i finally watched 'the departed', and, having seen the trailer/ reading the plot summary, i thought for once i would see a scorcese flick without the use of the N word, amongst other niggery. wrong. like 4 seconds into the movie there it was --- Nigger. even the ricans caught the shaft. why does he always go out of his way to do this? im not mad at the man, im just wondering.

just sayin'.

and it IS a legitimate question.

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

if you're going to go after marty, then go after bet as well.

it's not okay that the script (which scorcese didn't write btw) uses that word, but a lot of what airs on bet is just fine and dandy.

i don't get it.

He did not mention BET at all in his question, therefore you do not know his views on BET and it's portrayal of Black people. So since you don't have that information, you claiming hypocrisy is misplaced and unnecesary.

"Baseball is the belly-button of our society" - Bill Lee

"Baseball is the belly-button of our society" - Bill Lee

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

and to think that he actually thinks he's making sense!

mindblowing.

"Baseball is the belly-button of our society" - Bill Lee

>if you're going to go after marty, then go after bet as
>well.

When has Black Entertainment Television EVER received a pass on these here boards? Never.

But aside from that, when do you hear "nigger" on BET? If The Departed had displayed BET-style coonin, then I could see your point about hypocrisy, but we're talking about 2 different types of degradation

>it's not okay that the script (which scorcese didn't write
>btw) uses that word, but a lot of what airs on bet is just
>fine and dandy.

Nobody said anything was fine and dandy.

>i don't get it.

Evidently, you must not. If you can't see that there's a difference between black people degrading themselves, and black people being degraded by a white director and his screenwriter.

If you think degradation is degradation, and that it's all the same, then that's another discussion.

The problem is that you simply assumed that the poster had no problem with BET, which is just unfair.

And then you just assumed that degradation is the same no matter the source, white (Monahan and Scorcese) or black (Deborah Lee and Steven Hill), when that's not something to be assumed, especially if you're not black (I don't know if you are or not).

You can't go after Scorcese without attacking Marvel and DC...just sayin.


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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

"Baseball is the belly-button of our society" - Bill Lee

...in the media?

Mech

i mean, it's not like frank costello was supposed to be revered, the dude was scumbag to the highest extent...him busting out the n-bomb was a little shocking, but i can't say it was marty trying to drag blacks down, more about a guy like costello dragging down everyone and everything around him

Mech

...and the racism is part of it. It's the same thing with, say, James Ellroy books. He writes about corrupt asshole cops in the 50's and those guys were most likely racists...

of course, his novela are usually narrated from a first-person POV so you could argue that the reason the black characters come off that way is because they're filtered through the eyes of racist characters... but still, i wonder about him

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

When he's writing in third person for example and still use the "n"-word, it's a bit disturbing but I always thought of it as him trying to catch some sort of "sleazy", evil vibe, maybe I'm just trying to justify it. Hasn't he always refused to talk about his opinions on racism, politics and stuff in interviews?

(such as in the features he used to write for GQ a few years agoon subjects like Bill Clinton - who he hates more than evil itself, OJ Simpson and Bill O'Reilly - who he seems to love)

he still uses that sleazy, 1950s-style argot

he doesn't use the N-word in these, of course... but it's still pretty much the same idiom. (he doesn't shy away from talking about "camel jockeys" and "dune coons" of course)

i do think dude is a racist, but i admire his refusal to admit to or deny his racism.

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

i thought he was unabashedly racist

--------------------
Why do you choose to mimic these wack MCs?
Why do you choose to listen to R&B?

"There are obviously many things which we do not understand, and may never be able to." Leela

*puts emceeing in a box*

Lloyd Hopkins a liberal. I'm not sure, but I think Ellroy said that writing liberal characters wasn't interesting to him.

Dude is disturbed, though, so I think its best read everything he writes with that in mind.

As far as Scorsese, the characters in his films come from a certain background and that background lends itself to that type of jargon.

in Brown's Requiem

there wasn't too much said about his political orientation and he didn't seem particularly racist (apart from some remarks about "beaners" and "taco wagons")

he loved Beethoven instead of Wagner, though

who's Lloyd Hopkins? is that the protagonist of Clandestine?

