Do the white thing?

Thanks to my pal Andrew Merczak for finding this one for me...in fact, let's just use his own words to describe what you're about to see:

"Holy, holy. Consider this scenario, a remake of an American director’s 2 year old British comedy, now populated by mostly African American cast, directed by one of the whitest directors working. LaBute is/was Mormon and I can think of exactly 2 black characters in all his movies (Freeman in Nurse Betty, Jackson in Lakeview Terrace). I don’t know how to tactfully communicate that to the blog-world but this is weird—like Woody Allen’s Raisin in the Sun weird."

Wow. Well, buddy, for starters I guess the best way to communicate to the blog world this weirdness is to say it pretty much like you just did. Oh, and for the record, weird does not mean bad. Cross-cultural collaboration in a cinematic fashion is actually quite awesome in my book, so long as it rings truthful. The thought of a white director helming an almost entirely black project can either be thought of as somewhat off-kilter and possibly reinforcing the age-old social stereotypes (white guy in charge of black people working for him), or could be seen as a biracial attempt to collaborate, which is how I'd see this if it didn't happen to have Martin Lawrence in it. He sets everything back at least 20 years. For the record, I am fascinated by this project. To be honest, I hope it works, because I'd like to see more directors and studios willing to make projects featuring largely black casts that aren't necessarily "black" films. I'm all about racial harmony through mainstream movie making...again, provided they don't all feature Martin Lawrence. Without further ado, here's the trailer:

Aside from a few groaner lines, I really laughed at loud at "let's just burn him and get it over with." Yes, it looks a little broad-based and yes, there seems to be a touch of homophobia at the end, when Rock seems to suggest that it's not rational to be racist when you can be homophobic, but I'm hoping that's out of context. I'm intrigued, which is more than this project ought to warrant from me.