Film Features
Stop Turning Exclusively to White Movies for Comfort
Breaking down the bias of comfort films.
07.14.2020
With the constant onslaught of complicated news that 2020 has brought, sometimes you just want to be able to shut off your brain, relax, and feel happy.
Enter comfort films. These are the feel-good movies that feel like a warm hug when you finish them, the ones that allow you to escape for a short while. We often turn to these types of films in times of trouble or extreme stress, and when we're not sure what films of this nature we should watch, we turn to the Internet for options.
<p>And the Internet delivers. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2020/05/14/comfort-movies-streaming-quarantine/" target="_blank">Numerous lists</a> of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200319-covid-19-comforting-films-to-watch-in-isolation" target="_blank">comforting films to watch</a> have been published across almost every major website since the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/12/comfort-films-to-watch-while-self-isolating-coronavirus-ranked" target="_blank">start of the March</a>. These lists often include old classics like <em>Roman Holiday</em>, new classics like <em>13 Going On 30</em>, and soon-to-be classics like<em> About Time</em>. While the films featured on these types of lists vary across genres and time periods, there is one thing that all of these lists have in common: They are almost exclusively white, heteronormative films. </p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><p>That is not to say that there is not any diversity. Gina Prince-Bythewood's directorial debut <em>Love and Basketball</em>, Alice Wu's recent Tribeca Film Festival award-winning film <em>The Half of It</em>, and Gurinder Chadha's star-making film <em>Bend it Like Beckham</em> make appearances on several lists. But by far, the majority of the films on these lists fall into a very specific bracket. </p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-633"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent1 - mid_content --></p><p><br></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ0OTQxMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMTQyMDE3OX0.9MXv_NuK2Sa_6CXEdUZXXu0srpuaHgAw8wum1Z0SEfc/img.jpg?width=980" id="c7dff" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c8ac42836b2ff35650e815c1e8bd6477" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Parminder Nagra and Jonathan Rhys Meyers in Bend It Like Beckham">
</p><p>But with the <a href="https://socialsciences.ucla.edu/hollywood-diversity-report-2020/" target="_blank">landscape of Hollywood changing</a> and the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/07/01/886025141/the-academy-of-motion-picture-arts-and-sciences-invites-more-women-minorities" target="_blank">Academy becoming more diverse</a>, does it really matter if a curated list of popular movies from the past reflects a history that we're already aware has some issues?<br></p><p>The answer is: Yes, very much so. </p><p>When curators, critics, and list makers hold up a largely white, heteronormative selection of films as definitive of any aspect of pop culture, their blind spot helps to maintain the inequitable status quo that currently exists in the film industry. If when a person wants to feel comforted, the sole type of content that they're encouraged to watch is one from a specific racial background or sexual identity, they will internalize that. These lists are curated for joy, and if joy is constantly centered on whiteness, on heteronormativity, on a very limited sense of identity, we are ignoring entire swaths of human beings and their experiences. </p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-635"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent2 - long_content --></p><p>Changing the dynamics of our media and, by extension, our society is not simply about recognizing the trauma of oppression on-screen. It is about seeing these communities' joy expressed through the medium as well. This is why <a href="https://nerdist.com/article/black-joy-movies-tv-shows/" target="_blank">lists of films that center black joy</a> are being created as additional material to engage with when learning how to be anti-racist. It is why there is a <a href="https://www.themarysue.com/subversive-power-lgbtq-happy-ending/" target="_blank">push for more happy endings in queer media</a>. We change the status quo not simply by telling new stories or by telling stories of oppression, but also by seeking out narratives of joy from communities whose voices have rarely been centered. </p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-636"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent22 - long_content --></p><p>The limited scope of so many Internet lists also implies that comforting content centering these communities does not exist, and that is simply not true. When films that feature marginalized communities only end up on lists for marginalized communities, it's clear that these identities are still considered an "other". By ignoring these films—films like <em>Coming to America, The</em> <em>Birdcage, </em>and <em>Hunt for Wilderpeople, </em>films that made people feel seen, films that inspired the media and the creators we rave about—these lists are just reproducing the same problematic paradigms of the past and erasing the value of important works of art. Creating better media systems requires reckoning with how we look at past content, too.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-637"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent3 - longer_content --></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ0OTQ0MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNzk0ODAxNX0.dUxYR5pvdzTLtbFrZF4n6QCVVB_x5yl51gSwHFoPUg4/img.jpg?width=980" id="8e330" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="727114542c442f743d81a897b4deb780" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Julian Dennison in the woods in the film Hunt for the Wilderpeople">
</p><p><br></p><p>This does not mean you need to throw away these lists or stop watching <em>You've Got Mail</em>. But it does mean that you should reflect on what type of films you watch that center marginalized communities, and whether that encompasses what you watch when you want to feel good. Are you only watching Black trauma narratives or are you also watching romantic comedies starring Black protagonists when you've had a bad day? </p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-638"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent33 - longer_content --></p><h2></h2><h2></h2><h2></h2><p>It also means that curators, critics, and creators of lists should move beyond their personal comfort zones and learn to seek out films that speak to experiences other than their own. Because, as it turns out, a lot of those films spark joy, too.</p>
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Culture Feature
Why Should Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively Apologize for Their Plantation Wedding?