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

You're right. I was referring to Brown.

Lloyd Hopkins:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Hopkins_Trilogy

>i do think dude is a racist, but i admire his refusal to admit
>to or deny his racism.

What's so admirable about that?

n/m

-------------------------------

A lot of you players ain't okay.

We would have been better off with an okaycivics board instead of an okayactivist board

Mech

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and it annoyed me. But i don't know if it's fair to blame Scorcese when he didn't write the script and Nicholson is the one who actually said it.

But even tho it did annoy me, i'm also aware that film is art. and art is allowed to be provocative.

"Baseball is the belly-button of our society" - Bill Lee

-------------------------------

A lot of you players ain't okay.

We would have been better off with an okaycivics board instead of an okayactivist board

cuz if it was in the script, it was the writer's fault.

i would also like to point out that assigning blame ultimately is useless unless anyone is prepared to actually do something about it.

"Baseball is the belly-button of our society" - Bill Lee

I mean, we're learning right off the bat that this dude is a deplorable, racist asshole. It's getting to the core of a character, not trying to present some view on race from the director.

We also see Costigan's asshole cousin make fun of Puerto Ricans, and Costello later call the chinese guys 'chinks' and make the 'no ticky, no laundry' joke.

I don't see how these moves could be interpreted as the director's feelings. They allow us to gain insights into these characters, in the former case, a low-life loser criminal and in the latter, as I said above, a deplorable racist asshole scumbag. Should they be presenting this with watered down terms that don't cut as deep and in turn water down the characters?

As for the rest of his movies, as much as I hate to say it, being full-blood Italian, it's not like Italians have the best reputation when it comes to racial relations. And in Departed, it may not be Italians, but again, it's not like the Boston Irish have the best reputation with racial relations either. These are depictions of the reality with these characters, not gratuitous shots at black people.

------------
I'm a free born man of the USA.

Mech

i think these posts are ridiculous and stupid

-------------------------------

A lot of you players ain't okay.

We would have been better off with an okaycivics board instead of an okayactivist board

Blaming the actor for saying a word while delivering the lines written by the writer of the script....

Wow


If I were you, i'd go back to your old approach to posting...which, judging by the number of your posts coupled with your your charter member status means, would consist of keeping your mouth shut so as not to sound like you have an extra chromosome

...what did you expect?

but for real, I don't think that he goes out of his way to be racist, at least not in this film.
just because characters in a film may be racist, doesn't mean the filmmaker is.

If he decided to do a sequal or re-make of 'birth of a nation' that would be a different story.

peace
7c

that the metro boston area is predominantly black? why do people act as if boston is the most racist place in the world? i live here like tons of other people and i been other places too. Boston is as racist as NYC or any other city for that matter. these stereotypes need to stop for real. Im not on some aggressive tip, just letting you know that this is the deaddest horse of them all

Stay strong

Lexx

iamlexx.com
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aim: lexx3001

My mom was born and raised in Roxbury and I have a number of friends who live and have lived in Boston. All of them speak about the huge levels of racism that they have seen or were subjected to.

I don't think that boston is the most racist city in the world, but it definitely is far more racist than NYC. When I hear the world 'tolerance', Boston is definitely not the first place that comes to mind.

I don't mean to hate on your city, it's a pretty dope town, but you can't deny that there are still a lot of biggoted people that live there.

peace
7c

Overall, the prevailing notion that Boston is horribly racist is based on the 70s moreso than today. There's still some racism, but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be. Gentrification probably helps that as well. I think as the neighborhoods get less ethnic, different people are accepted a lot easier.

But that reputation is tough to live down.

------------
I'm a free born man of the USA.

people are always shown or think about the busing riots that took place in Southie in the 70's...even though it *really* wasnt about race the way people think

And other thing is, its just easier/more convenient/trendy in a way, for people to simply equate boston as THE racist city, because thats what they've heard from other ill informed people. Like someone said in another thread this week, the Problem exists across the board in this country, but in Boston, people wear their hearts on their sleeves a bit more, so something that isnt racist as much as it is ignorant, comes off as being straight up racist to those who dont know what the deal is.

