Black Like Me

Role Reversal
This is the most powerful film with regards to the race problem in the Unites States that I have ever seen. A white man, doing research in sociology, turns himself black with the use of certain drugs, which allows him a glimpse into how "the other half" lived. Our protagonist gets a full dose of what it was like to be a black man in the middle years of the twentieth century. the attitudes of blacks as well as whites are examined throughout the film, and are quite ineteresting. (It's also a bit interesting to see "Grandpa Walton" playing a racist bigot!) A very important film that I would recommend to anyone, although it is not easy to watch. Anyone who gets through this film may very well have a darker opinion of humanity when it is over.

Dated But Still Packs a Punch
For those of us of a certain generation, this was a seminal movie. It brought race relations to the fore in a way which Time Magazine articles or even newsreel footage of Civil Rights marchers being sprayed down by power hoses didn't.

The impact came, for me at least, from James Whitmore's understated, slow-burn performance. Nothing that dramatic happens to him in this movie. He's just shunted off incrementally, in one place or another, for no other reason than that he's passing himself off for black. It's really a Spencer Tracy acting turn, in a way. His transformation from weakling to adjudicator is akin to Tracy's in BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK.

The Bad guys are pretty much set up in a row. We also know who the good guy is. Hate to use the analogy, but things are presented in very black and white terms here. We know who the heroes and villains are. But the drama is in how it plays out. Whitmore learns lesson after painful lesson. The upshot is that his story and the film itself...

Thought Provoking
I first read this book when I was still a teenager, and got to see the movie years later on those classic movie channels during Black History Month, and it is and was as thought provoking now as it was then. I don't know how this man wanted to do what some deem unthinkable, but he did, and he has my admiration. In the movie after revealing his true heritage, the man of the house wanted to know why would he do such a thing, while the younger man was real critical of him, and to top that, they were wondering why he would take advantage of his hospitality like that. Like a reverse racism thing if you would. But, I think that they were just bewildered by the whole thing. Please check out the book, and the movie if you can. They play it on Turner Classic Movies esp. during Black History Month.

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