America's tendency to romanticize antebellum plantations is at odds with efforts to reckon with our dark past.
08.04.2020
Warning: This article contains graphic depictions and descriptions of the horrors of chattel slavery in America.
Planning a wedding is among the most stressful things you can do.
Basically everyone you know will be there, judging your choices of clothing, hair, decor, food, music...napkin rings. Okay, so maybe most wedding guests aren't actually scathing critics looking for your every misstep, but for a day that's supposed to be one of the happiest in your life, there's a hell of a lot of pressure to get things right.
Now imagine that you found the perfect venue—charming and rustic, with beautiful views, and plenty of room for all your guests. Does it even matter what that venue is called? What difference does it make if that perfect spot is called Stinkpile Manor, or Festering Wound Estate, or Boone Hall Plantation…
<p>That's where Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively got married in September of 2012, a choice which Reynolds now calls "a giant ****ing mistake." At the time the <em>Gossip Girl</em> star and <a href="https://screenrant.com/deadpool-ryan-reynolds-movie-comic/" target="_blank">the once-and-future Deadpool</a> were praised for Lively's beautiful designer dress and for <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2251255/Mrs--Mrs-Reynolds-The-glimpse-Blake-Lively-Ryan-Reynolds-intimate-wedding--35-guests.html" target="_blank">the decadent dessert spread at the intimate event</a>.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-633"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent1 - mid_content --></p><p></p><center><script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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</script></center><p></p><p>At the time, there wasn't much of a cultural conversation on the legacy of chattel slavery in America. Not to say that everyone loved the disturbing practice of memorializing confederate "heroes" with statues and military bases throughout the American south, but there weren't <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/06/confederate-monuments-fall-question-how-rewrite-history/" target="_blank">groups of people tearing them down</a>.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-634"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent11 - mid_content --></p><p>The Black Lives Matter movement had not even been formed yet. It would be another seven years before Pinterest decided to stop promoting plantation wedding venues (and to <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/12/09/ryan-reynolds-and-blake-livelys-slave-plantation-wedding-photos-banned-from-pinterest/" target="_blank">ban Lively and Reynolds' wedding photo</a>s). Oh, and a chain of restaurants called <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/30/jim-cramer-the-restaurant-apocalypse-is-much-worse-than-i-thought.html" target="_blank">"Souplantation" was still operating successfully</a> throughout southern California.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9e05382f41c5b86eb956ff6b69496892"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s8vjHDDBqmI?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively's Wedding Photos Have Fans Cancelling Them</small>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8vjHDDBqmI" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
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</p><p>So why would Lively and Reynolds have thought twice about holding their wedding at a scenic spot near Charleston, South Carolina. Does that make <a href="https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2018/02/ryan-reynolds-black-panther-praise" target="_blank">Ryan Reynolds a hypocrite for praising <em>Black Panther</em></a>? Hasn't he <a href="https://www.popdust.com/ryan-reynolds-too-good-2646808398.html" target="_blank">proven himself to be a good guy</a>? They even made <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/ryan-reynolds-blake-lively-naacp-donation-plantation-wedding-instagram-1507783" target="_blank">a big donation to the NAACP</a>. Why should such a lovely couple be shamed just for picking a pretty wedding <span></span>that happens to have "plantation" in its name? Why would they think twice about the "<a href="https://www.boonehallplantation.com/black-history-in-america/" target="_blank">historic slave cabins</a>" that are maintained on the property…?<br></p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-635"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent2 - long_content --></p><h4>Grappling With America's Dark History</h4><p>The answer is that, like a lot of white Americans (technically Reynolds is Canadian), they clearly didn't, but they have since recognized that it's a problem. In his recent interview with <em>Fast Company</em>, Reynolds said that their choice of wedding venue is "something we'll always be deeply and unreservedly sorry for."