Racial Stereotypes in Current Top Hollywood Films - Eat,
Pray, Love and The Kids Are All Right

Eat, Pray, Love 
reviewed by Naima Ramos-Chapman (ColorLLines) and Sandip Roy (New America Media)

The Kids Are All Right by Daisy Hernandez (ColorLines)

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Eat, Pray, Love and Leave?

by Naima Ramos-Chapman

ColorLLines Monday, August 16 2010, 4:25 PM EST

http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/08/eat_pray_love_and_leave.html

"Eat, Pray, Love," the film adaptation of Elizabeth
Gilbert's best-selling memoir, received mediocre reviews
when it was released last week. But the film's premise, the
journey of self-discovery for one modern, working white
woman, it's sure to inspire droves of other women to book
similar trips to faraway destinations - if they can afford
it. And it's all in the name of self-discovery. Sandip Roy
writes at New America Media that for white women, the more
exotic the backdrop, the better the degree of introspection.

It's not Gilbert's fault, but as someone who comes from
India, I have an instinctive reflex reaction to books about
white people discovering themselves in brown places. I want
to gag, shoot and leave.

The story is so self-involved, its movie version should've
been called, "Watch Me Eat, Pray and Love." In a way I
almost prefer the old colonials in their pith helmets
trampling over the Empire's far-flung outposts. At least
they were somewhat honest in their dealings. They wanted the
gold, the cotton, and laborers for their sugar plantations.
And they wanted to bring Western civilization, afternoon tea
and anti-sodomy laws to godforsaken places riddled with
malaria and Beriberi. The new breed is more sensitive, less
overt. They want to spend a year in a faraway place on a
"journey." But the journey is all about what they can get.
Not gold, cotton or spices anymore. They want to eat, shoot
films (or write books), emote and leave. They want the food,
the spirituality, the romance. [snip] I couldn't help
wondering where do people in Indonesia and India go away to
when they lose their passion, spark and faith? I don't think
they come to Manhattan. Usually third-worlders come to
America to find education, jobs and to save enough money to
send for their families to join them, not work out their
kinks.

When we remind ourselves that half of India's population
live below the poverty line it puts Gilbert's work in a
different perspective. Roy also points out that the film
follows the typical Hollywood formula of designating
"natives" to play superficial colorful characters that lack
depth and only exist to assist the protagonist's re-
awakening. Read more of Sandip Roy's review at New America
Media, and weigh in with your thoughts in the comments
below.

[Naima Ramos-Chapman is a journalism intern with ColorLines.
She believes that writing coupled with education and
activism is the key to advance social change. Since working
with ColorLines she has written on race, gender, and
immigration. Naima graduated from Brooklyn College in Spring
2010 with a B.A. in Journalism (Print) with a concentration
in Television and Radio. During her time at Brooklyn
College, Naima contributed to both school newspapers, the
Kingsman and The Excelsior as well as the CUNY blog
NYcitywatch.org. Prior to interning at ColorLines, Naima sat
on the advisory board of New York City's Youth Voter
Collective, an organization of youth activists from across
the country that mobilized youth and college students to
participate in the 2008 presidential elections.]

=====

She Eats Prays Loves (and Goes Home)

by Sandip Roy

New America Media Commentary August 13, 2010

http://newamericamedia.org/2010/08/eat-pray-love.php

For the longest time, I thought the 2006 bestseller "Eat,
Pray, Love" was a sequel to the 2004 bestseller about
punctuation "Eats, Shoots and Leaves."

Now I am enlightened. One is about the search for the
meaning of life. The other is about the meaning of a comma.

I confess I never read Elizabeth Gilbert's bestseller except
for browsing through a few pages in a copy sitting by a
friend's bedside. I enjoyed the writing. The story of
picking yourself up after losing your way has universal
appeal even if we all can't afford to recharge under the
Tuscan sun.

It's not Gilbert's fault, but as someone who comes from
India, I have an instinctive reflex reaction to books about
white people discovering themselves in brown places. I want
to gag, shoot and leave.

The story is so self-involved, its movie version should've
been called, "Watch Me Eat, Pray and Love." In a way I
almost prefer the old colonials in their pith helmets
trampling over the Empire's far-flung outposts. At least
they were somewhat honest in their dealings. They wanted the
gold, the cotton, and laborers for their sugar plantations.
And they wanted to bring Western civilization, afternoon tea
and anti-sodomy laws to godforsaken places riddled with
malaria and Beriberi.

