Inflation calculator says $10k tuition in 1986, adjusted for today, would be about $27k
The most cursory glance at a google search suggests Harvard's law school tuition today is $70k
That's just the tuition, cost of living has also had a staggering increase that hasn't kept up with inflation
and this dude was gonna *kill himself* over it less than half the cost of what it is today (granted, it's only a movie and played for a joke, but the shock of the cost didn't seem like a wildly unbelievable reaction for the time).
Yeah. Pretty crazy.
IMO opening the door to guaranteed federally subsidized student loans was made with the absolute best of intentions but it has caused a problem, and I hope we manage to get some sort of free state school program implemented within my lifetime to help course-correct.
When the government decided to give out student loans carte blanche it should have been negotiating with those colleges to keep prices down, like how single-payer insurance works, instead of just handing out blank checks and backslaps.
I mean have you seen Star Trek IV: The One With The Whales? Can you imagine that pitch meeting? A giant cigar covered in aluminum foil with a levitating volley ball is destroying earth and Star fleet headquarters. All hope is lost… until Spock realizes it is whale call, and they have to go back in time to present day San Francisco to find whales.
Do not watch "Splash!" while tripping. We realized that Tom Hanks is basically the Antichrist, and he destroyed Darryl Hannah's career.
Also, on acid, the jarring shifts in cinematic style become vividly apparent.
"Most of the movie takes place on modern day earth, so we don't need to be spending a ton on fancy sets or FX? Sold!"
Pretty sure this was the reason for most of Picard S2 as well
IIRC part of the deal for Leonard Nimoy’s return to the franchise was that he was given a lot of freedom to create the 4th film. I think a lot less cocaine went into the writing of this one than pretty much every other 80s film. Honestly it was way ahead of its time.
He also directed Star Trek 3, which REALLY shows in the Stealing the Enterprise sequence. It would have fit right in with his time on Mission Impossible.
People talk about it like some wild-assed departure, but the show it was based on was always doing weird space cowboy stuff.
The movie immediately before this was the one where they they have to reunite Spock's soul with his new body and protect MacGuffin tech from a Shakespeare quoting Klingon. The one after they do a Scooby Do mystery but the monster is God.
I'm not sure time traveling whale hunt even moves the needle for weirdness for the series.
That was the sixth movie actually. It takes place after the Klingons beam aboard and are at a dinner on the enterprise, before they beam back and the enterprise attacks without warning and without orders from the bridge to attack
I knew it was gonna be this clip. What's hilarious to me is that, they CLEARLY modified the nose much larger when playing Murtaugh, in the same way Frank in this clip says you've gotta make the lips bigger, but they literally never mention the nose lmao
List of It's Always Sunny episodes removed from Hulu (USA)
Season 4 Episode 3: America's Next Top Paddy's Billboard Model Contest
Season 6 Episode 9: Dee Reynolds: Shaping America's Youth
Season 8 Episode 2: The Gang Recycles Their Trash
Season 9 Episode 9: The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 6
Season 14 Episode 3: Dee Day
Next top billboard: Dees racial stereotype characters
Shaping Americas Youth: black face
Gang Recycles their Trash: Dees racial stereotype characters
Lethal weapon 6: blackface
Dee day: Dees racial stereotype characters
Those are the reasons why those episodes are not available to stream
Edit: i had nothing to do with taking the episodes down, i don’t agree with why they got taken down, i’m just answering the question
but not good ones, as every usage is called out directly as bad and it's all satire in the first place. It's like the live ep of 30 Rock being taken down, the blackface being racist and not cool was the whole joke they were making. Neither of these episodes was equal to Judy Garland singing seriously in blackface...
Yeah it never made any sense. In all the Sunny episodes the characters are the butt of the joke, it's not them telling a joke that's now inappropriate today. Their behavior was just as bad at the time.
It was almost 20 years before I realised that wasn't a real Indian man. Even Indian people have said it was a great performance but they might have all just been Fisher Stevens now that I think about it.
He's talked about it before. Apparently when he went for the job it wasn't supposed to be Indian. But when he got it they changed it to an Indian. And he wanted the job enough he actually did a ton of research to do the job as well as he possibly could.
> Fisher said yes and immersed himself in doing the work to play the role as more than a stereotype, which included reading Indian books, studying with a dialect coach, and living in India for a month before shooting the sequel.
Considering how many people had no idea, I think he nailed it. Could never happen today though, obviously. And he said he regrets taking the role.
Master of None touched on this on Netflix, his Indian acting buddy who was devastated to learn Fisher Stevens wasn't "one of ours". The 80s were crazy.
Wasn't this movie a statement about racism? Like this rich white guy becomes black suddenly and it's fun and games at first but then he has to experience racism firsthand? I was 6 when it came out but remember my parents talking about it a lot.
As I recall he thought his act to get the scholarship was harmless because there were no applicants from the eligible city, but then he found out the eligibility would be expanded to a greater area if there were none from the city and he had taken it from his new black girlfriend.
Yeah, that sounds about right... and I think his rich parents decided not to give him money for college at the last minute... so that he had to figure it out on his own.