>Overall, the prevailing notion that Boston is horribly racist
>is based on the 70s moreso than today. There's still some
>racism, but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be.
>Gentrification probably helps that as well. I think as the
>neighborhoods get less ethnic, different people are accepted a
>lot easier.

Yup, look at the South end right now...It went from a not so great place, mainly dwelled in by minorities, to a section of town that is on the comeup real estate wise, and in terms of race, is getting more and more diverse...Not its filled with black folk, latino, white and a large group of gay folks as well

but it kinda makes sense after the movie is done

... pull that shit are usually Gangsters too. Bad guys. I never really took any of that to heart. I mean any time i hear some racist shit it is always jarring, but at the same time that's the world we live in.



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well, aren't most of those guys racists too? if they didn't throw around racial slurs, it'd be about as realistic as police dramas on network tv where the cops & criminals don't curse.

___________________

Mar-A-Lago delenda est

That would be my guess.

----
I check for: Serengeti, Zeroh, Open Mike Eagle, Jeremiah Jae, Moka Only.

___________________

Mar-A-Lago delenda est

--Maurice

_____

Bonding over sutures is what's hot in Oh-Nine.
--JS

to me it seemed too arbitrary... kinda forced

like "hey... let's say something racist so's the audience knows this is SOUTHIE, man!"

(that is referring specifically to The Departed, of course, and not Marty's other films)

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

because at the end of the opening sequence, i was like, 'how is this really salient to the remainder of the story?'

it's not even really relavent to the introduction of the characters: we get the hint that nicholson's a lecherous douchebag from the time he meets matt damon as a kid, and his general bigotry was pronounced throughout the movie. It almost felt to me like had stock footage laying around and was like 'hey let's not let this go to waste'

Look at the characters in the movies where these comments were made. They're deplorable human beings that probably really think like this.

In Goodfellas, you got Henry Hill talking about the only people that go to jail are "nigger stick up men who fall asleep in the getaway car" and then later in the film you have, ironically, Stax Edwards driving the getaway car, fucking up the disposal of the car and Tommy killing him. Incidentally, in The Heist, a book based on Lufthansa, Stax and Tommy turned out to be childhood friends and it tore Tommy up to kill him, but they told him he'd probably be made on that murder.

Earlier in Goodfellas, you got the truck driver who, after Henry and Tommy stole his truck stormed into the diner declaring, "Two niggers stole my truck". That's how these guys were back then and are now. The racism in Scorsese movies is no worse than the average Tony Soprano racism.

It is present in most of his movies from Travis' racist undertones in Taxi Driver to the blatant and murderous racism in Gangs of New York, but that is the world these movies inhabit and that world is based in fact.

especially in an episode like "Unidentified Black Males"

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

>especially in an episode like "Unidentified Black Males"


I take it you didn't see the "racists are big meanies" sledgehammering episode in season 4 titled "Christopher".

I've seen after-school specials that were subtler in delivering their one-note messages.

i know a lot of people hate that ep and view it as "A Very Special Episode of Sopranos," which i suppose it is, to some degree

but for a long time, it was my favorite episode of the show, hamfisted "message" and all

the message wasn't anti-racist per se... it was anti-racial narcissist and anti-collectivist.

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

I don't hate it but it feels like a lost episode that should be only available on dvd or something.

I mean the opening scene is actual footage from the busing riots of the 70's.

but yeah it seemed a little too blunt to lead off like that.

___________________

Mar-A-Lago delenda est

people talk about Scorsese as if he just makes his films and everything in them
he's a director
and people talk about Nicolson as if he makes up his own lines
he's an actor

although i suppose scorsese does collaborate on the script often and also i've heard nicolson just wrote his own dialogue in a lot of films

but surely it's the writer you've got to start with

--------------------
Why do you choose to mimic these wack MCs?
Why do you choose to listen to R&B?

"There are obviously many things which we do not understand, and may never be able to." Leela

*puts emceeing in a box*

that particular line and Scorsese liked it and decided to keep it in, unless you have a copy of the script in front of you...

