Cinema isn't always the reconstructed, thoughtful Fox Searchlight theme park it'd like us all to believe it is. In its effort to include people of all cultures and nationalities, sometimes it backs itself into a corner. And that corner is daubed with the phrase "RAMPANT RACIAL STEREOTYPING".
Who knows why it happens - in many cases one would assume actors of "authentic" racial background would be cheaper than the stars who end up mangling their accents and cultures - but, like death and Angela Bishop, it is one of life's dreary certainties.
So, let's take a stroll through a moving picture hall of shame, shall we? Not all of it is as olden-times as you might assume...
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10. Hans Gruber (Die Hard)
I should note from the outset that I lovelovelove this movie, BUT for sake of argument, Alan Rickman's performance as baddie Hans Gruber and his troop of merry Aryans is just one example in a long line of evil dudes of non-specific Eastern-European origin. Are they Chermans, or Schweeds, or Ruskies, or wild Serbians? Who knows, but they sure do talk funny and get angry lots.
9. Hugh Stamp (MI:2)
Playing an evil (aren't they all?) Seth Efrikan henchman in John Woo's mystifyingly Australia-set
Mission Impossible sequel, it's any wonder Richard Roxburgh didn't storm about looking for some kaffirs to round up. Got to watch out for the blecks!
8. Every single Jamaican character in Cool Runnings
As the Jamaican athletes in
Cool Runnings were, you know, athletes, we were at least spared any moments of them getting 'igh on the 'erbal for I and I peace one love Jah Jah praise Jah etc. However, did you also know that none of the "Jamaican athletes" in
Cool Runnings were actually, you know,
Jamaican?
7. Crazy, inbred Southerners (first spotted in Deliverance)
Powerful as certain moments of
Deliverance were, we have it to thank for injecting the bum-fucked-by-inbred-Southerners myth into popular culture, which has stretched as far forward as the recent
Harold & Kumar sequel (which featured a brother/sister husband/wife duo who lived in a tricked out trailer with their randy, Minotaur-esque son locked in a basement).
6. Speedy Gonzales (various Looney Toons "adventures")
Mexicans! They sure are lazy and brown, huh? Oy, no es bueno! See also: every single advertisement perpetrated by the clowns over at
Old El Paso, who want us to believe that all Mehicans hang out in hacienda-style terraces all day while cooking up a pre-packaged and processed storm of simmering glop. Arriba!
5. (Australia)
How 'bout those magical Aboriginal types, eh? Anthony Carew said it best in his end-of-year film round-up for
Inpress: "One day, me watchem the big revisionist-history magic picture story. It starts out in a faraway land called Eng-a-land, but soon it comes to this land, a land of the olden time clichés, and the big bloody bad dialogue, and the big cheeky howling racial stereotypes, and the funny-looking white-lady whose facial muscles no bloody move no more. This land is a land me and Mister Baz, we callem: Australia!" Quite.
4. Long Duc Dong (Sixteen Candles)
The fact that Dong's onscreen appearances are regularly heralded by a LOLAZN-style gong hints that John Hughes' teen movie masterpiece suggests the late writer/director could have done with a little venture into, you know, neighbourhoods where more than 0.01% of the locals are non-white.
3. Tonto (The Lone Ranger)
Hey, me have heap good idea! You make-em big talking picture story about cowboy, get-em brave Indian to help Kemosabe ride walking horse! You like idea? Me send smoke signals to Hollywood, get ball rolling.
2. Mudflap & Skids (Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen)
This execrable sequel (WHY, MICHAEL BAY, WHYYY?) was repugnant for many reasons - personally, I really "enjoyed" watching a giant Decepticon anally rape a cement mixer in Egypt - but it was hard to go past the "black" Autobots, Mudflap and Skids. These buck-toothed champs were one second of cinema away from looking for a watermelon-shaped can of petrol.
1. Mr. Yunioshi (Breakfast At Tiffany's)
Imagined studio think-tank: "Hey, it's 1961, shall we get a real Japanese actor to play landlord Mr. Yunioshi?" "Nah, let's just let Mickey Rooney handle it; he can wear some fake Jap teeth." "Great idea, Fellow Exponent Of Cinematic Racial Harmony, now, let's have a cigar."