MovieChat Forums > Sofia Coppola Discussion > does she have a race problem

does she have a race problem


tough article

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2017/07/14/sofia-coppola-has-race-problem-no-excuse/

reply

[deleted]


As a person of color, I find that offensive, and those who know me know I don't take offense at just anything. I think most of us would appreciate an edit (I didn't quote you for that reason).

reply

[deleted]

As a person of color, I find that offensive, and those who know me know I don't take offense at just anything. I think most of us would appreciate an edit (I didn't quote you for that reason).


I can't tell if you're being serious or not because I find it hard to believe that anyone could be so naïve when dealing with the blatant anti black, white supremacist trolls on this board.

reply


I'm quite serious, but I also believe in giving someone an opportunity to retract something they said without having them silenced, called names, or otherwise punished. We've all said things that we didn't truly mean at one time or another for different reasons. Maybe he thought he was being funny.

reply

Its been fun to watch what is goign on with celebrities.

reply


That's one of those pay sites, but here's a link to something we can read without subscribing:

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/07/sofia-coppola-beguiled-racism-backlash

This is clearly one of those situations where you're f***ed if you do and f***ed if you don't. There's no winning with Social Justice Warriors. They hunt for trophies wherever and whenever they can ambush someone, and don't care whose head they display on their walls.

The only upside to this is when they eat their own..



reply

She's a nice woman who made a movie. And as Hitchcock famously said: "It's just a movie."

reply

Paywall blocks your link. What does the article state? I'm not paying $3 to read an Op-Ed

reply

https://www.indiewire.com/2017/07/sofia-coppola-the-beguiled-backlash-response-1201855684/

reply

So basically she can account for her choice and further backs it up with historical fact. What is curious to me is if she feels that the source material fell short in its depiction of black slaves then why did she give the writer the honor of having the novel adapted in the first place?

reply

A more curious issue to me is, "Why not just fix the character if the original was a stereotype?" Seems like a load of bullshit to me, like if I had shot a reboot of Mr. Moto, made him white and argued, "Well, the original was an outdated Japanese stereotype, so I decided to make the character white."

In other words, she could've just made the black character less offensive rather than drop her.

ETA: Just looked more into this movie and, holy crap, I remember the 1971 version starring Clint Eastwood. Now Coppola looks like even more of an asshole. If the Eastwood version is true to the story, then it's definitely not true that the character was just a "side character." She was equal to all the other side characters.

reply

Not everyone can run fast.

reply

She's like Woody Allen, in that she makes films largely set in the narrow segment of society she knows best. and you don't want to see movies about that segment of society and the white people in it, nobody's making you watch her movies.

Some people have a narrow artistic focus, and if that's their vision then what's to be gained by urging them to change.

reply

Some people have a narrow artistic focus, and if that's their vision then what's to be gained by urging them to change.


I agree with you. But then insular people like that should keep their mitts off stories that go outside of their "narrow artistic focus." This is what this controversy boils down to. You want to do all-white movies, then do your vanilla all-white movies, but then don't do adaptations of stories or cultural periods that have a cross-section of people and then conveniently leave out the non-white characters.

Funny you bring up Woody Allen, because he ran into the same trouble with a play he wrote based in Harlem. It was based in Harlem--at the height of the Harlem Renaissance/Jazz Age mind you--but he only wanted white actors.

reply

I think Woody's body of work mostly reflects his own life experiences and memories growing up. It's not really an all white, European Jewish one either but it's mostly that but that fits the world he is depicting. I never really thought of him as a director who makes movies with a "message". I never read about the controversy over his Harlem play so I'll look that one up.

reply

And I agree with YOU!

The fact is, some people have a narrow vision, and frequently when such people try to step outside their focus and make art about different sorts of people, the results can be unimpressive. Either they don't understand people from other groups as well as they think they do, or they end up making people from other groups talk and act like the group they focus on. I mean, if Woody Allen made a movie about the Harlem Renaissance, he's either have the characters talking like the same over-educated upper-middle-class types he puts in all his movies, or he'd get African-American culture totally wrong, and either way would suck. So if he wants to keep making movies, he doesn't really have many options other than to keep focusing on sophisticated New Yorkers, as he doesn't understand anyone else.

But maybe whoever the hell is funding him might want to pass on a couple of his projects, and fund someone who could actually make a good movie about the Harlem Renaissance instead.

reply

It's very likely Woody Allen could make a good movie about the Harlem Renaissance, particularly in view of his knowledge of jazz and New York. John Ford wasn't a cowboy. Orson Welles wasn't a publishing magnate. Alfred Hitchcock wasn't a psychopath or psychotic. Steven Spielberg isn't a World War II infantry veteran. There is no reason to assume Allen doesn't understand anyone other than sophisticated New Yorkers.

reply

I can’t read the article without buying a subscription, could you possibly post the questionable quote she made?

reply

https://www.indiewire.com/2017/07/sofia-coppola-the-beguiled-backlash-response-1201855684/

reply

I don’t see anything inappropriate, she is just trying to tell the story that she wants. If it’s good it will probably be successful, if she doesn’t tell it well then it will probably tank. I do not see any attack on anyone because of their race.

reply

No, she doesn't have a race problem. Loony Lefties who constantly slander innocent people as "RACISTS" have a race problem.

reply