Yo HoHo! A Pirate's Life for White People Only, apparently

[lavendertook]

This is a mixed review. I loved PotC: Curse of the Black Pearl and had high hopes, but no expectations, for PotC: Dead Man's Chest as a sequel, knowing how sequels can go. So I really did enjoy how they picked up the story, much of the story arc, and the detailed special effects, but, good gods, this is the twenty first century--how could they get away with this sickening amount of racism? I really could have completely enjoyed the rest of the film if it weren't for this racism--those parts were difficult to take--and make it clear that identifying with the white characters is at the expense of people of color--no love for providing us with that yuckiness, Disney! And I hate that they ruined an otherwise good movie this way. So the first half of this post will be a rant on the disappointing amount of racism in this film, as opposed to the first film. The second part will look at parts of the film that worked well still, provided you accept that only white people get to be important characters in this film. Damn Disney for fucking this up so badly!



So, after the introductory section, which was well done, we come to the part of the movie that, despite the fun of the wild rolling gerbil balls and Jack's Bugs Bunny-esque escapes, I really could do totally without--the old tired racist trope of dark skinned indigenous people as mindless cannibals--oh, not good, not good! So fucking alienating!

And you know--it's not just the deep social wrongness, which is so very deeply wrong--it's just an old tired cliched trope, people, which is what racial stereotypes are a form of. And that is just lazy writing in the form of racism.

And the thing is, when you have an old, tired cliche, there are so many opportunities to put a new spin on it, one which could have broken out of racist stereotyping and been so rousing by having the people act in an unexpected manner, like actual human beings! It would have been easy--there are so many possibilities anyone with an ounce of creativity could have come up with, but no.

And laughing at how alien another language sounds to an English-speaking audience--so many opportunities for turning that old racist comedic trope around and putting the joke on Jack and the crew--but no, they went with the same old tired xenophobic cliche. Because Americans aren't hated enough abroad for not bothering to learn languages other than English. Hey, world, enjoy this movie--it's everything you've come to expect from Disney's America! We don't just present fluffy period pieces of colonialist imperialism. We relive that period's values for you--in fact, we've never left!

And if we haven't had enough of treating indigenous POC as savage and silly by the end of the first part of the movie, we get to laugh at how silly they are in the very last scene after the credits. Oh those silly darkies making a dog their sacrificial leader! What fun. /-:

So here we see that racism is also really, really bad writing--this could be a much better movie if the whole cannibal section stayed on the cutting room floor.

OK. So. The cannibals weren't the only representations of POC in this film. I mean, there's the crew, right? So it's not just a simple us/them split between white protagonists and dark skinned outsiders, right? No. But we've got more racist tropes to pull out of the old grab bag. If you were a character who was a crew member in this film, wouldn't you notice that all the white characters are in one gerbil ball hanging over the cliff, while in your gerbil ball . . . are all the other people of color in the crew--not good! Not good! You already know where your gerbil ball is going to wind up in a minute or two. Yup.

But you know, we can't have too much pathos for the inevitable quick death of people of color--let's make one of the guys comically afraid of the snake in his hand that sends all the POC down the chasm--after all, he has an accent, and that's funneh. Fun for the whole, white family, according to Disney.

Back to the crew. A number of minor characters were brought back. All played by white people--why--why couldn't some of these roles been given to people of color? And my favorite minor character of the first movie who I adored, Anna Maria? Where was she? Oh right, I forgot. This movie added a new character, Tia, and we can't have 2 black women in the cast--we just can't--it's in the code! OK. I know. There could be other reasons Anna Maria wasn't included--her actor was busy, or maybe she will show up in the third movie, but with the other instances of overt racism, I'm feeling pretty cagey about this.

Now at least we have Tia. She is cool. But, so far, she is only a character to serve as a plot device for the heroes--and fills another racist cliche--the "magical negro" --a black character with powers that are used in the service of more central white characters, rather than in her own character development and plot arc. Maybe they'll do more with her next movie, but I'm not holding my breath.

So I'll talk about what worked for me in this movie now, but it doesn't lessen how the racism causally presented here really takes away the fun gloss over it all.

