I’m not going to take a side in this debate, I’m just going to post the videos and ask the questions. Above you see the trailer for the 1986 movie Soul Man, about a student who fulfils his dream of attending Harvard by posing as a black man in order to get a scholarship. It’s a movie that, frankly, I can’t believe was ever made, as terms like “blackface” and “minstrelsy” immediately leap to mind as I watch the preview. Now take a look at this trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr_SY-1Z5vg
White Chicks was made by the Wayans brothers in 2004, and sort of pulls the opposite trick from Soul Man. This time, we’ve got two black FBI agents charged with protecting two pampered white girls. After a car accident leaves the girls feeling ugly due to a blemish or a cut or something that I can barely see in the preview, the two agents decide to pose as the girls by getting done up like, you guessed it, white chicks.
So my question to you is this: which trailer is more offensive? Are they equally offensive? If one is more offensive to you than the other, why?
It’s worth noting that both of these movies have similar ratings on IMDb. Soul Man holds a 4.8/10 at the time of this writing, whereas White Chicks has a 5/10.