MovieChat Forums > Lottery Ticket (2010) Discussion > 'OMG, Racist against white people!' What...

'OMG, Racist against white people!' What?

posted 14 years ago by Indie_Mod
2 replies | jump to latest

The idea is that this is meant to be an urban comedy strictly for the black community. They wanted to produce something that they could relate to. I have no problem against doing that, but isn't this kind of an insult?

I think if this is racist at all, it's racist toward black people rather than whites. I haven't seen this movie, and I don't plan to, but based on the trailer and promos, they are illustrating all of the negative stereotypes of black people. The characteristics of some of the people I saw in the promos are reminiscent to the old minstral days.

What I'm saying isn't anything people haven't heard before. People have said the same exact thing about Flava Flav and Lil Jon. I'm not even against parody, but I don't think this was intended to be a parody--I think this was made to be a legitimate comedy.

The second time I saw a preview to this movie, I was watching TV with one of my friends (he's a black guy). We saw the promo and he roled his eyes and sarcasticly said "Oh good, we needed another one of these." We then went on to talking about comedies that surround race.

He made a point since I'm Jewish and he's black. It was this: "You guys seemed to have made it to the mainstream in a way of parodying your race but without being insulting about it--it's almost a requirement now. We have indie comedies like 'Black Dynamite' that do the same but they won't be mainstream for awhile." We then agreed that Chappelle's Show was the closest there was to a hilarious and mainstream approach to respecting the intelligence of black comedy.

Look, I'm not black, so my opinion is one of an outsider, but this just seems insulting to black people, to all people of this generation and to today's comedy. A lot of comedies come out still and are far behind, both the blackest of the black and the whitest of the white, and this happens to be one of them. It's not even the concept of the story that bothers me--but holy jeez, this seems like it was just done in all the wrong ways.

[–] lambiepie-2 14 years ago

First let me say something I think some folks needs to wrap around their heads:

Just because one has 'a friend' of an ethnic group, do not accept that everything he/she says is reflective of the opinion of that entire ethnic group.

Now that that's out of the way..Lottery Ticket seems like a fun little romp that is looking at something kinda interesting in these hard economic times, in a segment of a predominately African American community: "What if you won the lottery?"..and "Your young adult son is in charge of taking care of filing it for you". Comedy should ensue - as adolescents and money are usually a mix for disaster. Add over-zealous friends, family and neighbors, and you might get a chuckle or two.

From the trailers I saw, the filmmakers seemed to dive into every old Black film-making genre and character-type to poke fun at it...and at the idea of the Lottery in general. If you didn't get that, it's okay...just my little view among thousands.

And trailers these days have become SOOOOO misleading...but then again, a few have been spot-on. Only way to take care of that is to see the movie in the theater, wait for DVD, or cable or skip it altogether. (If you're curious about my vote....I'm in the DVD line for this one; just like with Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. And believe you me, I do not judge how all all white people act by those trailers. That, in my opinion, would be a myopic and unfair view of a group of people.)

Youth does NOT rule. I know. I was young once.

[–] Indie_Mod 14 years ago

Fair enough rebuttle. I wish I had included some of my other remarks on this movie with this statement since some of it seemed a bit unfair. For example the "friend" remark; I know, he's not the embassador of the black community, but my statement was that it was one fair opinion from an inside. To be honest, he's one of the guys that says "I hate the term 'African-America' because I'd rather not hyphenate my nationality. I'm black, but I'm American."

In another post, I defended this movie against being racist purely for its money theme. I stated that there have been hundreds of money movies that had greed, thievery, etc. etc. in it. But that wasn't my reason for bringing up this statement.

However, you did say that you think this is making fun of the urban comedies and only from what I've seen in the promos, it looks like it's just part of it. You are about one thing: Previews and trailers mislead people a lot of the time. This might be another one of those situations.

I can't even confirm that this movie is racist without seeing it as much of what I'm seeing might be out of context. Maybe it'll be addressed in it--I don't know. If I said it in my previous post, I have to take that back and say that what I meant to suggest was that it's being marketed as something that reminds me of the minstral days with negative stereotypes.

My views are only as one from a white guy and someone who hasn't seen it yet. I got my two sense from someone who is black, but like you said, he's one person, not an entire group--I whole-heartedly agree with you on that.

Lastly, I have no problem with anyone who wants to see this movie. I know there are some movies that are flat out dumb that I absolutely love. I guess I should've stuck to my main point in saying that this in no way seems to be racist towards white people. It seems more racist against black people, but I'm not even sure it is yet.