Daring to have the bad guys be black

Warning: The following post contains spoilers about The Nice Guys, starting very near the beginning.

One of the most troubling character stereotypes in Hollywood was also borne out of some of the best intentions. That character is the saintly African-American, sometimes referred to more roughly and confrontingly as "the magical Negro." The idea behind this character is to engage in a sort of cinematic affirmative action. The idea is that to counteract negative stereotypes of black people in society, you want to present only positive images of them on screen. While this is well-meaning, it becomes its own kind of perniciousness because it again fails to treat the person as a person, capable of imperfection and moral complexity. It's a form of pandering, even if it has only the most positive of motivations.

The Nice Guys is a good indication that some filmmakers are daring to go back in the other direction.

The Nice Guys, Shane Black's new 70s noir comedy, has exactly two black characters in it, and they are both sinister. One of them is not known to be sinister from the outset, hence the spoiler warning.

The one known from the outset (in case you still haven't heeded my spoiler warning) is played by Keith David. He's a heavy who shows up at Russell Crowe's apartment to cuff him around in the first act. He's at least the less ostentatious of the two heavies who show up in that scene, the other played by a scenery-chewing (but entertainingly so) Beau Knapp.

The second (now you really need to heed the spoiler warning) is an assistant to Kim Basinger's character, who at first seems to be sympathetic and retains the fancy of our leads even after she is proven to be nefarious -- perhaps only because they find her attractive. Her name is Tally and she's played by Yaya DaCosta.

Perhaps Black thought he could get away with it because of his last name.

I don't have a problem with this, mind you. I do think it's kind of outdated to worry that if you have African American characters who are bad in a movie, that means the movie is racist. However, I did certainly notice it, which means neither I nor the movies are as post-racial as we would all hope to be in the era of Barack Obama. (But also in the era of Trayvon Martin.)

What I do find sort of interesting is the lack of even a token character of color to offset these two. Then again, I guess tokenism is the very thing we should be righteously lashing back against.

When I try to think back to the start of this trend, or at least my awareness if it, I can trace it a 1987 movie I didn't even see. Street Smart stars Christopher Reeve as a journalist who gets tangled up with black pimps, one of whom is played by Morgan Freeman. I remember people talking at the time about how the portrayal of Reeve as some crusading white savior was irresponsibly contrasted with the ugly portrayal of the pimps, who basically represented the scum of the earth. Ironically enough, it would become Freeman himself who would most exemplify the "saintly African American" for the next 20 years. I mean, he even played God. Only recently has he started playing some characters of suspect moral fiber. (Well, he was the villain in Now You See Me, anyway.)

I mean, I guess it's not totally unprecedented in recent years to have one nefarious black character in a movie. In, say, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Samuel L. Jackson is the villain and essentially the only black character of any note in the cast. I suppose it's having two in The Nice Guys that makes it stand out. One bad black character in a movie is an anomaly; two is a trend. Or so my devil's advocate argument might go.

But really, what matters is how they're used. Jackson is black, but not represented on screen as black in a way that is historically hurtful -- say, a pimp. Actually, he's an internet billionaire with a lisp. He defies stereotypes, not conform to them.

And I guess that's what's fine about David and DaCosta in The Nice Guys. They "happen" to be black. Sure, they are up to no good. But they're up to no good in ways that are interesting, complex. They demonstrate a shrewdness borne of intelligence, not trickery. They are characters with nuance ... which is all anyone ever really should want.

When you come right down to it, all this really is is an examination of perceptions. And I don't hear anyone saying The Nice Guys is racist because it has two black characters who are bad. I've even googled it just to be sure.

Hallelujah.

And if any bets needed hedging, the three most despicable characters -- Basinger, Matt Bomer and Knapp -- are all terminally, unavoidably white.

As for the movie itself, well, it's a blast. It's the movie I wanted Inherent Vice to be. Ryan Gosling and Crowe have terrific chemistry, and the movie is laugh-out-loud funny at times, though it also regularly reminds us how serious everything actually is. It's an enviable mix of tones that works 93% of the time. Some of that 7% is in the somewhat unsatisfying conclusion, but really, I'm fine with 93% of any movie working.

So many movies, so little sex

Samuel L. Jackson has appeared in exactly 100 feature films.

(Wow, what a time for me to check IMDB for his career stats, right?)

I'm talking movies in which he either appeared on screen or provided a voice to the narrator or one of the characters. Those count. What I'm not counting is all the TV shows, TV movies, short films and video games where he is also credited, adding girth to an already impressive IMDB page.