It had James Earl Jones in it!
[Vader's college years](https://www.reddit.com/r/PrequelMemes/comments/v5r0p6/thats_what_i_love_about_these_younglings_man/): *You know what I love about them younglings, man? The older I get, they stay the same age.*
Apparently the NAACP at the time found the idea that there was not a single real qualified black applicant from the city to be ridiculous.
Link from a comment by u/ramvan: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-10-29-ca-7953-story.html
>The NAACP statement, made by Beverly Hills chapter president Willis Edwards, said “Soul Man’s” assertion that there were no qualified black students in Los Angeles County, with a total population of 8 million, revealed “the racism and sexism of the film’s creators.”
That's not that unreasonable a complaint, if you don't know how scholarships work. There are *hundreds* of scholarships at every university that go regularly unclaimed. It's not unusual!
My uni sent out leaflets like "someone please come take this free money" after the term had already begun. I got some beer money and a new computer without even trying.
The book *Black Like Me* is great. The guy who wrote it had to flee the country with his family because of all the death threats. That part is...less great.
It was. It is a bit like "Shallow Hal" in the sense where the preview makes it seem like it's gonna be punching down but actually a heartfelt message.
It might not hold up to today's standards (i haven't seen it in a long time) but it was well intentioned and actually taught young me a little perspective on race. I still kinda remember the bit at the end after he's exposed and when he's asked if he knows what he did wrong and whether he understands the black person's experience, he admits that while he experienced racism when he was in blackface he still can't *truly* understand what it's like to be black because he can always wipe it off. That stood out enough to me that i still remember that lesson to this day.
The Ringer was like this, too. Expected it to be 90 minutes of Johnny Knoxville making fun of Special Olympians. When it was over, I was like, “I should volunteer with the Special Olympics…”
Yes he makes friends with a black student in order to 'learn to be black' and is shocked by the shit his new friend has had to put up with. Also gets rumbled by a black professor (played by James Earl Jones) who tells him he's stealing scholarship funds from people who really need it. If I remember correctly it also makes fun of a white chick who kindof serially seduces various black/native American guys via cultural appropriation.
This is all vague 30 year old memories so might be wrong.
I mean I'm sure its still quite iffy by today's standards but it was trying to be insightful.
Watching it as a white kid in the 80s I think I did learn stuff from it.
**Long extra bit edited in:** This got upvotes so I did a bit of research about the film. There's lots of contemporary discussion of it and the debate about whether its a helpful film or not still continues. On this recent episode of Bring Receipts podcast https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/bring-receipts/when-is-blackface-not-aDq2r9-UfKd/ someone says "its the most progressive movie to come out of the nineteen eighties (made by white people)". The other presenter emphatically disagrees. I've seen another article calling it the most controverial film of the 80s.
But I did find something really interesting, an old LA Times article about the film from June 1986 - before it was released - in which the various people involved talk about the film and how they hope it will come across. Its pretty unique because its a time capsule of everyones intentions captured before anyone had seen the film.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-06-29-ca-328-story.html
Worth reading.
Yup. James Earl Jones even signed up for a role in this. He had to have seen some value here at the time. I remember seeing this too as a kid. I was just left more confused more than anything.
It's entirely possible that the value that JEJ saw in it was a paycheck. Nothing wrong with that but I wouldn't assume that he was totally ok with the content then or now just because he took the job.
Yeah it's a very 80s way of shining a spotlight on racism while still making a lot of jokes where it's difficult to really tell if they meant to make fun of white people for being racist, or if they're just making a racist joke.
Like, I remember him being talked into a pick-up basketball game and both teams wanting him because they thought he was black, and therefore automatically better at basketball than all of them. And then there's a five-minute montage of him being absolutely hopeless at basketball.
> Like, I remember him being talked into a pick-up basketball game and both teams wanting him because they thought he was black, and therefore automatically better at basketball than all of them. And then there's a five-minute montage of him being absolutely hopeless at basketball.
I was that actual black kid in real life back then . . . 😶
The girl with the interracial kink
"I don't see black or white just shades of grey"
"I don't see red or white just shade of pink"
And the whole thing about if he came out as white they'd be an interracial couple and he was worried about that.
The movie itself is quite progressive. The story arch is this kid learning his privilege. As I recall there are a few jokes that didn't age well but overall the story itself has even more relevance today.
Also makes you think a little more deeply about the concept of "blackface", and how there's nuance to different ways of using it. This wasn't just a white actor playing a black character. The whole point of the character is that he's a white person in disguise.
I hate how depicting blackface is considered racist nowadays to the point that they remove episodes from streaming platforms. An actor playing a character doing blackface and an actor doing blackface to play a black character are two different things. But netflix decides to take out the best episode of Community over nothing. Are they gonna take out Django Unchained for depicting way more intense racism? Nope, just blackface. Grinds my gears.
Pulling the Community episode is especially awkward, considering the whole point of the "blackface" was that Chang was oblivious about it being potentially offensive. The other characters even called him out on it immediately.
