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Uncovering The Truth About Racism In Movies

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ABOUT RACISM BEYOND UNCOVERING THE TRUTH MOVIES 1

“Uncovering the Truth about Racism beyond Movies”

Joshua A. Paller and Jerome Gandionco

Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila

UNCOVERING THE TRUTH ABOUT RACISM BEYOND MOVIES 2

Racism is something we 've all witnessed. Many people fail to

believe that race isn’t a biological category, but an artificial classification of people with

no scientifically variable facts. In other words, the distinction we make between races

has nothing to do with genetic characteristics. On the modern means of entertainment,

people tend to ignore that some of what they pay to see are somewhat degrading the …show more content…

This is not necessarily a

failing of science fiction, but in fact its function: the reimagining of the universe rather

than the creation of new universes. And so, as it reproduces notions of the other, it does

so from an existing cultural perspective and carries with it the prejudices and

assumptions of its own time and place and, of course, of the race that produces it. The

great Flash Gordon serials (1936-1940) give us Ming the Merciless, the oriental despot,

in keeping with and reinforcing the prejudices that would see, among manifest historical

injustices, America intern its own citizens of Japanese origin.

UNCOVERING THE TRUTH ABOUT RACISM BEYOND MOVIES 10

Meyers (1998, p.34-45) said that when racism becomes the subject matter,

science fiction is frequently cack-handed. Wolfgang Petersen’s 1985 film, Enemy Mine,

is a case in point. This reworking of Robinson Crusoe via Hell in the Pacific (Boorman,

1968) sees Dennis Quaid as Will Davidge, a gung-ho, Han Solo-type fighter pilot

gleefully waging war against the evil Dracs, a humanoid/reptilian alien race.

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