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New York, 1:16 AM
Fri Dec 11
60 posts in the last 24 hours

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    Dsmvwl  Admin  Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×
    Image of A Message To Rudy A Message To Rudy
    11/16/09

    In reply to Is It Racist?: The British Couples Retreat Poster
    Slightly racist? (Was that an option?) Marketing, schmarketing. If it was just as question of photo composition, why not take out another couple and leave the black couple in? And if you say "Well, the black actors are probably not that well known in the UK and they want to sell tickets," then you're also trying to tell me that Brits are very familiar with Kristin Bell and Malin Ackerman (and I live in the U.S. and I don't know who they are). So yeah, not sure who's responsible (the US distributors who may have shuffled this version of the poster to the Brits without giving them an option or some Brit distributors who sais "Blimey! We can't have this!"), but, yeah, slightly racist. #couplesretreat
     Reply
    A Message To Rudy was starred A Message To Rudy was unstarred
    Image of BlinkyMcChuck BlinkyMcChuck
    11/16/09

    In reply to Is It Racist?: The British Couples Retreat Poster
    Eh. They try to act like there's no black people in Britain when it comes time for the lit prizes too, so, no surprises here. #couplesretreat
     Reply
    BlinkyMcChuck was starred BlinkyMcChuck was unstarred
    Image of david0296 david0296
    11/16/09

    In reply to Is It Racist?: The British Couples Retreat Poster
    I vote, not racist. The three couples make for a less busy poster. Visually it looks better.

    I vote, homophobic for the movie in general. Every single commercial I saw for this comedy abortion had some sort of gay panic joke: speedo clad guru's crotch hanging over some guy's face. Isn't that hilarious!

    I think the 12% rating on Rotten Tomatoes speaks for itself.
     Reply
    Phyllis Nefler promoted this comment david0296 was starred david0296 was unstarred
    Image of Poop Cooper Poop Cooper
    11/16/09

    In reply to Is It Racist?: The British Couples Retreat Poster
    Mmkay, I'm revisiting this post, because I kept on thinking about it, tried to talk myself out of it, and lost. Sorry everyone. I tried.

    Here we go:

    So by trade I'm a graphic designer, primarily doing web design for doctors and their practices. And just like any other field, the worst part about it is working with customers & clients.

    Without fail, I can expect two things when I give them an initial design: they want a bigger logo and they want more people of varying color in there.

    Their rationale here is that people are too stupid to know that their service caters to people of that particular race if they aren't represented on the poster. Since I rarely ever meet my clients in person, they say this to me assuming that I'm a white guy who is insensitive to the racial diversity of our modern culture.

    Reality is I'm not a white guy, but instead just a guy who looks at stock photos and goes, "that's a good composition" and drops them in, hoping the client won't care during presentation whether or not the gal in the photo is Asian.

    When they do notice, it's hours and hours of conversation amongst themselves, the doctor and their hell-forsaken board, about what the race ratio should be. How many white guys? Girls? How old? What kind of money do black people bring in right now, and what's that growth potential? So on and so forth.

    And ultimately, if I can't talk them out of it, I shoe-horn a ton of people onto the homepage, ruining the original composition and generally feeling like a sellout.

    Fact of the matter is, if you guys heard the discussion about why Faizon Love and Kali Hawk were featured on the American poster to begin with, you'd think it was more racist than their omission on the overseas version.

    Just think about when you've spotted racial diversity needlessly injected into any other ad and how disingenuous it felt. The only difference here is that it wasn't as easy to catch that it was tacked on right away.
     Reply
    bowleserised promoted this comment Edited by Poop Cooper at 11/16/09 2:43 AM Poop Cooper was starred Poop Cooper was unstarred
    Image of Flippyjack Flippyjack
    11/16/09

    @Poop Cooper: I'm with you, the poster without them is just better, less cluttered. It's a movie not a Benetton commercial. Putting them in the poster was a token move at best. #racism
     Reply
    A Message To Rudy promoted this comment Flippyjack was starred Flippyjack was unstarred
    Image of A Message To Rudy A Message To Rudy
    11/16/09