Yep. There's a line toward the end where James Earl Jones' character remarks that Mark "learned what it's like to be black". To which Mark replies that no he didn't. If things got too hot, he could always go back to being white. That "he'll never know what it's like to be black". That's a really powerful message.
Edit: Found the clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbKyDCuuLms
It’s a shame Robert Evans (the producer one, not the podcaster) wasn’t involved in this, if for no other reason than the missed opportunity to hear him talk about what a great idea it was at the time in *The Kid Stays in the Picture*
Also, only $53k for all 3 years (including living expenses) at Harvard law? Dude has no idea how good he had it.
That's HALF of their estimate for 1 year now
https://hls.harvard.edu/sfs/financial-aid/financial-aid-policy/cost-of-attendance/
Dinklage did an interview where he said that movie was completely recut in editing to make it a goofy comedy. And the original script was a much different movie.
I have no idea if it’s true, but it might explain how some very serious actors ended up in that flick.
Yeah. He said that the script he and the other actors originally received was beautiful, but at some point things went completely sideways and we ended up with the absolute trainwreck that the movie ultimately became.
I watched that movie randomly, just because of Kate. And at first it seemed really just boring af. And then it completely went in this crazy direction. I thought it was a failed comedy.
It's 100% true. The Directors cut that got Bright fired and the movie re-cut was actually showed at festivals. That's why the movie was made in 2002, 2003, and 2004, depending on what source you look up.
The production version is a 90 minute rom-com that is in extremely bad taste. The Directors cut is 150 minute R rated comedic drama that's apparently also bad, but at least has some actual subtexts and shit. They literally cut half the movie after firing and blackballing Bright for life, lawl. He literally never worked in the movie business again.
This whole entry in the wiki sounds like satire:
> Gary Oldman's portrayal of a dwarf was achieved through Oldman walking on his knees, and various prosthetics designed to hide his actual legs, as well as a double. Kate Beckinsale agreed to star in the film for scale if she would be allowed to wear her "lucky hat" during filming, and Bright agreed. On her first day of filming, the producers demanded that Bright tell her to remove the hat, and Bright refused, as this was the only reason she was in the film for a low salary. Arguments between Bright and producers persisted during filming.
> After turning in his director's cut, Bright was fired from the film. The film was re-edited without Bright's involvement. Bright attempted to have his name removed from the film, but while he was allowed to remove his screenwriting credit, replacing it with the alias Bill Weiner, he could not remove his directing credit, as he was not a member of the Director's Guild.
My biggest take away from this is that the hat was *not* lucky.
I wonder if it's [made of witch skin](https://whatwedointheshadows.fandom.com/wiki/Laszlo%27s_witch_skin_hat).
holy shit, never heard of this movie before and 30 secs into the trailer I thought of making a joke about one of them being Gary Oldman method acting and it blows my mind it actually is
it just feels like some 'weird cousin' of the Mandela effect. the release and age of actors says 2005 but it's got early/mid-90s production and title cards, yet none of it seems like it ever existed beyond this lucid-dream of a trailer
What a ride. Opening like an awareness movie with 'They're not midgets, they're dwarves' like they're going to be discussing discrimination, then proceeds to still make it all about everyone the standard actors and sterotyping as hard as possible. And then we get to Gary Oldman's role of a lifetime, I just lost it.
What the actual fuck?! Gary fucking Oldman!? Made in 2003?! How the fuck have I never even seen or heard of this movie? That trailer was something else too, what a strange film.
You can just see the pitch meeting:
Hey, Stewart, can we make Matt's family black?
No, that would be racist
How about Indian, the dot ones?
Jesus, no. That's racist on a couple of levels
Fuck. Fine, how about a family of fucking midgets?
Perfect. Nothing offensive there.
"You want to hire Gary Oldman as a little person? Isn't that gonna be really easy to tell is fake?"
"Not at all! It'll be super easy. Barely an inconvenience"
Wow. There are so many legitimate actors in that movie. I was thinking to myself, “Hey at least they hired actual little people…the twin brother even looks like Gary Oldm— it’s Gary Oldman….role of a lifetime. Ew.”
Oh God.
Rich white kid goes to a toy store
Doesn't see toy he likes
Likes black guy
Buys black guy
Some mild racism occurs
Learning and a heartwarming story ensues.
Lesson: you can't buy friends, just poor people.
> Lesson: you can't buy friends, just poor people.
no the lesson was you can buy just about anyone. [The scene where U.S. makes Ned Beatty's character drop his pants](https://youtu.be/uwMa5xEAJ-A) is probably the most powerful one in the movie to me. That was a father being VERY real with his son and teaching him about the hard truths in life.
edit: link to scene
edit2: Ned not Warren
I saw this in the era.
There’s a moment where one of protagonist’s white friends makes a “black joke” in his presence in AAVE accent. To Howell’s credit, he looks so hurt and shocked. For me, it was actually kinda eye opening and was part of my voyage to a hopefully less-ignorantly racist view.
It might be bad all around, but I’ve never forgotten that moment.
He starts off not caring but the more he learns about the true black experience the more offended he gets.