I really like that the overall theme in this film preys on what was so delightful in the ending of the first film. Everyone did the right and generous thing in the end of the first film--it worked and was very satisfying. In this film, however, all those good deeds now have their consequences. They require sacrifices that most of the characters aren't quite up to making and are trying to find ways to get out from under, and its not simple or pretty. Bootstrap went down to Davey Jones locker for Jack's sake, and then (if I'm understanding this plot point correctly) finds this life unbearable and is now willing to carry Jones curse to Jack. Jack in turn betrays Bootstrap's son, fleeing this curse (and maybe for other reasons we don't know yet.) Will was at first out there trying to persuade Jack to give up his compass or the freedom Will helped grant him until it resulted in a death sentence for him and Elizabeth. Elizabeth betrays Jack to save herself, Will, and the crew (and maybe for other reasons we don't know yet). James betrays all three he had set at liberty to get back what his initial generosity cost him. Thus far, Will is the only one who hasn't made an outright betrayal, but will his promise to his father conflict with his probably now-strained loyalty to Elizabeth? This is all great plotting and interesting character developments with a film devoting so little time to character in favor of action. I'd rather have had more character moments and some more good lines than all the action, but it all worked still, as long as you accept that this sequel stops mid-plot, to be resolved in the next, and I'm good with that.

I also enjoyed seeing Elizabeth come into her own in this film and in a natural outgrowth from how far she traveled in the first. Where the first movie was definitely Jack's film, this one was more Elizabeth's, and Kiera Knightly's scene kicking up the sand when the other three are fighting really gave her great comedic moments. I like that they played up the likeness they established between Elizabeth and Jack in the first movie and played it here for both attraction and deadly rivalry as well as the blurred territory in between.

I'm nervous about how they're going to play out Elizabeth's betrayal since it plays into the cliche of Woman as Betrayer, one that they may be set to do more with since that is the story set up they gave behind Davey Jones locking up his heart. Jack's response to Elizabeth's betrayal, though, dubbing her, "Pirate" did a wonderful job of desexualizing her betrayal, making it the kind of trickery pirates do, not something that can be ascribed misogynisticly to women alone. But I'll be surprised if they don't re-sexualize it into the trope of the untrustworthy female in the third movie. Disney's lack of awareness of how racist they are being in their portrayals here doesn't give me high hopes they will be any more careful about dismantling sexist stereotypes with any real deliberation.

I missed more of Jack in this film and that he didn't get more good lines to work with. But he did get a fabulous entrance in the coffin and a terrific exit jumping into the cracken's jaws.

Norrington's fall was one spoiler I was aware of and I was looking forward to it. I was disappointed they didn't do more with him. I have a soft spot for characters who love well enough to let go their lovers and wish them well, so I'm hoping they'll give him some of his moral compass back in the third.

Will's promise to not abandon his father was a touching and powerful moment. Still, Will is a boring character. But if they do anything right in the third movie, he should be stuck with choices that will make him more interesting. I think this was a terrible film for the Will/Jack fans and I offer you all my condolences. They seemed to have developed a strong bond with the back to back fighting at the end of the first film, all of which was pretty much decimated in this film, unless the third gives us more reasons for Jack's leaving Will behind on the Flying Dutchman.

Yay for Barbossa's return! Yay on the return of the once-undead comic pirates, who still did get a few good lines in there! Boo on no Anna Maria!

Lastly, the Barnacle Borg special effects were horribly grotesque, and even beautiful, in places. Wonderfully done and right out of surreal fantasy art. And all those independent curlings of Jones's tentacles. But with this creativity, surely they could have replaced the racist cannibal cliche with zombies or some other cgi creation, since they gave no individual humanity to the people they portrayed as foes there.

So I am really interested still in seeing where these characters go, but seeing the racist narrowness of vision in this film, my enthusiasm for the third is really dampened. If they bring back Anna Maria that would help my enthusiasm some. I am curious to see how Keith Richard's plays as Jack's father. And will they manage to add some people of color to the crew who they manage not to kill off. Next movie will present all three father's of the three leads. But, one wonders, will they manage to break that favorite ole Disney cliche of absent mothers? Don't count on it. Unless they really are playing off of the Star Wars Trilogy, because, really, for all we know, Elizabeth, Jack, and Will could all have the same mother. Aaaaaaand I'll leave it there for now.

Comments

I apologise if this is a bit cheeky, but...

