Thank God the Little Bronze Bigot Flew Over Denzel

Some of you out there are a trip. I listened for weeks to ya’ll complaining about “Django Unchained.” In fact, I heard so much bitchin’ and complaining about Django that you almost made me forget about “Flight.” 

You were upset over the N-Word being used, you and y’Boy Spike. You weren’t really upset with the word “nigger” being used multiple times, you just had a problem with it being Quentin Tarantino’s idea. There’s another movie over two hours long with a black commercial airline pilot acting niggerish, about which that you said nothing.

I am done. Two of ya’ll and two wooden nickles don’t add up to a dollar, because you let this go over your heads literally and figuratively. Still haven’t caught on yet have you? What flick am I talking about? The one where the black Captain, William “Whip” Whitaker is sleeping after openly doing drugs while in the cockpit and when his co-pilot wakes him up because the auto-pilot button fails, Denzel’s character hits the nigger-pilot button and the plane lands upside-down. You missed the whole tricknology behind it didn’t you? All it was, was “Training Day” at 30,000 feet, co-starring another black actor (Don Cheadle) known for playing a character who regularly scolds a flying drunk man.

You almost made me forget about being pissed over a movie starring America’s Premier black thespian, the man who became Hollywood’s no.1 actor back in the 90s, nominated multiple times by the little bronze bigot, having won it once for playing a Union Soldier, and another time for Best Actor playing one of the worst cops ever portrayed. Many of you didn’t let that get by you, and I couldn’t hate on you. That was black year for Oscar, and the little bronze bigot tossed us three bones: Denzel for “Training Day,” Halle Berry for her virtual-porn in “Monsters’ Ball,” (“Make Me Feel Good!”) and Will Smith competing directly against Washington and others for Best Actor that year for “Ali.” Spike Lee-always mis-directing us to the wrong target raised some noise about not counting Smith’s nomination because he accused him of being Gay (Can’t have that in Hollywood, of all places).

A lot of you said the movie with the black pilot who snorts coke, does meth, smokes crack, drinks “Henny” like Kool Aid, shoots heroin and flies a damn plane upside-down was really brilliant acting. Really, niggers? Really? Really? Ok, whateva’, I’m on your time. I may be slightly exaggerating on his amount of substance abuse, but Captain Whitaker is portrayed as out-drinking his white alcoholic girlfriend (Nicole), goes to an NTSB hearing loaded on alcohol and coke and you say this is alright with you. Listen closely to me. This is NOT a “nobody’s perfect” moment that too many of you tag almost everything as. What Captain “Whip” really needed was Django to ride by, see that upside-down plane lying in that field with him just waking up, just in time for him to drag “Whip” out from under the broken plane, take out his whip, and put some slave-lashes on his buttocks. He needs that more than Spike Lee’s lips need Crazy Glue.

The reason “Flight” was made, was because Hollywood was still pissed over “Red Tails.” Just the idea that George Lucas went and did a movie about some real live Black Superheroes, WWII heroes at that, and rammed it down their throats after they told him “Hell The F No” twenty-years-ago, still resonates with them. It gave the lie to all the hundreds of all-white WWII movies we were made to see and accept as reality. “Flight” was a get-back movie on so many levels. And it is for that reason why I was so glad that “Flight” didn’t win best movie or best actor at the 2013 Academy Awards.

Like “Monster’s Ball,” “Flight” was a story far more indicative of the disturbing mindset of the writers and production company than anything else relating to the film. It has an approval rating of 77% from the 186 tough critics of Rotten Tomatoes (vs. the 39% they gave for “Red Tails”). The only criticisms worth listening to were the ones coming from actual pilots, who wondered why Whitaker was continuously allowed to fly with such a glaring substance abuse problem? I’m sure what they really were asking was “what black airline pilot gets away with such a glaring alcohol AND drug problem and is able to get away with this abuse for so long?” The answer lies on a completely different landing-strip - the Tuskegee Airman strip.

What I’m about to give you is White Hollywood Psychology 101. Many of you think a movie like “Flight” was a victory for blacks in major film simply because of who starred in it. It’s not. When you see most movies and TV shows and news shows depicting black criminal(s), what you are really seeing is a white image. When you see a movie or TV show starring a black addict or actor playing an addict, you are in actuality seeing a white image. This has been going on for decades now and some of you brothers and sisters still haven’t figured it out. Although it doesn’t really matter what the race of the filmmaker is, most of them are white. “Red Tails” was a splendid project made by a white producer who consulted with the remaining black fighter pilots (people that black directors like Lee and many others ignored) to give you a movie consisting of black images. By contrast, Jesse Terrero, a black Dominican director gave you a white image movie about black pilots; “Soul Plane.” When Spike Lee gave you “Malcolm X” he gave you a black image; when Lee gave you “Four Little Girls” he gave you a black image. When he gave you “School Daze,” and “Jungle Fever,” he gave you a white image. John Singleton’s “Boyz in the Hood,” and “Rosewood,” black images. “Higher Learning,” white image.