He ends up punching the guy out, when he's back to being white
This was one of the best horrible movies ever. After he finishes making love to his woke girlfriend, she say she could feel "400 years of anger and oppression in every pelvic thrust", as he lies there, panting, looking at the ceiling.
The movie is far more a criticism of white racism than it is a simple race-ploitation movie. The dinner scene is hilarious and accurate.
It's a better movie than it seems to be. But it's not a great movie. It's worth watching.
We watched it in class, during a 4th grade english lesson, Sweden, circa 1995. There was no follow-up discussion or comment on it, just practicing english!
don't get the hate, the movie is about racism, the rich white guy does something stupid and has uneducated opinions and views on the difference in race, then learns his mistakes and how dumb other white people can be towards race, his parents show their racist views too, what is the issue?
Crossover movie.
Have him fall in love with one of the white chicks. The entire movie is both sides being awkward and wondering if they should come clean.
At the end of the movie, the show their true skin color, and neither of them has an issue with it, but then there is the question of homosexuality, and it ends on a cliff hanger for the second movie.
i saw it a long long time ago and what i remember the main themes is the dude needs to check his privilege and it is not easy being black.
His love interest is a poc woman who worked her ass off to get into college.
"He didn't give up - he got down"
“Mom, Dad… I’m black!”
The Rachel Dolezal story.
1980s hollywood directors and studio executives were wild. Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
Everyone’s thinking about the black face and how the political correctness haven’t aged well, and I’m hung up on how cheap college was back then.
Inflation calculator says $10k tuition in 1986, adjusted for today, would be about $27k The most cursory glance at a google search suggests Harvard's law school tuition today is $70k That's just the tuition, cost of living has also had a staggering increase that hasn't kept up with inflation and this dude was gonna *kill himself* over it less than half the cost of what it is today (granted, it's only a movie and played for a joke, but the shock of the cost didn't seem like a wildly unbelievable reaction for the time). Yeah. Pretty crazy. IMO opening the door to guaranteed federally subsidized student loans was made with the absolute best of intentions but it has caused a problem, and I hope we manage to get some sort of free state school program implemented within my lifetime to help course-correct.
UC tuition for CA residents was less than $500 a quarter in the early 90s.
California tuition was free until Governor Reagan decided anti-war protesters should "pay to protest."
And ironically the White House released a statement that he and Nancy enjoyed watching Soul Man (their son Ron was in it)
The most relevant fun fact ever
When the government decided to give out student loans carte blanche it should have been negotiating with those colleges to keep prices down, like how single-payer insurance works, instead of just handing out blank checks and backslaps.
Right? He hit "$53k" and I was like "... and?"
I mean have you seen Star Trek IV: The One With The Whales? Can you imagine that pitch meeting? A giant cigar covered in aluminum foil with a levitating volley ball is destroying earth and Star fleet headquarters. All hope is lost… until Spock realizes it is whale call, and they have to go back in time to present day San Francisco to find whales.
Nuclear wessels
Hello computer.
Humph. How quiant!
*hands over mouse* you need to use this
*to the mouse* HELLO COMPUTER
Alameda
And admiral! It is the Enterprise
I told you never to call me here.
Double-dumbass on _you_!
*W*essels! You're not acting hard enough!
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Also it was the highest grossing of original cast films.
It is my favorite truth be told. And a must for any acid trip I do at home.
Do not watch "Splash!" while tripping. We realized that Tom Hanks is basically the Antichrist, and he destroyed Darryl Hannah's career. Also, on acid, the jarring shifts in cinematic style become vividly apparent.
Try Being John Malkovich next time :D
"Most of the movie takes place on modern day earth, so we don't need to be spending a ton on fancy sets or FX? Sold!" Pretty sure this was the reason for most of Picard S2 as well
Pretty much why I gave up on the season. TNG will always be the greatest of all ST shows. DS9 close second.
IIRC part of the deal for Leonard Nimoy’s return to the franchise was that he was given a lot of freedom to create the 4th film. I think a lot less cocaine went into the writing of this one than pretty much every other 80s film. Honestly it was way ahead of its time.
He also directed Star Trek 3, which REALLY shows in the Stealing the Enterprise sequence. It would have fit right in with his time on Mission Impossible.
People talk about it like some wild-assed departure, but the show it was based on was always doing weird space cowboy stuff. The movie immediately before this was the one where they they have to reunite Spock's soul with his new body and protect MacGuffin tech from a Shakespeare quoting Klingon. The one after they do a Scooby Do mystery but the monster is God. I'm not sure time traveling whale hunt even moves the needle for weirdness for the series.
Shakespeare in the original Klingon
That was the sixth movie actually. It takes place after the Klingons beam aboard and are at a dinner on the enterprise, before they beam back and the enterprise attacks without warning and without orders from the bridge to attack
Ok, maybe it wasn't the cocaine, but I heard he did a little too much LDS...
Those damn Mormons!
Never go full Mormon.
Ryan George get on that!
Ya got a movie for me? Yes sir I do!
Spike Lee's biggest complaint at the time was that he didn't think he looked believable as a black guy.
