MovieChat Forums > The Defiant Ones (1958) Discussion > Oh sh!t! I thought he was screaming out...

Oh sh!t! I thought he was screaming out 'Colored!'

posted 14 years ago by jgroub
10 replies | jump to latest

Oops! How racist does that make me?

I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.

[–] guy_in_west_houston 14 years ago

I'm not a racist and I thought he was calling Cullen "colored" too. I think it was Curtis's pathetic attempt of a Southern accent.

[–] gribfritz2 14 years ago

Same here. Hell, he called him "boy" and the n-word several times, so why not? I think their names are mentioned briefly near the beginning, so it makes sense that a viewer might not remember Cullen's last name. When Curtis tells the woman his name is "Johnny," I was like, "oh, is it?"

[–] grrrdevin 13 years ago

When the film ended, it occurred to me that the phonetic similarity was probably intentional.

"I've been living on toxic waste for years, and I'm fine. Just ask my other heads!"

[–] J_Howlett1886 13 years ago

I thought he was saying colored too.

[–] johnnyb10 12 years ago

I just found out now that he wasn't yelling "colored".

[–] Howlin Wolf 10 years ago

I thought that at first, too...



"Your mother puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?!"

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] eholzapfel26 10 years ago

I didn't know that Poitier's character was named "Cullen" until I came here & looked it up. So I also thought Joker was calling him "Colored" the whole time, especially since Cullen made it clear early in the film that he wasn't going to stand for Joker calling him the N-word, so it just seemed that Joker started calling him (the slightly more acceptable, at that time) "Colored".

[–] !!!deleted!!! (49761343) 9 years ago

Until I read this post, I did not know he was saying, "Cullen." I thought he was saying "Colored" the entire time!

---
Emojis=💩 Emoticons=

[–] bossat2822 9 years ago

Wow!! I'm shocked at the people thinking tony said anything else except " cullen" it doesn't make anyone racist, as the OP states. But colored has never been a singular noun to describe anybody. Boy? The n- word? Yeah, people would use that singular to describe a black male back then. Colored was used as an adjective, or in a group. Never would you see an old racist sheriff going up to a black man saying "hey colored, what are YOU doing on this side of town?"