Soul Plane

This article first appeared in Playahata.com and Guerilla Funk.

A few years ago, BET’s Bob Johnson announced the formation of DC Air, a budget airline that would have been created to help slide the merger of US Air and United Airlines through Congress with less resistance. Immediately, the joke emails started circulating, with all types of ignorant scenarios about just how ghetto an airline run by a brother would actually operate. Flight attendants dressed like video hoes, an in-flight DJ, Popeye’s Chicken as the in-flight meal, etc. were just a few of the ignorant and totally stereotypical comments I saw bandied about. For whatever odd reason, black people have come to associate black business with automatically meaning incompetence and lack of professionalism.

Thus the jokes were funny on the surface, but underneath it all was a subconscious train of thought that the idea of black people running an airline was too outlandish to ever come to fruition. Damn, are we that programmed or what?

The merger never made it, and thus never did DC Air (Johnson has since taken his money elsewhere, having bought the NBA’s Charlotte expansion franchise, which he arrogantly named after himself), but some genius in Hollywood got hold of that email, and now we’re left with yet another masterpiece of moviemaking, the-headed-to-DVD-and-Cinemax-with-a-bullet flick, Soul Plane.

I won’t bother giving you the plot, there isn’t one. Just know that through a truly outrageous turn of events, Dakwon (Kevin Hart of the ABC sitcom The Big House, which will probably be canceled by the time you finish reading this review) becomes the owner of NWA Airlines (Yes, NWA. Don’t ask me what it stands for), which is about to make its first ever flight from LAX to JFK.

There are two schools of thought involved when trying to analyze a movie like Soul Plane – either you can see it as an hour and a half diversion of mindless laughs, or you can see it as the worst possible representation of what Hollywood thinks of Black people and what they’ll pay to see. Naturally, being the Hata I am, I tend to lean towards the latter. It’s hard not to, considering that this movie has about every possible stereotype of blacks out there covered:

Even the situations and scenery are stereotypical:

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Of course there’s enough “fart” jokes, “takin’ a dump” jokes, “big dick/little dick” jokes, “broke Negro” jokes, “white folks are so corny” jokes, and “I’m so high” jokes to fill a week of episodes of Comic View. I didn’t even mention the fact that Snoop Dogg plays the captain – who learned to fly while playing on a flight simulator in jail. The whole thing feels like an extra long skit from Cedric the Entertainer Presents. If you ever saw that show, you could probably conclude that this isn’t a good thing.

Recent movies like Undercover Brother have succeeded, largely because they attempted to cleverly defuse old stereotypes. But like recent gems Johnson Family Vacation, My Baby’s Momma and Friday After Next, this movie is just plain blissfully ignorant. I’ll readily admit I laughed while watching this movie, but mainly because of the downright absurdity of the whole thing, not because of funny writing.

Do yourself a favor and send Hollywood a message at the same time. Miss this flight. And if you happen to be in the barbershop and they’re stupid enough to be playing a bootleg of the movie a month before it hits theaters (while there’s a dozen kids watching intently), ask them to shut it off. Like I should have.

Grade: D+

Shiesty is a communications professional from North Carolina who lives in Washington, D.C. His Weapons-of-Choice are Alternet.com, BlackCommentator.com and a tattered library card. Shiesty’s Biggest Dislikes: Bill O’Reilly, tofu, Armstong Williams, and Ward Connerly.