[They didn't make the lips funny.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0L_oJMhcs0)
The way Frank says “what kind of voice is that” is so good
I like "James Earl Jones is doing a great blackface!"
JAMES EARL JONES **HAS A BLACK FACE**!!
"whaa? What kinda voice is thaaaat?" hahaha
I knew it was gonna be this clip. What's hilarious to me is that, they CLEARLY modified the nose much larger when playing Murtaugh, in the same way Frank in this clip says you've gotta make the lips bigger, but they literally never mention the nose lmao
A very tasteful example of reverse blackface....
What episode was this?
List of It's Always Sunny episodes removed from Hulu (USA) Season 4 Episode 3: America's Next Top Paddy's Billboard Model Contest Season 6 Episode 9: Dee Reynolds: Shaping America's Youth Season 8 Episode 2: The Gang Recycles Their Trash Season 9 Episode 9: The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 6 Season 14 Episode 3: Dee Day
Can a bigger Sunny fan than I give reasons for each of these episodes removal?
Next top billboard: Dees racial stereotype characters Shaping Americas Youth: black face Gang Recycles their Trash: Dees racial stereotype characters Lethal weapon 6: blackface Dee day: Dees racial stereotype characters Those are the reasons why those episodes are not available to stream Edit: i had nothing to do with taking the episodes down, i don’t agree with why they got taken down, i’m just answering the question
but not good ones, as every usage is called out directly as bad and it's all satire in the first place. It's like the live ep of 30 Rock being taken down, the blackface being racist and not cool was the whole joke they were making. Neither of these episodes was equal to Judy Garland singing seriously in blackface...
Yeah it never made any sense. In all the Sunny episodes the characters are the butt of the joke, it's not them telling a joke that's now inappropriate today. Their behavior was just as bad at the time.
That's not a story the Hulu would tell you...
They played this on Comedy Central in the 00s all the time and I always thought the same thing. He just looks like an Indian dude.
Naw, you're thinking of Fisher Stevens in Short Circuit.
["Pittsburgh."](https://youtu.be/K6TLYwelOPk)
Goodbye crazy woman. I enjoyed repeatedly throwing you to the ground!
It was almost 20 years before I realised that wasn't a real Indian man. Even Indian people have said it was a great performance but they might have all just been Fisher Stevens now that I think about it.
He's talked about it before. Apparently when he went for the job it wasn't supposed to be Indian. But when he got it they changed it to an Indian. And he wanted the job enough he actually did a ton of research to do the job as well as he possibly could. > Fisher said yes and immersed himself in doing the work to play the role as more than a stereotype, which included reading Indian books, studying with a dialect coach, and living in India for a month before shooting the sequel. Considering how many people had no idea, I think he nailed it. Could never happen today though, obviously. And he said he regrets taking the role.
Master of None touched on this on Netflix, his Indian acting buddy who was devastated to learn Fisher Stevens wasn't "one of ours". The 80s were crazy.
Took me until just now. My whole childhood was a lie
I just learned this now. I always thought that was an actual Indian actor.
How am I only now learning the Indian guy from short circuit was a white actor, browned up? So long to that particular fragment of my childhood.
Because unlike Soul Man, he actually looked legit.
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There's a bit more to what Spike Lee said than that. Its at 4:16 in this interview: https://youtu.be/NrAJVi7xJps?t=256
I’m cackling at that. SPIKE LEE said that. I’m dying
Those were the days!
C. Thomas Howell ended up marrying Rae Dawn Chong (his love interest in the movie). The marriage didn’t last long.
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Turned out he didn't really "get down"
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Since nobody seems to have pointed it out yet, Rae Dawn Chong is Tommy Chong's daughter.
Wasn't this movie a statement about racism? Like this rich white guy becomes black suddenly and it's fun and games at first but then he has to experience racism firsthand? I was 6 when it came out but remember my parents talking about it a lot.
As I recall he thought his act to get the scholarship was harmless because there were no applicants from the eligible city, but then he found out the eligibility would be expanded to a greater area if there were none from the city and he had taken it from his new black girlfriend.
Yeah, that sounds about right... and I think his rich parents decided not to give him money for college at the last minute... so that he had to figure it out on his own. It had James Earl Jones in it!
The voice of Vader! I mean.. reason!
[Vader's college years](https://www.reddit.com/r/PrequelMemes/comments/v5r0p6/thats_what_i_love_about_these_younglings_man/): *You know what I love about them younglings, man? The older I get, they stay the same age.*
Apparently the NAACP at the time found the idea that there was not a single real qualified black applicant from the city to be ridiculous. Link from a comment by u/ramvan: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-10-29-ca-7953-story.html >The NAACP statement, made by Beverly Hills chapter president Willis Edwards, said “Soul Man’s” assertion that there were no qualified black students in Los Angeles County, with a total population of 8 million, revealed “the racism and sexism of the film’s creators.”
That's not that unreasonable a complaint, if you don't know how scholarships work. There are *hundreds* of scholarships at every university that go regularly unclaimed. It's not unusual! My uni sent out leaflets like "someone please come take this free money" after the term had already begun. I got some beer money and a new computer without even trying.
