{"id":39735,"date":"2015-01-28T20:59:58","date_gmt":"2015-01-28T20:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=39735"},"modified":"2015-01-28T21:15:20","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T21:15:20","slug":"review-nuance-deprived-race-movie-black-or-white-is-actually-about-white-frustration-opens-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=39735","title":{"rendered":"Review: Nuance-Deprived “Race” Movie ‘Black or White’ is Actually About White Frustration (Opens Friday)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Review: Nuance-Deprived “Race” Movie ‘Black or White’ is Actually About White Frustration (Opens Friday)<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Shadow and Act: On Cinema Of The African Diaspora<\/a>
\n2015-01-27<\/p>\n

Zeba Blay<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“Black or White” opens nationwide this Friday, January 30, via Relativity…<\/em><\/p>\n

Is it any wonder that a movie as lazily titled as \u201cBlack or White<\/a>\u201d fails to actually tackle issues of race and class in any meaningful way? Is it any wonder, when its writer and director is Mike Binder<\/a>, a (white) filmmaker whose approach to storytelling has often lacked any semblance of nuance and subtlety? The movie, apparently \u201cbased on true events,\u201d is about a custody battle over a 7-year-old biracial Eloise (charming child actress Jillian Estell<\/a>), between her wealthy and recently widowed white grandfather Elliot (Kevin Costner<\/a>), and black grandmother Rowena (Octavia Spencer<\/a>).<\/p>\n

When the movie begins, the little girl has been living with her white grandparents since the death of her teen mother at birth. However, after Elliott\u2019s wife dies in a freak car accident, Rowena, a self-made woman who lives in Compton<\/a> with a tight knit and sprawling extended family, thinks it\u2019s time that Eloise grows up around other black people, fearing that she may lose a sense of her identity.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a fairly intriguing premise, but one that must be handled delicately in order to work. Here, it doesn\u2019t. Very much in the style of past Costner-collaboration, \u201cThe Upside of Anger,\u201d Binder\u2019s brand of comedy drama is far too broad. While Costner, whose swaggering charisma has always been his saving grace, turns in a decent performance, hinging on great chemistry with his child co-star, all the swagger in the world couldn\u2019t save this film.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a movie about race that doesn\u2019t actually want to talk about race. Here, the focal point is the wealthy white man who we\u2019re encouraged to root for, from the very beginning, simply by virtue of the fact that he\u2019s in 90% of every scene. Octavia Spencer, once again, is called on to play a variation of the sassy black woman – her acting, as usual, is great, but she\u2019s given little else to do than suck her teeth and roll her eyes, and provide both comic relief and obstacle for Elliot to overcome…<\/p>\n

Read the entire review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Review: Nuance-Deprived “Race” Movie ‘Black or White’ is Actually About White Frustration (Opens Friday) Shadow and Act: On Cinema Of The African Diaspora 2015-01-27 Zeba Blay “Black or White” opens nationwide this Friday, January 30, via Relativity… Is it any wonder that a movie as lazily titled as \u201cBlack or White\u201d fails to actually tackle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5,8,20],"tags":[19188,19186,19137,19187,19136,11481,11480,19185],"class_list":["post-39735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-black-or-white","tag-jillian-estell","tag-kevin-costner","tag-mike-binder","tag-octavia-spencer","tag-shadow-and-act","tag-shadow-and-act-on-cinema-of-the-african-diaspora","tag-zeba-blay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}