NYT: How Culture Prepared America for a Black Prez

[Captain Hilts]

This is good. But it has evolved over a time frame where popular culture continues to trivialize women and the number of roles and lines spoken in film has been steadily going down for women. Who are the female authority figures in film?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/movies/18darg.html

And it is striking how powerful and appealing the figure of the Black Father has become in the past 25 years — how many younger, more iconoclastic performers have come home to Cliff Huxtable.

Black men have also flourished on screen as surrogate, spiritual fathers. Much like the wee green Jedi master who instructs Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back,” the Black Yoda helps guide young (white) heroes to their destinies.

Savior, counselor, patriarch, oracle, avenger, role model — compared with all this, being president looks like a pretty straightforward job. Barack Obama, after all, is only one man (and only half black) and is working from a script that has yet to be written. But the fantasies of black heroism that have pervaded our popular culture give some sense of what the country hopes for in its new leader, whose burden is not the same as the one taken up by the 42 white men who preceded him.

[Old and In the Way]

1. I don't know how much I agree with this.

Hillary ran tough against Barack. He didn't run away with the nomination. This past primary should be a celebration that shows there are no barriers to elective office.

[GCP]

2. Morgan Freeman, Sidney Poitier

The President in 24 - all had a powerful affect on the zeitgeist.

[Captain Hilts]

4. James Earl Jones. We still associate authority with a deep, JEJ-like voice. nt

[Muttocracy]

3. they left out the dude in The Matrix - except for naming Keanu Reeves. nt

[BlooInBloo]

5. hahahhaah! By forcing black folks to play by the Jackie Robinson rules....

That's not a compliment to us white folks, you fuckwit jackasses.

[NOLALady]

6. Thanks.

:D

[BlooInBloo]

7. You're welcome.

What'd I do?

[NOLALady]

8. Thanks for saying

what I was thinking.