    @Flippyjack: Huh? If it's less clutter they were going for, why not take out one of the other couples and leave in the black couple? From the commercials I've seen, they may not have had the starring roles but were featured as much as Jason Batemen and that woman he's standing with in the poster, whoever she is. Unless Jason Bateman is a big star in the UK... #couplesretreat
     Reply
    A Message To Rudy was starred A Message To Rudy was unstarred
    Image of heywhat heywhat
    11/16/09

    In reply to Is It Racist?: The British Couples Retreat Poster
    Faizon Love is best known for being "Big Worm" in Friday and don't you forget it! #racism
     Reply
    heywhat was starred heywhat was unstarred
    Image of Poop Cooper Poop Cooper
    11/16/09

    In reply to Is It Racist?: The British Couples Retreat Poster
    I think the real debate is whether or not Faizon Love and Kali Hawk are "stars" #racism
     Reply
    A Message To Rudy promoted this comment Poop Cooper was starred Poop Cooper was unstarred
    Image of A Message To Rudy A Message To Rudy
    11/16/09

    @Poop Cooper: Yeah, they're not as big as Malin Ackerman. #couplesretreat
     Reply
    A Message To Rudy was starred A Message To Rudy was unstarred
    Image of jeetjet jeetjet
    11/16/09

    In reply to Is It Racist?: The British Couples Retreat Poster
    You need to add a "But what about White Chicks ?" button. #racism
     Reply
    superconnected (is it time to leave?) promoted this comment jeetjet was starred jeetjet was unstarred
    Image of A Message To Rudy A Message To Rudy
    11/16/09

    @jeetjet: Ah, the go-to movie for examples of reverse racism. #couplesretreat
     Reply
    A Message To Rudy was starred A Message To Rudy was unstarred
    Image of Richard Lawson Richard Lawson
    11/16/09

    In reply to Is It Racist?: The British Couples Retreat Poster
    I'm more offended by the continued farce that any of those men could actually land any of those women. #racism
     Reply
    Richard Lawson was starred Richard Lawson was unstarred
    Image of City_Dater City_Dater
    11/16/09

    @Richard Lawson: You and me both... This movie clearly takes place at a resort in TV SitCom Land.
    #couplesretreat
     Reply
    Edited by City_Dater at 11/16/09 1:16 PM City_Dater was starred City_Dater was unstarred
    Image of Rozelle’s Bagman Rozelle’s Bagman
    11/16/09

    In reply to Is It Racist?: The British Couples Retreat Poster
    I'm firmly in the Let's-play-the-1978-single-"Dreadlock-Holiday"-by-10cc camp. #racism
     Reply
    Rozelle’s Bagman was starred Rozelle’s Bagman was unstarred
    Image of D2theMatthews D2theMatthews
    11/16/09

    @Rozelle’s Bagman: It's interesting that Tyrone is the only black guy from the cast that is featured in the Snatch poster: [vanillabomb.files.wordpress.com] #racism
     Reply
    D2theMatthews was starred D2theMatthews was unstarred
    Image of kajsa kajsa
    11/16/09

    @Rozelle’s Bagman: And that's why I don't like cricket. #racism
     Reply
    Airvault promoted this comment kajsa was starred kajsa was unstarred
    Image of johnivdaly johnivdaly
    11/16/09

    @Cecil's Wielder: Vinny and Sol were far more central to the plot.
     Reply
    Edited by johnivdaly at 11/16/09 8:45 AM johnivdaly was starred johnivdaly was unstarred
    Image of lionboy lionboy
    11/16/09

    In reply to Is It Racist?: The British Couples Retreat Poster
    I'll throw in the Old Whitey McWhitneyness comment: I'm sorry. I barely know who the white people are in this movie. If name recognition helps sell tickets, I sorta get why....OK, it's racist. Wait, maybe it's weightist. #racism
     Reply
    lionboy approved this comment lionboy was starred lionboy was unstarred
    Image of Phyllis Nefler Phyllis Nefler
    11/16/09

