In Clint Eastwood’s 2008 drama, his character — the craggy, sick remnants of a brawny man — summons all his demons and resources to combat bigotry in his neighborhood, within and without himself. Walt Kowalski is a Vietnam vet who, in a classic storytelling arc, “comes around” to his Hmong neighbors who are at the center of a vicious gang problem. The impact of this film is resounding, especially with the scenes between Eastwood and the family of young Thao (Bee Vang), whom Walt reluctantly takes under his wing.
Katharine Hepburn won her second Oscar playing one half of a couple tested by a very new concept in the 1960s, even to liberal-minded Bay Area folks. When Matt and Christina Drayton’s white daughter Joey brings home her black fiancee, Dr. John Prentiss (Sidney Poitier), the family must ask themselves how progressive-thinking they really are. With amazing performances and complicated, emotional themes that are alive and kicking nearly 50 years later, this is a film that can still stimulate discussion on race. Are you ready for who your kid brings to dinner?
Scout, Jem, and Dill spend a formative summer in 1930s Macomb County, Alabama, spying on their startlingly unique neighbor, Boo Radley, and peering through the keyholes of their lawyer father’s defense trial of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman.
This small film does not deserve to have fallen through the cracks. Ryan Gosling’s first major performance as a modern-day neo-Nazi is like watching a terrifying creature attempt to nurse its own wounds. He plays Danny Balint, a fictional character in a fictional story based on Dan Burros, a real-life American Jew who was a member of both the American Nazi Party and the K.K.K. Burros committed suicide in 1965, apparently after a New York Times reporter did a front-page expose about his undeniably Jewish background. Gosling rages and spittles with hate, exploring through his brilliant performance the dark truths of why people choose bigotry and intolerance over being nice.
A comedic reprieve, but an important one nevertheless, this classic 1974 Mel Brooks madcap of wackiness manages to brilliantly poke fun at the essence of bigotry. Cleavon Little plays Bart, newly appointed black sheriff of Rock Ridge (where everyone has the surname Johnson). Madeline Kahn, Mel Brooks, Gene Wilder and Slim Pickens play the all-white townsfolk. “Blazing Saddles” features one-liners beyond compare and Madeline Kahn’s famous speech impediment act (“It is twu, it is twu!”). This film will always work because it’s hilarious.
Julianne Moore plays Kathy Whitaker, who stumbles upon her husband with another man. Her struggles to grasp such an alien concept lead her to the comfort of her black gardener, Raymond (Dennis Haysbert). The community’s reaction to both homosexuality and a mixed-race friendship would seem ridiculous to most people today. This film was critically acclaimed and Oscar-nominated in 2002.
In 1915, D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” caused quite a ruckus upon its release. Why? It was and still is blatantly racist. The depiction of the white-hooded KKK as a justice-serving moral army against the black man sparked white violence against blacks in many American cities. Griffith’s overt suggestion that blacks should not vote and are a threat to white women–among other creepy themes–are hard to swallow today. This film talks about racism, yes, and is a head-shaking piece of film history.
Paul Haggis’s original film aggressively attacks the structure of race relations in modern-day Los Angeles. A bigoted white cop, an indignant black wife of a “whitewashed” Hollywood director, a Mexican dad, two black buddies who are also carjackers, the furious white carjacked upper-class woman, the Arab shopkeeps–color, stereotypes, cultures, motives and class all “crash” into each other as the story weaves these characters together. A divisive, operatic film, “Crash” hammers multiple messages on race into its audience.
It could be in the same DVD case as “The Believer,” but this 1998 film stands as a masterwork. One cannot calculate how Edward Norton reached into himself for this performance. In shocking before-and-after scenes, we follow the trajectory of former neo-Nazi Derek (Norton), as he drags himself with the help of incredible mentors out of a deep hole of rage and racism. He tries to steer his vulnerable younger brother Danny (Edward Furlong) from going down the same path.
This is film history. The 1989 Spike Lee movie, “Do the Right Thing” sparked controversy when it was released. Did Mookie do the right thing with the garbage can during that hot summer in Brooklyn? Radio Raheem, Sal’s Pizzeria, Rosie Perez, Ruby Dee, Spike Lee, Mike Brown, Ferguson Missouri, Bed-Stuy Brooklyn — all these actors and elements blend together to make us ask ourselves crucial questions about racism, then and now.