The new breed is more sensitive, less overt. They want to
spend a year in a faraway place on a "journey." But the
journey is all about what they can get. Not gold, cotton or
spices anymore. They want to eat, shoot films (or write
books), emote and leave. They want the food, the
spirituality, the romance.

Now, I don't want to deny Gilbert her "journey." She is
herself honest, edifying and moving. I don't want to deny
her Italian carbs, her Indian Om's or her Bali Hai beach
romance. We all need that sabbatical from the rut of our
lives.

But as her character complained that she had "no passion, no
spark, no faith" and needed to go away for one year, I
couldn't help wondering where do people in Indonesia and
India go away to when they lose their passion, spark and
faith? I don't think they come to Manhattan. Usually third-
worlders come to America to find education, jobs and to save
enough money to send for their families to join them, not
work out their kinks.

This is not to say "Eat, Pray, Love"- now a major movie in a
theater near you - just exists in a self-centered air-
conditioned meditation cave and has no heart. But it
requires more than the normal suspension of disbelief when
Julia Roberts announces she will eat that whole pizza and
buy the "big girl jeans." We see her trying to squeeze her
Julia Roberts body into her jeans, struggling with the
zipper and we know this is a fine, brave actor at work.

She tries not to be the foreign tourist but she does spend
an awful lot of time with the expats whether it's the Swede
in Italy, the Texan in India or the Brazilian in Bali. The
natives mostly have clearly assigned roles. Language
teacher. Hangover healer. Dispenser of fortune-cookie-style
wisdom. Knowledge, it seems, is never so meaningful as when
it comes in broken English, served up with puckish grins,
and an idyllic backdrop. The expats have messy histories,
but the natives' lives, other than that teenaged arranged
marriage in India, are not very complicated. They are there
as the means to her self discovery. After that is done, it's
time to book the next flight.

But all through the film this is what I was wondering. Why
was she drawn to those three countries? Why Italy, India and
Indonesia?

Is it because they all start with I?

I, I, and I.

Not inappropriate for a film that is ultimately about Me,
Myself, and I. I travel therefore I am.

Nothing drove that home better than what happened after the
screening ended. I went down in an elevator crammed with
radiant women, all discussing when they teared up during the
film, and how much they related to it, and its message of
opening yourself up to the world. There was one woman in a
wheelchair in the elevator. After we reached the lobby, the
women, still chattering, marched out into the chilly San
Francisco night. The woman in the wheelchair remained
stranded behind the heavy doors.

[Sandip Roy is an editor with New America Media and host of
its radio show New America Now on KALW 91.7 FM in San
Francisco. He is also a commentator for Morning Edition on
NPR. He is a contributor to various anthologies including
Mobile Cultures, A Part Yet Apart - South Asians in Asian
America, Storywallah!, Q&A, Contours of the Heart etc. An
India-born immigrant, he now lives in San Francisco and
writes regularly for mainstream and ethnic media outlets in
the U.S. and in India. He is a co-host of the call-in show
Your Call and has appeared occasionally on This Week in
Northern California on KQED public television. You can read
this and other blog postings by him at
http://blogs.newamericamedia.org/sandip-roy ]

==========

The Kids Are All Right, But Not the Queer Movement

by Daisy Hernandez

ColorLines July 25 2010, 11:30 AM

http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/07/the_kids_are_all_right_but_not_the_race_politics.html

Every once in awhile, a Hollywood movie hits such a perfect
note of familiarity that you leave the theater feeling like
you just watched a film about your white friends and it was
funny, sweet--marvelous, even. And, as you'd expect, messed
up on race. Not messed up in a Mel Gibson sort of way. It's
nothing outright hateful, but rather annoying and mundane,
like when the white gay guy says his décor is, ya know,
"Asiany," and you debate whether to spill red wine on his
new, white rug or give him an Edward Said book.

This is the charm of Lisa Cholodenko's new summer hit, The
Kids Are All Right. Her white characters are so familiar and
even so likable that you want to believe all they need is a
better reading list. If only race relations were so easy.