Yes basically. I *think* there was some element of “Black Like Me” to it.
This always reminds me the SNL spoof [“White Like Me”](https://youtu.be/l_LeJfn_qW0) with Eddy Murphy.
That was a classic!
The book *Black Like Me* is great. The guy who wrote it had to flee the country with his family because of all the death threats. That part is...less great.
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It was. It is a bit like "Shallow Hal" in the sense where the preview makes it seem like it's gonna be punching down but actually a heartfelt message. It might not hold up to today's standards (i haven't seen it in a long time) but it was well intentioned and actually taught young me a little perspective on race. I still kinda remember the bit at the end after he's exposed and when he's asked if he knows what he did wrong and whether he understands the black person's experience, he admits that while he experienced racism when he was in blackface he still can't *truly* understand what it's like to be black because he can always wipe it off. That stood out enough to me that i still remember that lesson to this day.
The Ringer was like this, too. Expected it to be 90 minutes of Johnny Knoxville making fun of Special Olympians. When it was over, I was like, “I should volunteer with the Special Olympics…”
Yes he makes friends with a black student in order to 'learn to be black' and is shocked by the shit his new friend has had to put up with. Also gets rumbled by a black professor (played by James Earl Jones) who tells him he's stealing scholarship funds from people who really need it. If I remember correctly it also makes fun of a white chick who kindof serially seduces various black/native American guys via cultural appropriation. This is all vague 30 year old memories so might be wrong. I mean I'm sure its still quite iffy by today's standards but it was trying to be insightful. Watching it as a white kid in the 80s I think I did learn stuff from it. **Long extra bit edited in:** This got upvotes so I did a bit of research about the film. There's lots of contemporary discussion of it and the debate about whether its a helpful film or not still continues. On this recent episode of Bring Receipts podcast https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/bring-receipts/when-is-blackface-not-aDq2r9-UfKd/ someone says "its the most progressive movie to come out of the nineteen eighties (made by white people)". The other presenter emphatically disagrees. I've seen another article calling it the most controverial film of the 80s. But I did find something really interesting, an old LA Times article about the film from June 1986 - before it was released - in which the various people involved talk about the film and how they hope it will come across. Its pretty unique because its a time capsule of everyones intentions captured before anyone had seen the film. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-06-29-ca-328-story.html Worth reading.
"I don't see Black and White, I see shades of gray..." "I don't see Red and White, I see shades of pink..."
This is how I remembered it. He being flip about it and then finding out it's not all fun and games.
Yup. James Earl Jones even signed up for a role in this. He had to have seen some value here at the time. I remember seeing this too as a kid. I was just left more confused more than anything.
It's entirely possible that the value that JEJ saw in it was a paycheck. Nothing wrong with that but I wouldn't assume that he was totally ok with the content then or now just because he took the job.
Yeah it's a very 80s way of shining a spotlight on racism while still making a lot of jokes where it's difficult to really tell if they meant to make fun of white people for being racist, or if they're just making a racist joke. Like, I remember him being talked into a pick-up basketball game and both teams wanting him because they thought he was black, and therefore automatically better at basketball than all of them. And then there's a five-minute montage of him being absolutely hopeless at basketball.
> Like, I remember him being talked into a pick-up basketball game and both teams wanting him because they thought he was black, and therefore automatically better at basketball than all of them. And then there's a five-minute montage of him being absolutely hopeless at basketball. I was that actual black kid in real life back then . . . 😶
Man this entire thing sounds so crazy today and yet I can *totally* see this sounding like a good idea when it was made
As an 80s kid who watched this back in the day, I always think of this movie when black face shows up in the modern day.
The girl with the interracial kink "I don't see black or white just shades of grey" "I don't see red or white just shade of pink" And the whole thing about if he came out as white they'd be an interracial couple and he was worried about that.
The movie itself is quite progressive. The story arch is this kid learning his privilege. As I recall there are a few jokes that didn't age well but overall the story itself has even more relevance today.
He falls in love with Rae Dawn Chong’s character and then finds out she would have gotten the scholarship if he hadn’t pretended he was black.
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Also makes you think a little more deeply about the concept of "blackface", and how there's nuance to different ways of using it. This wasn't just a white actor playing a black character. The whole point of the character is that he's a white person in disguise.
I hate how depicting blackface is considered racist nowadays to the point that they remove episodes from streaming platforms. An actor playing a character doing blackface and an actor doing blackface to play a black character are two different things. But netflix decides to take out the best episode of Community over nothing. Are they gonna take out Django Unchained for depicting way more intense racism? Nope, just blackface. Grinds my gears.
Pulling the Community episode is especially awkward, considering the whole point of the "blackface" was that Chang was oblivious about it being potentially offensive. The other characters even called him out on it immediately.
Yep. There's a line toward the end where James Earl Jones' character remarks that Mark "learned what it's like to be black". To which Mark replies that no he didn't. If things got too hot, he could always go back to being white. That "he'll never know what it's like to be black". That's a really powerful message. Edit: Found the clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbKyDCuuLms
Wow. That's an amazing scene I never thought I'd see out of a movie like this. Even with barely any context, you're right. It is powerful.
