Thank you Mr. Harry Lennix:
Let us go on record at BlackAmericanTv.com
as making clear that we respect and agree with
Mr. Harry Lennix's comments about the movie,
THE BUTLER.
In an interview with SHADOW AND ACT:
...when asked if he constantly has to think about the
image he is portraying as a Black Man every time he does a role?
"I think about it every day and any time that a role is offered, and believe me
lots of crummy roles are offered. But at this point people know better than to
mess with me with a lot of these things. For example Lee Daniels sent me the
script for that film he’s making now, The Butler, about the black butler at the
White House. I read five pages of this thing and could not go any further. I
tried to read more of it, and I’m not a soft spoken guy, but it was such an
appalling mis-direction of history in terms of taking an actual guy who
worked at the White House. But then he “niggerfies” it. He "niggers" it up and
he gives people these stupid, luddite, antediluvian ideas about black people
and their roles in the historical span in the White House and it becomes…
well... historical porn. I refused."
..."And people want to see these images so they’ll say things
like: “It’s a very difficult movie to look at, but it’s great movie.”
That’s a contradiction in terms. That’s a paradox. It can’t be that
it’s a great movie, but it’s difficult to look at. You know what I
mean? (laughs) Why would you put these images out there? But
clearly the critics, many of them, love to see this kind of material
and love to see us in these types of roles."
..."Because it feeds into the great lie that is being
perpetrated by the most important medium, the most
powerful export that the United States has to offer which is
entertainment. The most powerful tool that they have and it has
kept us in a place, men in dresses and things, raping their
daughters and things. While any sort of aberrant behavior
happens in any community, it has become normative in black
cinema that we are these bestial, deprived people, and I refuse
to play with that."
..."I’ll never take part in it. They can kiss my ass (laughs).
But it’s not going to happen."
Harry, we appreciate your courage, integrity, intelligence and good sense.
Thanks.
Art Washington
BlackAmericanTv.com
ps. And Harry, remind me to tell you about the time one of us said "no" to
Steven Spielberg--and got fired. I suspect the Spielberg fella still has no real
understanding as to why... bottom line, we need more like you.
