I think they MUST have re-edited the film. What I saw was so painfully
heavy-handed, there'd be no missing it. The message clobbered us over
the head: even a brown girl can be so right (and so threatened) that
even the big, white bureaucrat (a symbol of all of the white
bureaucracies that ignore the plight of the disenfranchised) can be
moved to doing the right thing.
The scene I saw had Bad Guys about to do Bad Things when suddenly, in
blindlingly bright, white spotlights, the helicopter swooped from the
skies, masses people part like the Red Sea, and out steps the very clean
cut, very white (once again, glowing brilliantly white from all the
spotlights) man to save the helpless Good Guys. When they showed the
man, they shot him from an angle well below the horizon so he appeared
to be about seven or eight feet tall. I'm talking no subtlety
whatsoever.
And again, I may have been more sensitive to the color issue because I
was one of only about a dozen whites in the audience, but I don't think
so. And when I say everyone laughed, I mean everyone. So, because
there are intelligent people out there who liked the film they saw in
the theatre or on video, I think what I saw and was asked to review must
have been a test market version they either canned or re-worked.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sean Johnston [SMTP:sean-johnston@UIOWA.EDU]
> Sent: Monday, December 01, 1997 10:23 AM
> To: FEMINISTSF@listserv.uic.edu
> Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Strange Days movie
>
> That's an amazing reaction. Especially concerning the chase through
> the
> crowd at the end. I think it had nothing to do with Angela's color or
> the
> color of her rescuer. It had everything to do with one person trying
> to do
> what she thought was right and the police chief, just another person,
> really, affirming that she was doing the right thing.
>
> -Sean
>
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