The “Dear White People” syndrome: Why movies are obsessed with light-skinned black characters

[NobodyReally]

When you think about it the top black female actress are brownskin. Who are these lightskin women they keep crying about

Even the top black women on TV (Viola Davis and the black student in How To Get Away With Murder, the babe on the headless horseman show, etc) are brown or "dark." The lightskin shyt is overblown and always sounds like butthurt shyt.

If you want to discuss how/white lightskin women dominate rap music videos and the general view of "black beauty" sure we can have that discussion. But I'm not reading a long ass article about lightskin chicks in Hollywood when they don't run shyt.

Just to keep this in perspective, the writer of the article has self-identified herself as a light-skinned black woman, and is complaining about the lead being light-skinned.

 

[Dwolf]

That chick is cute.

 

[Claudex]

This was my problem with the main lead in the movie. I couldn't give two fukks about her dating a white boy but for her to put herself in a position where even her boy was like:
WB: "Oh, also I noticed you listen to Taylor Swift"
And she's like "fukk, I thought I hid that shyt well", and the other super-extra-OTT-malcom X-wannabe-black-dude saying he thought she was "Puerto Rican, at first" (Word nikka?) just before kissing her ... all of that shyt; it just represented mixed girl problems that I really didn't need to see in a movie supposed to address white people. Don't get me wrong, I've got much love for the light-skin sisters it's just I desperately want and need dark skinned black women to show more complexity on screen, a complexity that is native to them and only them.

 

[shonuff]

This was my problem with the main lead in the movie. I couldn't give two fukks about her dating a white boy but for her to put herself in a position where even her boy was like:
WB: "Oh, also I noticed you listen to Taylor Swift"
And she's like "fukk, I thought I hid that shyt well", and the other super-extra-OTT-malcom X-wannabe-black-dude saying he thought she was "Puerto Rican, at first" (Word nikka?) just before kissing her ... all of that shyt; it just represented mixed girl problems that I really didn't need to see in a movie supposed to address white people. Don't get me wrong, I've got much love for the light-skin sisters it's just I desperately want and need dark skinned black women to show more complexity on screen, a complexity that is native to them and only them.

well thats because it wasnt a movie that was suppsed to be a "message" to "white people"

the movie and her being mixed actually means something to the story and its a story about black people just as much as its a peep to white people -

the movie REALLY is about how we ( or anyone ) are way more complex than the very public cultural boxes we like to say someone fits into

 

[jadillac]

that movie was borderline terrible.

 

[Black Magisterialness]

because white people complain when too many people of greek decent are in films....or too many englishmen are in films...

We gotta get past colorism within our communities.

 

[hex]

Hopefully the thread starter got banned for being a Young Thug stan.

Fred.

 

[Claudex]

well thats because it wasnt a movie that was suppsed to be a "message" to "white people"

the movie and her being mixed actually means something to the story and its a story about black people just as much as its a peep to white people -

the movie REALLY is about how we ( or anyone ) are way more complex than the very public cultural boxes we like to say someone fits into

No no no no, the diversity in the movie was A-Ok with me. I've been wanting for the diversity in black people to be shown in movies. I'm cool with the brother struggling to come out, I'm cool with the brother that has to live up to the expectations, I'm cool with the sister who has the blue contacts and weave, and I understood all the struggle of all the three I just mentioned. I just didn't like the conflicted bi-racial girl issue out there, because whether the author acknowledged it or not it was a bi-racial looking chick who seemed to be overcompensating while secretly fukking with a white dude. It reminded me too much of the movie skin (2008). I honestly would've preferred if the movie centered itself more around the sista with the weave and blue eyes. That'd be far more interesting to me.

It's not complexity that I'm afraid off, it's repetitiveness. And a bi-racial bridge between black and white is just too repetitive for me breh.

 

[Piff Huxtable]

#TeamLiteBright winning out here
@KOOL-AID

The darker the flesh the deeper the roots

 

[shonuff]

No no no no, the diversity in the movie was A-Ok with me. I've been wanting for the diversity in black people to be shown in movies. I'm cool with the brother struggling to come out, I'm cool with the brother that has to live up to the expectations, I'm cool with the sister who has the blue contacts and weave I understood all the struggle of all the three I just mentioned mentioned. I just didn't like the conflicted bi-racial girl issue out there, because whether the author acknowledged it or not it was a bi-racial looking chick who seemed to be overcompensating while secretly fukking with a white dude. It reminded me too much of the movie skin (2008). I honestly would've preferred if the movie centered itself more around the sista with the weave and blue eyes. That'd be far more interesting to me.

It's not complexity that I'm afraid off, it's repetitiveness. And a bi-racial bridge between black and white is just too repetitive for me breh.

well the conflicted bi racial is a pretty common trope - seemed to me they were also playing off of that -

no matter what if you are bi racial you are black no matter what but for black people you have to "prove" your "blackness"

 

[Jello Biafra]

Another film, Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever,” demonstrates this same idea about color theory. Drew Purify, the wife of the philanderer Flipper Purify, is a light-skinned black woman who is used to illuminate the conflicts of interracial love vis-à-vis “black love.” As a sort of a powwow, the dark-skinned black female supporting characters all sit on couches in Drew’s living room, talking about how no men, not even black men, desire them. It was, for me, one of the most powerful moments of the film — one that ended too soon. At the end of the scene, we are drawn back to Drew’s situation. The camera focuses on her downtrodden face as she says, “My man is gone.” One of the darker-skinned women places a hand on Drew to console her and then the scene is over. But when will we get to the moment when a dark-skinned black character, especially a woman, is the one who demonstrates complexity as well?

I don't recall if I read/saw this somewhere or if I just came up with it in discussion of the film itself but lightskinned biracial actress Lonnette McKee being Wesley Snipes' Jungle Fever character's wife was a sign that Wes' character was drawn to light features and made his boning the white chick something that should have been expected from him.

 

[shonuff]

I don't recall if I read/saw this somewhere or if I just came up with it in discussion of the film itself but lightskinned biracial actress Lonnette McKee being Wesley Snipes' Jungle Fever character's wife was a sign that Wes' character was drawn to light features and made his boning the white chick something that should have been expected from him.

yeh i think it was along the lines of this- she thought she was the shyt because she had all these attributes that made her "the shyt" among us - she got all the perks - there really was no downside to her "looking white" but in reality she was as "black" and as equal to any of the other women because at the end of the day - although she was CLOSE to white - in the end a real white chick bagged her darkskinned black man

 

[wire28]

Or they could just show that diversity...

european white guy telling us what to accept in media

 

[Roman Brady]

And that's my issue, what are these different kinds of black people? As far as I'm concerned there are just black people, just like there are just white people. White people that come in all shapes and sizes like rednecks, goths, hipsters, uppity, etc. sure, but in the end they are all white and all represent their race.

Embrace that black people are a varied group of people no matter how the media tries to box you in. Of course they will try to divide, that's what they always do, but only a fool will fall for it. Be better.

no cac

 

[BelowTheMasonDixon]

Light skinned, potentially ambiguously mixed black characters are easier to digest to a white audience. Usually they will also show more characteristics in their mentality that mirrors those of whites, while the plot dictates they acquiesce the issues surrounding midnight-black people. Its like when I was a youngin' and realized while the rappers looked like me in the videos, the girls rarely resembled any of the ones I grew up near. You know, Get money, get the "red-bones/yellow bones/something light" and never look back.[/QUOTE}

So what you saying????