[eye-candy33.livejournal.com]

I've had a look at your user info. You might be interested in my new icon community fluidic_icons. Go along and have a peek. If you like what you see you could join or watch it. I would love to have some more people to share my icons with as I have such fun making them. Hope to see you there :)

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the review.

I'm going to make an almost total non-sequitorial comment, triggered by this point in your review: And laughing at how alien another language sounds to an English-speaking audience.

This seems to be a huge thing, especially in American comedy. We do have comics who play on language and dialect in Canada, but it's usually more conscious and is often done by people whose backgrounds would stereotypically include a lanuage other than English, or a non-standard dialect, who are in effect lampooning the fact that many people do have stereotypical ideas about languages and dialects not their own. For instance, there's Shaun Majumder, a comedian from Newfoundland who is of South Asian background, who gets to make fun of stereotypes of both South Asian accents and Newfoundland dialect...

But I digress slightly from my original digression. I'm often amazed by how often American comedians, even ones that I respect and usually enjoy, do this kind of thing. Jon Stewart is probably the most recent example of this for me - I came to enjoy his show very much during the run-up to the last American presidential election, because his focus was so strongly on American politics, but since then, I've become more and more disappointed with him when he goes for really cheap shots, such as dubbing totally nonsensical Engish dialogue over videotape of international leaders speaking in their own languages...

Good satirical comedy is often offensive, but it should be intelligently so.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is a uniquely American form of xenophobia that's an outgrowth of our suspicion of intellectualism wedded with our isolationist streak. Go us. /-:

[mererid.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this. Although I wanted to like the film I'm having a really hard time getting past the racist garbage. For me, one of the many enjoyable things about the first one was that it played with the old-fashioned adventure genre, challenging gendered and raced stereotypes of hero, villain and pirate in a fun and humorous way. But instead of continuing this with the second film, they took a huge step back. Not having left colonial imperialism, indeed. :/

Good, thoughtful comments on the characters of Elizabeth, Will and Norrington as well. I'm still turning over some of the details of the film in my mind, so I may have to get back to you on those.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

YW. (-: The first one managed to be pretty non-offensive in being slightly inclusive, though still focused on white people only. They really had no idea what they achieved with this apparently--though there is still a big gap between the white privilege to be color-blind and the outright racist representations in this sequel that they just leaped into full tilt.

And I'm learning now that Disney had plenty of warning:

http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410746

And there's this:

http://cacreview.blogspot.com/2006/06/boycott-disney-pirates-of-caribbean.html (though I'm not thrilled with the comparing of isms in order to minimize antisemitism going on at the end here--hello!--being antisemitic in assuming it's those fucking Jews responsible for Hollywood and Disney behind all this, hmm? Oy. )

Other folks on LJ are posting about this too, so we're not alone in how we reacted to the film. sabonasi has posted a good critique in a number of communities and I've been following links from those.

I'm really wondering now why news of the boycott hadn't made it around LJ fandom such that I knew nothing about it. I'm not in any PotC communities, but this should have been discussed in those communities and had wider circulation. So I'm now really interested to see what has been going on in the PotC communities on LJ and how this news got stifled.

Ty. I want to hear what you come up with!

Re: I apologise if this is a bit cheeky, but...

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

You come bearing treasure--no apologies necessary! Cool! Of course I will join it. Ty. (-: What pretties! I'll have fun looking through them on breaks at work.

[green-ghost.livejournal.com]

Thanks for you thoughtful review. You seem to have enjoyed it on some level, which is more than I can say. I tend not to delve into the political correctness of cartoon films, because I don't think they do it on purpose, they are just lazy and stupid. Another of the myriad of reasons I hated this film.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I think the "not doing on purpose" is all the more reason why these things need to be pointed out. And it's through cartoon films or adventure tales that the messages of what can be taken for granted in a culture get transmitted, and kids and adults get subtly indoctrinated into the values of their culture. Racism comes as much from lazy complacency of the group in power as much as from outright hate.

Also, there is some purpose here in Disney's choice of portrayal--as I linked above, indigenous people of Dominica have been protesting Disney for at least 2 years over this--I didn't know about this until today, but Disney did.

As far as the idea of "politically correct", my critique is not coming from someplace in me wanting to espouse somebody's idea of the proper ideology, if that's what you're thinking, but from the feelings of being alienated and excluded. How the fuck must it feel to be a person of color wanting to go out and see this movie and just lose oneself in the ride and listening to the clueless white people around you laughing?