And as to the next question that I'm almost certain will be asked, William Monahan didn't just win the Oscar based on the dialogue alone, but also because he did a fine job of taking the basic storyline of Infernal Affairs and making it unique to Boston -- which includes dialogue, yes, but also includes locations and a working knowledge of how people in the city behave.
_____________________________________________________________________
freak out
in a moonage daydream
oh yeah

fall back
lol

--------------------
Why do you choose to mimic these wack MCs?
Why do you choose to listen to R&B?

"There are obviously many things which we do not understand, and may never be able to." Leela

*puts emceeing in a box*

And does one have to watch the Oscars to know that he won the Oscar?
_____________________________________________________________________
freak out
in a moonage daydream
oh yeah

the oppurtunity to say 'fall back'
i know who got best director (since it was famously scorsese's first), best actor, best picture
i don't know any of that other stuff though

isn't there a copy of The Departed original screenplay on the net
it didn't sound like the sort of lines an actor would improvise
i mean for a start wasn't it a voiceover

--------------------
Why do you choose to mimic these wack MCs?
Why do you choose to listen to R&B?

"There are obviously many things which we do not understand, and may never be able to." Leela

*puts emceeing in a box*

blaming him for something because you "dont know if he was improvising" is fuckin retarded

Proof Positive that people here bitch just to see/hear themselves bitch and thats all

And he's from Somerville, just outside of Boston. No-one knows how shit goes down in Southie, UNLESS they grew up there.

always disturbed me

and yes it did seem like in Th Departed, the use of the n-word was forced and had nothing to do with the story

but then again maybe it did as in "take shit" in a mob way etc because the world is fucked and you dont actually get what you deserve so you have to do what ya gotta do to get yours

devils advocate but its still a bit disturbing ..because if the line wasn't used it wouldn't have hurt the film at all, regardless if it's Boston racism they are trying to imply...as if we don't already know that it's there

I remember The Departed initial thread here when someone wrote about her going to see the flick in the afternoon in a theater with not many people in it , and when the line came up she chuckled and said to herself "ok..now Scorcese has got his n-word out of the way..." which is telling

I fit hasn't already been done, one day I'd like this subject matter to be part of a Scorcese interview and hear his view/explanation of his use of it in his films

he was the passenger?

that nigger guy?

___

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people fail to realize that nicholson's character was degrading EVERY ethnic race...that was his character

i swear, we need to let go of our sensitivity...

as for most scorcese film, he always try to be reality based (even while being over-the-top at the sametime), and in the real world we HAVE a multitude of bigotists especially those who live the life of crime, who ever HEARD of a fuckin' "politically correct" criminal???

niggers.

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and southie especially...and dot

Wow.

OE wasn't BSing.

...with who? THA DOODOOMAN!!!
www.homestarrunner.com/vcr_poop.html

kill all whites today & we'll still be f'd up. we fight over BS political ideas & ethnic allegiances but scared to defend resources of our own land. the only savior is self--thegodcam

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he just kinda clueless about some and more subtle about others.

You think they don't use it?

<-----Me in GD.

But i'm Irish, grew up in Boston, Parents are from Southie and Dorchester and were and still remain working class folks...and that word has absolutely NEVER been used in my house...
Some of us were raised better than that
I know it shatters the illusions that too many here hold on to that all white folks use the word when we're alone, or together with only white folks
But the fact of the matter is, that aint the way it is

nm

<-----Me in GD.

And it was more than unacceptable in my family.

Not to say that it doesn't exist...I've been in many houses where the various slurs were thrown around willy-nilly. But as my man said above, some of us were raised better than that.

Getting back to the topic, however, like so many folks have said in this thread, he's directing films about people who throw slurs around.

__________________________________
The man. The myth. The Ruiz.

.....

--------------------------------------

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
250 troops lead by Custer were defeated by the Dakota, they are Sioux Indians.

------------
I'm a free born man of the USA.

it was especially forced in The Departed. He seems to have black characters as "things" rather than "people" in his movies.

you can say "white people use the n-word" in *any* US setting so I don't buy that excuse 100%.

--------

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nobody has called me an N word yet

(to my hearing, anyway)

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

From what I understand, Southie has a considerable Black population now, along with various groups of Asians.

To tell the truth, whenever my family goes to Boston...if they want to get their Irish on, they go to Charlestown.

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