</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-636"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent22 - long_content --></p><p>So what's the big deal? It's a nice old building. What does its ancient history have to do with today? So it operated for centuries as a prison and work camp for <a href="https://south-carolina-plantations.com/charleston/boone-hall.html" target="_blank">upwards of 85 enslaved people</a> who were treated as livestock in a system of dehumanizing oppression that regularly incorporated <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/civil-war-era/sectional-tension-1850s/a/life-for-enslaved-men-and-women" target="_blank">horrific mutilation and torture</a> and was never fully dismantled—living on in <a href="https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/sharecropping/" target="_blank">sharecropping</a>, mandated segregation, and (to this day) <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/prison-labor-in-america/406177/" target="_blank">prison labor</a>.</p><p>What does that have to do with now? <strong>Are you saying that you wouldn't hold your family reunion at, for instance, Auschwitz?</strong></p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-637"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent3 - longer_content --></p><p>Many Americans who were raised to romanticize life in the antebellum south don't seem to realize is that the evil of slavery in America easily matches every horror of the holocaust. That's not the sense you'll get from movies like <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/gone-with-the-wind-vs-song-of-the-south-why-hollywood-should-confront-not-erase-a-problematic-past/" target="_blank"><em>Gone With the Wind</em> and <em>Song of the South</em></a>, or even from <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/26/20829771/slavery-textbooks-history" target="_blank">history textbooks that try to reframe the Confederacy's motivation</a> for seceding as anything other than a devotion to the institution of slavery—but it's the truth.</p><p>The fact that plantation houses have a pleasant, domestic architecture—rather than the cold industry of the Nazi death camps—only speaks to the vast division between those who lived there by choice, in comfort, and those who were kept there as property.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-638"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent33 - longer_content --></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUzNDg0Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MTM3NjExOX0.UomUALvi6fabamcJB2QhXamEM62YUIV_vXLxlqH9tY0/img.jpg?width=980" id="176aa" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="705e40806eae725cc38d0ed9568e5d79" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Slave Quarters at Boone Hall Plantation">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Slave Quarters at Boone Hall Plantation</small></p><p>If you can look at an old southern plantation and imagine sipping a mint julep on the porch, that's probably because you can't quite imagine being born into a life of inhuman deprivation and servitude—learning from a young age that you can be torn from your family at the whims of those genteel, julep-sipping owners.</p><h4>The Toxic Nostalgia of Plantations</h4><p><span></span>In recent years many historic plantations that operate as tourist attractions—including Boone Hall and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/09/when-slavery-is-erased-from-plantations/568765/" target="_blank">the former estates of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington</a>—have made an effort to expose that dual reality to their visitors. And those efforts have been widely <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/09/08/plantations-are-talking-more-about-slavery-grappling-with-visitors-who-talk-back/" target="_blank">met by irritation and resentment of white visitors</a> who wanted to fantasize about an era of simple luxuries without recognizing the industry of misery that funded that lifestyle.<br></p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-639"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent4 - longest_content --></p><p>The fact is that the labor that funded and maintained Boone Hall's picturesque avenue of oaks was kept there by a system designed to terrorize enslaved Black people—to make them too scared to run for freedom. And when those people were freed they were given nothing of the wealth they had helped to produce—though <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/opinion/when-slaveowners-got-reparations.html" target="_blank">some plantation owners were paid for the loss of "property."</a></p><p><a href="https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/" target="_blank">Slave patrols transitioned into police forces</a>. Jim Crow, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/the-roots-of-route-66/506255/" target="_blank">sundown towns</a>, the KKK, <a href="https://www.popdust.com/bubba-wallace-noose-2646234554.html" target="_self">lynching,</a> <a href="https://www.popdust.com/gucci-blackface-sweater-2628296683.html" target="_self">blackface</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america" target="_blank">red lining</a>, <a href="https://www.libertyproject.com/tag/prison-industrial-complex" target="_blank">the war on drugs</a>, "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/21/hillary-clinton-black-millennial-voters" target="_blank">superpredators</a>." <strong>American racism didn't give up on terrorizing and dehumanizing Black people just because they were no longer enslaved.</strong></p><p>The Reconstruction Era—which could have been a time for America to reckon with past evils and begin to recognize Black Americans as worthy of equality—was sadly overseen by President Andrew Johnson following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/13/andrew-johnson-undermined-congress-cabinet-david-priess-book-222413" target="_blank">Johnson saw to it that gains made by Black Americans were minimal</a> and that Southern states could begin the process of rewriting history with a nostalgic glow.