This is a very interesting movie. I did not quite understand the movie but this is what I understood of it. I thought the director of this movie was trying to disintegrate the relationship between stereotype and race. Often times, people expect other races to act a certain way. They are many racial stereotypes. Asian Americans are supposed to be smart, African Americans and Italian Americans are violent, and Caucasians are racist. Whether it is a "good" stereotype or not, it is still a label. But when one thinks about these labels, one should realize that labels are not necessary. The key word we should be looking at is "American." That should be the only label that everyone should carry. Forget the Asian, the African, and Italian. Yes, each group and other race, have different culture but there is a big gap, that people do not seem to know, between culture and stereotype. Stereotypes are not true hence called a stereotype. But people overlook that and think its true because of the media. Even if each group has different culture that should not determine who is inferior and who is superior than others. Mixture of culture is THE culture of America. I think that is what the movies about. When we see Ghost Dog, we expect him to act a certain way in the movie. We expect him to use profanity, demean women, and wear excessively golden chains. But he was not like that. He honored people, respected his master, and was literate. However did that make him any better for killing people? I thought the movie also brought up many questions. Such as, why would the killings of a samurai be considered honorable but the killings of an African American be a crime? I dont think Ghost Dog was viewed as a criminal in the movie. Would he have been if he acted as the audience suspected? Or was he NOT considered as a criminal because he DID NOT act like what we suspected. Almost every character in the movie did not act as the society expected. For example, the little girl carrying books in her lunch box. You dont see kids reading often. Or the Frency speaking African American selling ice cream. The sympathetic Italian master and the childish Italians, some who were watching cartoons, and some rapping the songs of a group, who was prominent for proclaiming black power, Public Enemy. These characters show the concepts of stereotypes. Is that why the movie was a bit comical, beacuse the racial groups did not fit the stereotypes? The whole movie was about killing but why is that this movie is not in the action category? What about the movie does it make the audience ignore the violent aspect and realize the odd characters? Is it right for the audience to think that in fact these characters are odd? Maybe THAT was the point of the movie; that these characters are not odd but they are just individuals with different tastes. Just because a black character does not act like what people expect doesnt make him odd. Maybe we shouldnt be analyzing the movie but how we REACT to the movie to really understand the concepts.
2:13 PM