Ostensibly, The Kids Are All Right is about two lesbian moms
and their teenage kids who want to meet their sperm donor
dad. It's an all-star cast with Julianne Moore playing
Jules, the flaky, new age mom, opposite Annette Bening, who
delightfully remade herself into the soft butch mom Nic.
There's Oscar buzz and critics are rightly praising
Cholodenko (High Art, Laurel Canyon) for the film's solid
script and the actors for stellar performances. Salon's
Andrew O'Hehire declared that the movie "ranks with the most
compelling portraits of an American marriage, regardless of
sexuality, in film history."

It's true. This is a film about two married people who are
bored by their middle age sex lives, worried about their
son's choice of friends, and still recounting with giggles
how they first met while arguing about how much one of them
is drinking. They're complicated, self-involved and, in
their best moments, genuinely loving.

From another perspective though, The Kids Are All Right is
also a revealing portrait of where the gay movement has been
headed for some time now: white suburbia, Mexican gardener
included.

The film is set in Southern California, where Nic and Jules
have a comfortable, three-bedroom home, arguments about
composting, a glass (or three) of red wine with dinner, a
daughter (Alice in Wonderland's Mia Wasikowska) and son
(Josh Hutcherson) testing the limits of parental authority.
They're the all-American, white family next door.

The political reference point for their home life is not a
group of pissed-off drag queens circa 1969. It's a Mad Men-
style 1950s nostalgia. Jules is the stay-at-home mom trying
her hand at a landscaping business and feeling that her
doctor wife doesn't appreciate her. Nic is the breadwinner
who has to have a drink when she gets home from work. The
scenario is inviting, familiar, a storyline about American
family life that we want to believe, gay or het.

yy-kidsarealright.jpgLike cinematic white heteros and gays
in San Francisco's Castro district, Nic and Jules' contact
with people of darker hues is limited. There's a black
restaurant hostess (Yaya DaCosta, a runner up from America's
Next Top Model), a Mexican gardener (Joaquín Garrido, Like
Water for Chocolate), and an Indian teenage love interest
(Kunal Sharma, The Cheetah Girls). By the end of the film,
the three people of color have been dumped, fired or left
behind in confusion.

To be fair to Cholodenko, she was probably just following
Hollywood's race rules. The moment a main character is
darker than white bread, the movie becomes about race and
doesn't appeal to a wider (read: white) audience.

But it's also a portrait of the white gay movement, which
has struggled with its race issues for some time now, most
publicly after Prop. 8 passed in California and hysterical
white gay boys blamed black voters for keeping them from the
joys of registering at Tiffany's. If that happened though it
was largely because the movement has failed to build
institutions where people of color, like those in The Kids
Are All Right, play more than minor roles.

A few months ago, a friend recounted walking into a meeting
with the directors of statewide LGBT organizations. It was a
majority white room. That the convening looked more like a
Tea Party gathering than a 2008 Vote Obama youth rally
should have been on the top of the agenda. It wasn't.

kids_are_alright_gardener.jpgPart of the success of
Cholodenko's movie rests in that, intentioned or not, she's
rendered on the big screen the racial realities of this new
gay world order. When Jules is struggling with guilt about
what she's doing outside her matrimonial bed, she thinks
Luis, the Mexican gardener she's hired, is smirking at her,
which he is. With comedic self-righteousness, Jules points
out that he blows his nose too often. "I have allergies,"
Luis explains. Fumbling through her words, Jules accuses of
him having a drug problem and fires him.

The audience laughs. I laughed. At Jules, at her hysterical
reaction, at how uncomfortably true it is that behind the
white lesbian niceties can sit the old racist stereotypes of
a Gov. Jan Brewer.

It's a small moment in the film but a reminder of how the
gay world mimics the straight one, where economic power goes
hand in hand with a racial hierarchy. Were Luis, the Mexican
gardener, to get home, take off his overalls and turn into a
flaming queen, it would be hard to argue convincingly that
he and Jules have a political struggle in common these days.
Not impossible, but certainly a stretch.

[Daisy Hernández is ColorLines Executive Editor. Her writing
focuses on race, gender, sexuality, and other issues
affecting young women of color. Born and raised in New
Jersey, she received a B.A. in English from William Paterson
College in 1997 and an M.A. in Journalism and Latin American
Studies from New York University in 2001. She is the
coeditor of Colonize This! Young Women of Today's Feminism
(Seal Press, 2002). She has reported and written editorials
for the New York Times, written a column for Ms. Magazine,
and published with Newsday, the National Catholic Reporter,
the Progressive Media Project, bitch magazine, Curve,
Criticas, and In These Times.]

==========

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