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-640"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent44 - longest_content --></p><p>To this day, there are people who will argue that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cliven-bundy-racist-comments-slaves-ranch-2014-4" target="_blank">Black Americans were "better off" under slavery</a>, that most <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/09/slavery-myths-seven-lies-half-truths-and-irrelevancies-people-trot-out-about-slavery-debunked.html" target="_blank">enslaved people were actually treated well</a>, and that <a href="https://qz.com/378533/for-the-last-time-the-american-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/" target="_blank">the Civil War was fought over vague ideals like states' rights</a> (rather than the very concrete economic value of the "right" to own, breed, brand, break, kill, and sell other people as a form of livestock).</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUzNDg2MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MzQ5MTEyM30.7dHiLUnsQqkVAtc5cbK4dJghTaifcCSbNe170BOG1eQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="4691f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b627bdb8eac83611aa0942fd72df9c97" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Gordon: freed man with scars">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">A formerly enslaved man with scars from being whipped. He escaped a plantation in Louisiana in 1863.</small></p><p>And the plantation, in all its romantic glow, is the enduring symbol of that nostalgia. It can't function as just a nice place to get married if it's also going to serve as an important reminder of one of history's greatest tragedies. You can't book Auschwitz for that family reunion.<br></p><h4>Reynolds' Apology</h4><p>Thankfully, Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively—whether you accept their apology or not—seem to understand that problem. As Reynolds put it, "It's impossible to reconcile. What we saw at the time was a wedding venue on Pinterest. What we saw after was a place built upon devastating tragedy ... A giant ****ing mistake like that can either cause you to shut down or it can reframe things and move you into action. It doesn't mean you won't **** up again. But repatterning and challenging lifelong social conditioning is a job that doesn't end."</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-641"> </div>
<!-- End Ezoic - bottomofpage - bottom_of_page --></p><p></p><center><script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script><!-- Popdust Mobile Banner 320x100 --><ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:inline-block;width:320px;height:100px" data-ad-client="ca-pub-4301469008561137" data-ad-slot="6952751205"></ins><script>
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</script></center><p></p><p>That lesson is particularly important to keep in mind when that work of repatterning and challenging falls on an entire culture. It's work that we're just starting to do as a nation. <strong>We need to face our history before we can move on.</strong></p><p>That means maintaining historic plantations as memorials to our nation's greatest crimes. That means don't have your wedding at a plantation—and if you already did, consider apologizing (to your guests, to social media, to the world) for contributing to that toxic plantation nostalgia.</p><h2></h2><h2></h2><p>As for Reynolds and Lively, they had a separate wedding ceremony at home after the fact, which hopefully allowed them to form some happy memories of their union without the taint of America's dark history.</p>
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Now that you've flooded Instagram with photos of black squares, it's time to hunker down for some real activism.
If you're a white person, you're sitting on top of about four centuries of institutionalized racism. In the wake of George Floyd's murder by police and countless Black Lives Matter protests across the nation, it's time to show up—with your body, with your voice, and with your brain.
<p>It's no longer OK to just be "not racist." You have to be actively anti-racist, and there's a growing list of <a href="https://www.popdust.com/64-anti-racism-resources-2646142533.html" target="_self">resources available</a> to help you do just that. And what better way to learn than by sticking your nose into a book?</p><h2></h2><p>Below, we've compiled a list of 10 books—many of which are bestsellers—by Black authors that will give you a much more thorough understanding of how deeply racism runs in the United States.</p>
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Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzM2NzY3MC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNzQ5MzkyOH0.2Y3FZpKEbMrnZE49IGlysU2f6GbX7Bbs2kYss-D0HcY/img.png?width=980" id="b07e8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9ea5b5920a7d49470cd16386553e7c45" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="patricia hill collins" />
<p>In this 1990 book, author and academic Patricia Hill Collins takes a deeper look at the works of Black feminist thinkers like Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde.</p>
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