    In reply to Is It Racist?: The British Couples Retreat Poster
    I'm firmly in the "Not (Any More) Racist!" camp. I mean, I think the US poster may even be worse. #racism
     Reply
    Phyllis Nefler was starred Phyllis Nefler was unstarred
    Image of pureblarney pureblarney
    11/16/09

    @Phyllis Nefler: Agreed. British shows are an interesting hybrid of weirdly racist (early-morning kids show with bit characters named things like "Mocha" and "Java") to defiantly [whatever the opposite of racist is, e.g. groovy]--Sir Trevor McDonald, Doctor Who and Freema Agyeman, Chiwetel Ejiofor in... everything. I would never accuse another country of overt racism while we still cast Morgan Freeman as the "magical negro" 95% of the time. #racism
     Reply
    pureblarney was starred pureblarney was unstarred
    Image of afterabe afterabe
    11/16/09

    In reply to Is It Racist?: The British Couples Retreat Poster
    This is not racist. They chose to use a different poster. No one was photoshopped out of the poster. When the NY Post photoshopped Ronald McNair out of the Space Shuttle Columbia photo after it exploded upon take-off in 1986, that was racist (McNair was African American- the second to go into space). My mother will never let me forget this.

    This is marketing- bad marketing, but simply marketing nonetheless. They may have gotten a few black Brits in the theaters if they'd used the American version of the poster. MAYBE.... #racism
     Reply
    ronniedobbs promoted this comment afterabe was starred afterabe was unstarred
    Image of ronniedobbs ronniedobbs
    11/16/09

    @afterabe: Shit. I never heard about the McNair incident. What the hell did they think was going to happen if people knew a black guy was on board? #racism
     Reply
    ronniedobbs was starred ronniedobbs was unstarred
    Image of MissNormaDesmond MissNormaDesmond
    11/16/09

    @ronniedobbs: More importantly, why the fucking fuck would anyone photoshop him out? I mean, how far into abject hood-wearing foam-at-the-mouth racism do you have to be to even want to do that? My brain hurts now. #racism
     Reply
    MissNormaDesmond was starred MissNormaDesmond was unstarred
    Image of topsy topsy
    11/16/09

    @afterabe: My God, I didn't know that the Post had photoshopped McNair out. Thank you for this bit of information, which only confirms that Rupert Murdoch is truly the most evil man alive today. As if I needed further confirmation.

    As for the poster, I don't think it's racist, it's just British which often is the same thing. #racism
     Reply
    topsy was starred topsy was unstarred
    Image of VioletViolet VioletViolet
    11/16/09

    In reply to Is It Racist?: The British Couples Retreat Poster
    I hate to repeat myself, but it's still not as bad as the Polish Microsoft ad where they awkwardly took out a black person and added a white person.
     Reply
    Edited by VioletViolet at 11/16/09 1:21 AM VioletViolet was starred VioletViolet was unstarred
    Image of Go Like Hell Machine Go Like Hell Machine
    11/16/09

    In reply to Is It Racist?: The British Couples Retreat Poster
    I'm not going to weigh in on whether it's racist or not, since it seems like a fantastically awful movie.

    But Time consistently has the slowest servers on planet Earth. It's like they are powered by hamsters. #racism
     Reply
    Go Like Hell Machine was starred Go Like Hell Machine was unstarred
    Image of ronniedobbs ronniedobbs
    11/16/09

    In reply to Is It Racist?: The British Couples Retreat Poster
    My sample size is admittedly small ("Love Actually," "Dirty Pretty Things," and "Secrets and Lies," among other examples), but I'm inclined to say that British films traffic in fewer offensive stereotypes about black people than their US counterparts. In which case, I'm starting to wonder if the folks behind the British version of the poster decided that it was "Couples' Retreat" that was racist in its depiction of black people, and opted to erase them as a way of implicitly distancing themselves from what I can only imagine is the typical tomfoolery handed to black actors in white movies.

    Anyway, I know the above guess is a stretch. My point is that I'm too busy pressing the "THE ENTIRE US FILM INDUSTRY IS RACIST" button to be outraged by this.
     Reply
    Edited by ronniedobbs at 11/16/09 1:08 AM ronniedobbs was starred ronniedobbs was unstarred
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