I remember what it felt like to sit in a junior high school classroom as the only Jewish kid among Christian kids, enduring fear over their comments and tittering in discussing Shylock from The Merchant of Venice. Stories are serious business--they can heal and hurt.

[oyceter]

Oh, whew, I'm glad I wasn't the only person who thought so! And thank you for the links.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

No, you're not--and still so damned pissed they didn't listen to the protests they were getting and do what would have been such minimal changes to prevent this racist crap and make a better, fun film in the process. You're welcome. And look--we're both linked here. It looks like you're hosting quite a discussion--will try to stop by and visit it later.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to add these posts by coniraya to the links.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Followed you over from oyceter's LJ, and shall probably revisit this post and the links in the comments before writing my own more general post about race and identity.

Also, interesting point about the use of languages there. I should have paid more attention to that, what with writing about the adventures of an anthropologist/demonologist and a linguist.

[annathepiper]

Hiya! I came over from pinkdormouse's journal, and just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate you posting these thoughts. I'm finding myself very much in accord with your review--in that much as I enjoyed watching the film, I find myself taking a step back and cringing at the thought of the entire cannibal sequence as well as the bits with all the dark-skinned crewmembers in the other gerbil ball. And yeah, I miss Anna Maria too. :(

As a white chick, I'm thinking that as much as it might make me uncomfortable to think about this stuff, it's very important that I acknowledge it. So thanks for the post. I'll be linking to it from my own journal.

[oyceter]

I was so, so mad when I learned that they had been protested for the exact same things that made me nidgy, and that I hadn't read more about the protests (that part is my fault, and I wish I even knew enough to judge if it had been in the press enough for recognition or if it was buried).

Whoa, linkage! Yikes.

Haha, I didn't actually mean to host a discussion ;). Not that it's a bad thing! Do drop by!

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Looking at links, it was reported a couple times by the bbc--so it did reach a mainstream press. Why it didn't wander into any of my circles on LJ for fandom and anti-racism, I don't know. I didn't pay attention to anything about the filming and deliberately avoided spoilers. I took a look at some of the potc communities on LJ the other day, but not much discussion of any kind was going on prior to the release, so I can't tell if people in those communities were coming across info on this or not. No one who knew and cared about the protests was working the fan community on LJ, at least, before the release.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Sure.

Well, I work with linguists and an international crew of translators for a living, so I guess these things are close to surface for me.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I'm more pissed off than uncomfortable thinking about it, really. I'm pissed off they can get away with being this blatantly racist and fucked up a story with characters I enjoy focusing on with this shit and upset poc I know as well. So yeah, writing about it here is the least we can do.

[annathepiper]

You're welcome.

And yeah, I hear you about the pissed-offedness. :(

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

I posted about this (http://community.livejournal.com/deadbrowalking/67343.html) in deadbrowalking in March last year, because that's when I first heard about it, at an orlando fansite. It's part of the reason I had this icon made.

I think a lot of people just chose not to pay attention, to be honest.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

I <3 that icon!

Thank you for the link. I joined deadbrowalking over frustration that I knew nothing about the protests--which were also like free advice to Disney on how to turn the interactions in those scenes into something ACTUALLY INTERESTING--but no, that would be time spent not making an additional tentacle curl or attending to the rules of perudo, so must totally RESIST--we need our stock racist episode to stay as stock and boring as possible. Stupid fuckers. That's not passive--there's no way that isn't active racism in their refusal to give attention to POC that they give to the barnacle-clad, whose individuality is so much more important to establish than that of the indigenous people. And yeah, active ignoring would be the usual white fan reaction.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with your observations about the tribe o' savages sequence, though I wasn't quite as alienated by it as you were. The one thing that (I think) saved it from being completely irredeemed was the acting by the cannibal troupe--they had such an amazing variety of "what are these insane white people doing?" reactions that I think the filmmakers were almost aware of what claptrap they were perpetrating.

I think that Sparrow was willing to hand over 100 other people to Davey Jones because he figured, "I'm Jack Sparrow, I'll figure out a way to cheat him before I have to pay him." But he might also have just been willing to toss 100 people overboard to save himself.