Of these 100 movies, I have seen 43, most recently Mother and Child on Monday night.

Mother and Child also marks the first time I've seen Samuel L. Jackson do a sex scene. Heck, it may be his first sex scene.

In Rodrigo Garcia's film, Jackson and Naomi Watts have sex. I know, that sounds funny, but it works for the characters. It's actually kind of a hot scene, but that's because Watts always gives her all to accurately reproducing the throes of sexual passion. Just remember when we first discovered her in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, ten years ago -- there are several unforgettable sex scenes in that movie. Jackson, for his part, is fully clothed, and basically just lies underneath her -- in fact, she orders him not to move. ("Stay still, old man.") But it counts.

Yep, Jackson is old -- 62 years old now. He's not only been in all those movies, but he's been the lead in many of them. And I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever seen him engaged in sexual congress.

When I pointed this out to my wife, she agreed and noted that he's not usually cast as the romantic lead in a film. In fact, probably never has he been cast in that role. And though secondary characters do have sex in films, most often we're talking about the male and female romantic leads. Jackson has never been cast as either.

Which makes him pretty unusual for a mega-star. How mega? He's appeared in the Star Wars prequels, a couple Tarantino movies, a couple XXX movies with another still to come (the XXX action movie series, not porn, as I have spent this post making abundantly clear), and is set to play Nick Fury in a seemingly endless series of Avengers movies, having already appeared in the role in both Iron Man films. And those are just his recurring affiliations. He's also been in as many good one-off movies as anyone -- and as many bad. (Hey, the man likes to work.)

Yet, no sex.

So what is it about Sam Jackson that keep him from getting any?

I mean, clearly he's handsome enough. He may not possess traditional good looks, but it's no doubt he has a smoldering allure, not to mention a million-dollar smile. But it seems to have something to do with his typecasting. It's funny to suggest that a man who has appeared in three digits worth of movies would be typecast -- outside of John Wayne, that is -- but it's true that casting directors almost always want Jackson to be a badass.

But the badass gets the girl in plenty of movies. In fact, there are a number of movies where badasses actually kill people while they're having sex.

And maybe that's why Mr. Blue Balls does finally get to have sex in Mother and Child -- he's not playing a badass. In fact, he's playing the senior partner at a law firm, who hires Watts' Elizabeth Joyce. He may be a badass in the legal world, but I don't think that's what we mean by "badass." In fact, it took him becoming a literal gray-beard and an old softie to finally get a piece of tail. If he'd known that, maybe he would have started toning down the volume in his auditions and dying his beard, years ago.

There's another quick thing I wanted to talk about regarding Mother and Child, another strong film in Garcia's canon, and it relates to sex had by the real-life Naomi Watts. The film is too under the radar to get any Oscar nominations, even though I'd argue that Annette Bening is as good here as she was in The Kids Are All Right. But there's a case to made that it deserves a nomination in the category Best Acting by a Fetus.

If you haven't heard about one of the more amazing logistical details of the film, Watts plays a woman whose tubes are tied, but gets pregnant anyway. And in a case of method acting at its most committed, Watts is actually pregnant in the film. But she's not pregnant for the whole film, and here's where the movie seems like an incredible feat of logistics. Garcia must have cast her based on her intention to become pregnant -- although the fact that she's a great actor probably had something to do with it. In the character's early scenes, you can be absolutely certain she's not pregnant, or if so, only a couple weeks. In fact, in another sign of Watts' commitment to her sexuality, she gives a full frontal flash to a neighbor, showing not only her breasts and pubic hair, but also a flat stomach.

But what if Watts hadn't been able to conceive? What if they shot all those early scenes, and then she couldn't deliver on the back end? Would they have needed to use a fake-looking prosthetic stomach? Would they have scrapped the scenes they'd done and started over with a different actress? Or would they have simply waited for as long as it took?

Where things get really impressive is later on, when she's ridiculously pregnant. There's a shot when she's lying on her bed, and turns on her side. Her clearly-real pregnant belly is exposed. And then, about ten seconds into the shot, the baby kicks. The baby kicks -- on film! Should we be surprised that Watts is such a good actor, the talent seeps over by osmosis to her unborn baby? And was that kick just a happy accident, or did they have to film it a hundred times, hoping eventually to get this result?

I may not want to know. It's one of those magical moments of cinema that are best left unanswered.