ASSUMED RACISM

By Kristin Scheimer

I recently saw the film “Home” with my 8-year-old goddaughter, Joanna.  We both loved it.  It was a fun little romp about an unlikely friendship between an alien and a human girl.  Oh yeah… and there’s a cat.

Joanna and I were both cheering for the heroes by the end of the film.  A nice bonus was Sheldon Cooper voicing the alien, Oh.  Well Jim Parsons, but he’s Sheldon to us as we are both huge fans of “The Big Bang Theory”.  I even wrote a spec episode of the show… but I digress.

The film fully entertained us.  I wasn’t sure why Tip, voiced by Rihanna, a girl who recently moved from Barbados, only had a touch of an accent, but it was just a momentary “huh?” when Tip talks about her recent move. 

Otherwise, Rihanna gave Tip a fun personality and her songs added a nice touch to the film.  Well done, Dreamworks… almost.

A while back I shared an article that talked about the marketing of “Home”.  The main character of the film is a little black girl named Gratuity - her friends call her Tip.  This article pointed out that in most posters for the film, this main character was nowhere to be seen, but in black neighborhoods, she was a large part of the poster. 

And it’s true.  I live in Los Angeles and driving around, I saw it.  Now, this is a kid’s film, so the target audience for this film is kids.  Joanna told me about “Home” before I’d even heard of it.  She sees the commercials.  She can access the youtube trailer on my iPhone… better than I can.  And looking out the window of the car, she sees the posters and billboards, so this marketing campaign is most certainly reaching this little girl.

I can absolutely guarantee you 100% with zero doubt that Joanna’s interest or lack of interest in a film has nothing to do with the race of the main character.  She’s 8 years old.  Tip’s race isn’t really significant to her.  She wanted to see the film because it looked good.

So why would these marketing geniuses think that they had to omit Tip from the posters in non-black neighborhoods?    It’s something I’m going to call “assumed racism”.  They are assuming, presuming, presupposing that non-black parents (or godparents) couldn’t possibly want themselves or their child to see a film with a black girl as the main character.  And I take offense to that.

I’m a grown woman, I live in this world, so I’m not naïve or idealistic enough to say “race doesn’t matter”.  I know what race is, and I know its significance in our society, but I am also not – like most people I know– only in favor of things of my race.

First of all, that’s an ambiguous concept: my race.  I have blonde hair and blue eyes. For all intents and purposes, I fall under the category of “white girl”.  And yes, I’m German, Swedish, Irish and English (royalty if you wanna get picky about it), but I’m also Armenian and ¼ I don’t even know because my paternal grandmother was adopted.  I’m more Armenian than anything, but to the world, I’m white, and therefore that means I only like white things?

Well, to the advertisers who think that, you can kiss my very amble derriere (that was my Armenian side!).  I love the show “Empire”. 

I’m addicted to it.  Yes, it’s a show about black people, and it’s freaking amazing:  the writing, the acting, the music… Cookie.   It’s a great show, black, white, green or purple.  It’s a GREAT show.  I’m trying to imagine what the posters would look like if the same people who promoted “Home” promoted “Empire”.

So, “Home” marketing team, if you were promoting “Empire” you wouldn’t market it to me?   Is that what you’re saying?  Or would you just hide all the black people?  Do you think I would have no interest because it’s a “black” show?   That’s assumed racism and I won’t stand for it.  In fact, if I could, I’d send Cookie after you!

This same marketing strategy was launched with the remake of “Annie”.  Billboards in non-white neighborhoods had no sign of the black actors in the film, whereas they were prominently displayed in black neighborhoods.

This was even more ridiculous because the entire premise of the remake was that it was a “Black Annie”.  Now I’m not gonna weigh too far into “Annie” because I didn’t see it.  Maybe I will one day, but here’s one of my reasons for not wanting to see it.  I teach private singing lessons, and my students have almost exclusively been little girls who want to sing show tunes.  One can only hear “Tomorrow” and “It’s a Hard Knock Life” sung by little girls, who are learning to sing, so many times without wanting to tear your hair out.  (My current voice student, Penelope, is the exception – and I’m not just saying that because she might be reading this!)  I don’t ever need to see another production of “Annie” as long as live, whether it be white, black, Asian or… alien. 

However, the biggest issue I have with it is simply this: IT’S A REMAKE!  As someone who has written a rather vast number of ORIGINAL TV and Film projects, I take enormous offense to the mass production of remakes that is the latest Hollywood trend.  To that I say, have some balls, Hollywood, and try something new! 

And when you do that - for example making an animated feature with a black star - don’t hide it!   If there is one thing I have heard over and over by industry professionals is that NO ONE knows how the public is going to respond to a film or what they’re going to want to see.

However, these misleading billboards imply that whoever is behind this marketing strategy has made the assumption that many people won’t respond well to an animated film starring an black main character. 

Did the marketing strategy for “Brave” include hiding the red-headed Merida from all but Scottish neighborhoods? 

No.  And I am certain there wasn’t a single meeting discussing whether or not to feature THIS lead on a poster.  Why?  Because Merida is a “normal” animated feature lead.

For Pete’s sake, can we please stop thinking of white as “normal” and everything else as – to borrow a phrase from a complete idiot – “demographically symbolic.”  In response to Hillary Clinton’s announcement that she was running for President, NRA Executive, Wayne La Pierre, said “Eight years of one demographically symbolic President is enough.”

In other words, women and African Americans don’t make “real” Presidents.  They just make “demographically symbolic” ones, and we tried it… we didn’t like it, so let’s get back to having a “normal” President.  You know, a white man. 

White male Presidents aren’t normal.  This is simply the demographic designation of all the Presidents prior to President Obama. 

President Obama is not the African American President of the United States, he is THE President of the United States.

Tip is not the African American star of “Home”, she is THE star of “Home”.  Why go to all the trouble to create her and then hide her?  If you really think this will hurt ticket sales, take a tip from Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, who said, in response to Tom Stobhar from the Corporate Morality Action Center expressing concern that Starbucks’ backing of gay marriage was affecting the company’s earning, “Not every decision is an economic decision”.

Oh and while we’re at it, can we stop calling it gay marriage and just call it marriage?  Wait.  Sorry.  I’m getting ahead of myself.  That’s a future blog article.  Trust me… it makes sense in context.

Anyway, here is my last rant to the marketing team behind the campaign for “Home”: Do not market to racists.  Ignore them.  Pretend they don’t exist and for goddess’ sake, stop assuming everyone is!

 I shall now gracefully step off my soapbox.  Thank you for listening.