![]() Just as one of them seems to have the battle won, an enormous, shiny, and new Cadillac Brougham squashes them both dead under its wheels without even thinking about what happened. ![]() There are two black scorpions shown in a close up fighting to the death in the middle of the desert outside Las Vegas. One doesn’t need to look further than the opening seconds of Hudlin’s film to see an obvious comparison to the same sort of racial satire that’s on display in Django Unchained. It was one of the highest grossing fights of all time… and it was over in less than two minutes. Here was a clean cut white boy who was going to beat up a former prisoner and the baddest man on the planet! Don King promoted the fight like it was Jesus fighting Satan with broken glass taped to their fists in an Outback Steakhouse. ![]() McNeely got over-hyped and threatened to wrap Tyson in a “cocoon of horror” and white America lost their shit. Set against the backdrop of professional boxing with a screenplay by Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, White Men Can’t Jump) and Tony Hendra, The Great White Hype came hot on the heels of a much publicized joke of a real life fight between a fresh out of prison Mike Tyson and some random ass white guy named “Hurricane” Peter McNeeley from Massachusetts who probably had no business ever being in the ring with the former champ. The job led to him directing the Eddie Murphy vehicle Boomerang (which still stands as one of the tipping point in Eddie’s career before moving on to more genteel fare), and his successes afforded him the ability to go a lot grander on his next project. That same film would be picked up by New Line Cinema and remade into a feature length megahit by the same name with rap dup Kid and Play in the leads. Producer and director Reginald Hudlin first became a noted filmmaker back when he was attending Harvard University when he created an award winning short film called House Party. It might seem like a tenuous connection at best on first glance, but for those looking for a great way to prepare for the thematic message of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained aside from overdosing on Sergio Corbucci’s bleak Spaghetti Westerns, there’s a funnier alternative that was directed in 1996 by one of QT’s producers on his latest project, starring two of the biggest stars in that film as part of a massive ensemble cast, deals with racism in a strikingly similar manner, and also manages to be one of the most underrated sports comedies of all time. Defending The Indefensible: Great White Hype
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |