hilarious, when they put Sean Connery undercover as a resident of an island in Asia and they have fake-tanned him to within an inch of his life and he also wears liquid eye-liner.