Beauty Shop You know, the more I think about it, the more I like Queen Latifah. For the overall uselessness of the movie Bringin' Down da House, that one scene where she transforms into a rich, upper class type public speaker just to show Steve Martin's character that she CAN do it, she just chooses NOT to, definitely shows a side of "black culture" that is much more relatable to-->the fact that (a lot/most/some?) choose that because that's how they WANT to identify themselves, and it's not meant to be confrontational at heart. It's like choosing to be a goth, or a punk, or all of those subcultures almost, conformingly anticonformist, grouping yourself in a similar minded alternative.
So now we have this movie, where Queen Latifa plays Gina, a stylist whiz who feels under-appreciated at her job so opens her own shop, and there she shocks and appalls the neighborhood by bringing in white clientele and white employees and letting them all enjoy the scenery. It's actually one of the strongest movies dealing with integration I think I've seen, basically because when everyone gives trouble to the the white girl, and the white girl's getting upset and disturbed by it, Gina just has to say to her, "Hey, think how I felt in a white shop." Indeed.
Plus, when dealing with those pesky issues of representation that seems to hover over every mediated creation of "black characters", this one is pretty broad, from the black women who refuse to work with the white woman and leave, to the young "white-speaking" black girl who keeps on getting hit on by the jive-talking twelve-year-old, to the African culture versed man above them who, also, happens to know a thing or two about playing good piano.
And of course it would be. From the makers of Barbershop, it has that same more critical look at black culture that loves it, and yet knows what it really is and where people on "both" sides take it too seriously. Barbershop was actually quite a wonderful film, mostly because of it's political incorrectness, but also because of the pale-skinned barber who points out that being black is what he wants, not what he has to be born into, and Cedric the Entertainer doing his "Martin Luther King Jr. was a HO!" bit was just too much.
Now if only this film didn't have ... well... Kevin Bacon. I thought that having Kevin Bacon in it would make it amazing, but it really, really didn't. He's just too weird for a too lightly humored film. Instead, I'd like to point out that this movie has Andie McDowell in a fantastic role, so with that cast, it's got to have SOMETHING to it.
--PolarisDiB
So now we have this movie, where Queen Latifa plays Gina, a stylist whiz who feels under-appreciated at her job so opens her own shop, and there she shocks and appalls the neighborhood by bringing in white clientele and white employees and letting them all enjoy the scenery. It's actually one of the strongest movies dealing with integration I think I've seen, basically because when everyone gives trouble to the the white girl, and the white girl's getting upset and disturbed by it, Gina just has to say to her, "Hey, think how I felt in a white shop." Indeed.
Plus, when dealing with those pesky issues of representation that seems to hover over every mediated creation of "black characters", this one is pretty broad, from the black women who refuse to work with the white woman and leave, to the young "white-speaking" black girl who keeps on getting hit on by the jive-talking twelve-year-old, to the African culture versed man above them who, also, happens to know a thing or two about playing good piano.
And of course it would be. From the makers of Barbershop, it has that same more critical look at black culture that loves it, and yet knows what it really is and where people on "both" sides take it too seriously. Barbershop was actually quite a wonderful film, mostly because of it's political incorrectness, but also because of the pale-skinned barber who points out that being black is what he wants, not what he has to be born into, and Cedric the Entertainer doing his "Martin Luther King Jr. was a HO!" bit was just too much.
Now if only this film didn't have ... well... Kevin Bacon. I thought that having Kevin Bacon in it would make it amazing, but it really, really didn't. He's just too weird for a too lightly humored film. Instead, I'd like to point out that this movie has Andie McDowell in a fantastic role, so with that cast, it's got to have SOMETHING to it.
--PolarisDiB