Films July 9, 2017
Representation only matters if it's fair.
At 5:30 p.m. on a Thursday, I left work in a hurry and jumped in an Uber. I was running late for a screening of “Baby Driver,” Edgar Wright’s new film. The release date was the following Wednesday officially, but it’s already screening in Los Angeles.
Not surprisingly, a line wrapped around the block to the ArcLight entrance. After another forty-five minutes of waiting, we filed into the theatre and then raced up the stairs to find seats. Here’s my “Baby Driver” film review. Head’s up, it’s a minority report.
The lights went down, and the movie started with a bang. It was apparent that everything I’d heard about the movie’s orchestration was true. Sitting through this movie was like watching a group of particularly talented street dancers on the Santa Monica pier.
It is insanely well-edited and well coordinated — almost symphonic in nature. The cast of actors is stacked: Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm, Eiza González, Lily James and Ansel Elgort as Baby. White dudes are going to be shitting their pants over this movie for YEARS. If you don’t want a white dude to talk to you about how much they love “Baby Driver,” you’re going to need to cut yourself off from civilization.
Seriously, I left the theatre and two white dudes were screaming at each other at the top of their lungs about how much they loved this movie.
But if you’re not a white dude, you have some questions. For example:
What the actual hell is Jamie Foxx in this movie? Is he a Blood? Or does he just have an unhealthy affinity for the color red? Jaime Foxx is a fantastic actor. He is one of two people in the cast with an Academy Award for best actor.
Watching him lope about as a completely stereotypical “loose cannon blood thirsty gangster” was a huge disappointment. He points his guns where they don’t belong and *Spoiler* beats up an elderly deaf man. But Jamie wasn’t the only living stereotype in the movie.
I first saw Eiza González in the television adaptation of “From Dusk Till Dawn.” She’s absolutely gorgeous. Her character in the movie is one of three women in the film whose roles are only pertinent to men’s characters.
Eiza is the only woman of color in the movie with an extensive role. And she is a walking stereotype of a Hispanic woman. She is a loose, amoral, implied drug user who uses her feminine wiles to incite violence within and amongst men. The white women in the film are paragons of moral good.
It’s worth mentioning that “Baby Driver’s” foster father in the film is a black, deaf man. But while Baby cares about him deeply, their relationship seems to be arm’s-length in a way that neither of them take the leap in calling themselves family. Oh, and he basically just exists to be put in danger to motivate Baby.
The movies fails the Duvernay test in my opinion, which is like the Bechdel test, except for minorities. To explain further: “Baby Driver” fails because none of the minorities are well-rounded characters with legitimate backstories. They only exist to cause conflict among the film’s main characters. And when they speak the subjects of their conversations are the white characters around them.
“Baby Driver” will not be going down in time as a particularly progressive film in terms of representation. But if you want to watch an insanely well-choreographed, two-hour-long music video, get your butt down to the nearest theatre.
