the cookout

Ang posted how much she hated this movie (and Loopy hated it too), but I thought it was funny. A bit amateurish on the few serious notes, but I laughed quite a bit.

I thought the stereotypes were supposed to be stereotypes of stereotypes, a sort of pomo self-referential kind of thing (not that I know what pomo is really). In other words, I didn't see it as a pathetic attempt to copy "happy ethnic family" flicks, but rather a snickering send-up of those types of films. Like Mike Myers's Scottish family in "I Married An Axe-Murderer"--another mildly entertaining satire of "happy ethnic family" truisms--i.e., I don't think Myers thinks real Scottish families are all THAT excited about haggis, and I didn't think that the makers of "The Cookout" really think that "country Black folks" would show up barefoot and drag a dead deer through the house.

In other other words, as I saw it, they're making fun of films that take their stereotypes just a bit too seriously, like, probably, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," which I never saw, or "Torchsong Trilogy" or "Moonstruck," which I did see. Where Ang lists the offensive stereotypes, I could just imagine producers sitting around saying, "what other ridiculous stereotypes can we lampoon here? Oh I know, what about country hicks--yeah--we can have 'em drag a dead deer through the house!" I mean, I think a stereotype is offensive when it's meant to be mocking the people it's referring to, but I thought these stereotypes were mocking stupid Hollywood "ethnic family" movies.

So in other words I wasn't offended. And while I did cringe when Danny Glover asserted his "manhood," I thought he had some of the best moments of the film while he was playing the uptight prick...("What? Negroes? In this neighborhood??") In fact, some of the moments that rang most true to me were his and Queen Latifah's mocking of the "middle-class Blacks get tough on the city youth" routine, which I have definitely seen! "Stand back whitey, I know how to handle these kids! You gotta be tough on 'em! Don't give 'em an inch!" In fact, it even made me feel a bit better about not wanting to buy into that routine.

I also laughed at the conspiracy theorist, and appreciated the moment when the skanky girlfriend tries to act more "Black" to keep her boyfriend from breaking up with her--reminded me of white teachers who try too hard to "get down with" their students of color.

I don't mean to make an argument out of this at all, cuz it's not like it was a great movie, and I probably wouldn't exactly recommend it. But, since everyone I saw it with totally totally hated it, I just felt like piping up with my two cents. I'm probably missing something important, and maybe the fact I enjoyed it just means I'm dumber than the movie--but who cares--I had fun, that's all I really wanted to say.