DreamGirls a Review

More than anything else, watching DreamGirls made me realize that it is the social conditions surrounding race, and therefore economic and political power, that are the crucial determinates of the constellation that is racism. Moreover, just as Thomas Kuhn in his book on scientific revolutions notes that at some points in time you have to wait for the elders to die before the new paradigm can take over, so with racism. And just as members of my family will not be shook from their worldviews without unusual circumstances, or unusual friendships, and will cloak themselves in privilege and the ‘right’ ideology (insofar as they are aware), so do we have different reactions to DreamGirls; be it “different” or “fun”. And while it is no surprise that cultures can only go big, in a positive propaganda type of way, once they are safely old, safe, ‘classic’, etc…it doesn’t keep the fact from being depressing, like the conversation in the car about how rap is either awful or, well, there is better and worse rap, but it’s all rap (i.e. bad, black, yucky, whatever).

It is also interesting how fashion is reinterpreted, as after all, to be entertaining, then must continue to be racy both formally and off screen; which is to say, no their wasn’t nude pictures of Diana Ross on the cover of magazines. Also, while the conditions creating the necessity of being a ‘crossover’ are mentioned, they are written off by the similar practice by the Jamie Foxx character who, after engineering the crossover tries to own and control the sound. Or rather while it is wonderful that we have a movie that is almost solely made up of black actors and actresses, and therefore the movie should not be about white people, not challenging the ideology of an opposite project (i.e. those who proclaim the end of racism, the civil rights movement solving all race-related problems, etc) makes one worry, especially when one even glimpses at how it is read by white audiences, which is not of course to say we don’t want more such movies.

3 out of 4 stars.

db

p.s-this is in not to say i've figured this shit out, i am not racist, etc; but here i am.