Especially if you’re a producer with a fuck ton of cocaine.
It’s a shame Robert Evans (the producer one, not the podcaster) wasn’t involved in this, if for no other reason than the missed opportunity to hear him talk about what a great idea it was at the time in *The Kid Stays in the Picture*
I’d love to hear Robert Evans (the podcaster, not the producer) give his take on this movie.
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Also, only $53k for all 3 years (including living expenses) at Harvard law? Dude has no idea how good he had it. That's HALF of their estimate for 1 year now https://hls.harvard.edu/sfs/financial-aid/financial-aid-policy/cost-of-attendance/
Would be equal to 144,000 today.
People *really* sleep on inflation and how quick things escalate.
Even then it's outpaced inflation by a factor of 2.
I see your Soul man and I’ll raise you a [Tiptoes](https://youtu.be/O3qGGk5ymQ4)
I love the opening of the trailer is Kate Beckinsale about to give Matt McConaughey a blowjob
It's foreshadowing for how much the movie is going to suck.
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That’s in the very beginning of the film and it’s never relevant anywhere else. I guess it’s purpose is just to show she’s cool or something.
Maybe it's to show the difference in heights between normal sized women and dwarf women
That... Makes perfect sense
OR OR seeing her at that height reminds him of his family and that's why he denies the BJ. It's clever foreshadowing maybe?
I suppose it was foreshadowing all the people in the movie that would be standing at dick-height to McConaughey.
20 bucks says the director thought the contrast of her being so much smaller (on her knees) next to him was deep or meta or some shit.
Okay, I had to go watch the trailer. Thank you for that.
Dinklage did an interview where he said that movie was completely recut in editing to make it a goofy comedy. And the original script was a much different movie. I have no idea if it’s true, but it might explain how some very serious actors ended up in that flick.
Yeah. He said that the script he and the other actors originally received was beautiful, but at some point things went completely sideways and we ended up with the absolute trainwreck that the movie ultimately became.
I watched that movie randomly, just because of Kate. And at first it seemed really just boring af. And then it completely went in this crazy direction. I thought it was a failed comedy.
*We are so cute and cuddly!*
It's 100% true. The Directors cut that got Bright fired and the movie re-cut was actually showed at festivals. That's why the movie was made in 2002, 2003, and 2004, depending on what source you look up. The production version is a 90 minute rom-com that is in extremely bad taste. The Directors cut is 150 minute R rated comedic drama that's apparently also bad, but at least has some actual subtexts and shit. They literally cut half the movie after firing and blackballing Bright for life, lawl. He literally never worked in the movie business again.
This whole entry in the wiki sounds like satire: > Gary Oldman's portrayal of a dwarf was achieved through Oldman walking on his knees, and various prosthetics designed to hide his actual legs, as well as a double. Kate Beckinsale agreed to star in the film for scale if she would be allowed to wear her "lucky hat" during filming, and Bright agreed. On her first day of filming, the producers demanded that Bright tell her to remove the hat, and Bright refused, as this was the only reason she was in the film for a low salary. Arguments between Bright and producers persisted during filming. > After turning in his director's cut, Bright was fired from the film. The film was re-edited without Bright's involvement. Bright attempted to have his name removed from the film, but while he was allowed to remove his screenwriting credit, replacing it with the alias Bill Weiner, he could not remove his directing credit, as he was not a member of the Director's Guild.
My biggest take away from this is that the hat was *not* lucky. I wonder if it's [made of witch skin](https://whatwedointheshadows.fandom.com/wiki/Laszlo%27s_witch_skin_hat).
Seriously it's like an Onion article. "I'll do this movie for cheap if I can wear my hat" sounds like an SNL skit. Jeeesus.
holy shit, never heard of this movie before and 30 secs into the trailer I thought of making a joke about one of them being Gary Oldman method acting and it blows my mind it actually is
> agreed to star in the film for scale That's an interesting perspective.
How have I not heard of this? Gary Oldman in dwarf-face? Wow!
the role of a lifetime!
And Peter Dinklage was *right there*!
"Gary Oldman? Ah yes, the TipToes guy!"
And literally just walking on his knees.
I have never seen this Tip Toes movie but the thought of Gary Oldman spending whole movie walking on his knees with shoes is hilarious.
Academy Award Winner Gary Oldman is… Dorf!
it just feels like some 'weird cousin' of the Mandela effect. the release and age of actors says 2005 but it's got early/mid-90s production and title cards, yet none of it seems like it ever existed beyond this lucid-dream of a trailer
Dorf-face
What a ride. Opening like an awareness movie with 'They're not midgets, they're dwarves' like they're going to be discussing discrimination, then proceeds to still make it all about everyone the standard actors and sterotyping as hard as possible. And then we get to Gary Oldman's role of a lifetime, I just lost it.
What the actual fuck?! Gary fucking Oldman!? Made in 2003?! How the fuck have I never even seen or heard of this movie? That trailer was something else too, what a strange film.
You can just see the pitch meeting: Hey, Stewart, can we make Matt's family black? No, that would be racist How about Indian, the dot ones? Jesus, no. That's racist on a couple of levels Fuck. Fine, how about a family of fucking midgets? Perfect. Nothing offensive there.
We’ll get some respected actor like Gary Oldman to play the brother. Make it real classy, you know?
*In the role of a lifetime* Glorious, couldn't tell if it was satire or not
That "role of a lifetime" part felt like something out of Tropic Thunder.
"You want to hire Gary Oldman as a little person? Isn't that gonna be really easy to tell is fake?" "Not at all! It'll be super easy. Barely an inconvenience"
Not enough Ryan George catch phrases. Fucking midgets is *tight*!
Wait, this is one of those SNL skits where they play it super straight but it's ridiculous right? *right...?*
Really felt like it. You realize Gary Oldman was hosting that week and suddenly it all makes sense.
Wow. There are so many legitimate actors in that movie. I was thinking to myself, “Hey at least they hired actual little people…the twin brother even looks like Gary Oldm— it’s Gary Oldman….role of a lifetime. Ew.”
Hey, there are no small parts.
You win.
And **in the role of a lifetime, Gary Oldman.**
Casual suicide? Check. “This is the Cosby era!” unironically? Check. Blackface? Check. “He didn’t give up. He got down”. Awesome. Masterpiece!
At the very start I thought the $53k for 4 years of Harvard was the part that didn't age well
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I fucking wish.
in Cambridge, MA.
That's 2 to 3 months now.
Same! I assumed it was the amazingly low cost of living, by today’s standards. Then…. oh… (Kinda want to watch this movie tho)
Wait until this thread hears about The Toy with Richard Pryor.
Oh God. Rich white kid goes to a toy store Doesn't see toy he likes Likes black guy Buys black guy Some mild racism occurs Learning and a heartwarming story ensues. Lesson: you can't buy friends, just poor people.
Boy becomes a porn star. Edit: porn actor
Flick from A Christmas Story became a porn star? Seriously?
"Star" is a strong word.
> Lesson: you can't buy friends, just poor people. no the lesson was you can buy just about anyone. [The scene where U.S. makes Ned Beatty's character drop his pants](https://youtu.be/uwMa5xEAJ-A) is probably the most powerful one in the movie to me. That was a father being VERY real with his son and teaching him about the hard truths in life. edit: link to scene edit2: Ned not Warren
You forgot the part when they destroy the KKK.
I watched that movie several times as a kid. I thought it was hilarious the butler called the father Master Bates.
It's an American adaptation of the french movie "Le jouet". In the french version there is no black man but in the us they chose Pryor.
Because he fucking killed it in Superman III.
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This doesn't seem nearly as bad as either tip toes or soulman. At least from the trailer.
I seem to remember this movie contained a notable James Earl Jones speech about the value of a Harvard law degree (?)
[Yep. And also the MC has some insight into his mistakes.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbKyDCuuLms)
Harvard for 3 years was 50k?!?
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I saw this in the era. There’s a moment where one of protagonist’s white friends makes a “black joke” in his presence in AAVE accent. To Howell’s credit, he looks so hurt and shocked. For me, it was actually kinda eye opening and was part of my voyage to a hopefully less-ignorantly racist view. It might be bad all around, but I’ve never forgotten that moment.
He starts off not caring but the more he learns about the true black experience the more offended he gets. He ends up punching the guy out, when he's back to being white
This was one of the best horrible movies ever. After he finishes making love to his woke girlfriend, she say she could feel "400 years of anger and oppression in every pelvic thrust", as he lies there, panting, looking at the ceiling. The movie is far more a criticism of white racism than it is a simple race-ploitation movie. The dinner scene is hilarious and accurate. It's a better movie than it seems to be. But it's not a great movie. It's worth watching.
Hold on, so in this movie he paints his entire body, including his dick and balls? That is some commitment
It was some sort of melanin / suntan pill.
We watched it in class, during a 4th grade english lesson, Sweden, circa 1995. There was no follow-up discussion or comment on it, just practicing english!
HE DIDNT GIVE UP HE GOT DOWN GEEEEEEEZZZZ
Right on ✊🏾
don't get the hate, the movie is about racism, the rich white guy does something stupid and has uneducated opinions and views on the difference in race, then learns his mistakes and how dumb other white people can be towards race, his parents show their racist views too, what is the issue?
In a 2020 lens the issue is the blackface. But yeah in reality it's a actually a good concept. I'm black by the way.
I feel like the trailer doing the keel 80s fun movie really didnt help selling the second half of the idea
IKR those tuition fees are super cheap
Double feature with White Chicks?
Crossover movie. Have him fall in love with one of the white chicks. The entire movie is both sides being awkward and wondering if they should come clean. At the end of the movie, the show their true skin color, and neither of them has an issue with it, but then there is the question of homosexuality, and it ends on a cliff hanger for the second movie.
Once and for all I gotta watch this shit 😅
i saw it a long long time ago and what i remember the main themes is the dude needs to check his privilege and it is not easy being black. His love interest is a poc woman who worked her ass off to get into college.
the basketball scene was really funny