why celebrate racists on film?
This artist was a racist - he portrayed blacks as mammies and minstrels - and should not be celebrated in film. Don't waste your time or brain cells on it.
shareSome people would argue that Crumb's artwork is a very vivid and purposely ugly sattire of racism. Others would argue that his work isn't so much a sattire, but just an illustration of racism. The argument has been made that art doesn't solve problems, but only present them, as that's the nature of art. Crumb never meant anything he drew to be very positive or enlightening.
But even if you can swallow that easily enough, I have to say personally that a lot of Crumb's work is crude and degrading enough that, dispite his intent, a lot of his images are dirogitory and unnecissary.
People who insist that his works like "When the *beep* Take Over The World" are a satirical look at the backwards nature of racism and how absurd it is by allowing his work to mimic the ridiculous nature of the racist mind.
But it isn't really a sattire, because it is too easily accepted by people who honestly beleive things like, for example, that blacks are inferior, base people, to look at that work and find it a comical depiction of their beleifs. It doesn't make them uncomfortable at all to admit to beleiving what is said in the book.
I don't beleive that Crumb is a racist in the traditional sense. I do think his works in which he purposely re-creates old fashioned racist images, are something of a farce, in his mind, of the world in which he lives. But I don't think his intent really lies in serving as a reminder of how absurd racism is.
To him, it's a joke on the entire world, and he would just as soon insult blacks as anybody else, though he doesn't have any qualms about insulting blacks in particular. Sure, he makes fun of white people too, but Robert Crumb isn't really any kind of a hero based on who and what he likes to pick on.
I think that he is insensative and racist. But he doesn't care, and is probably amused by how offended people are by what he does. I don't think that's very admirable at all.
All that said, this film is an insight into the life of Crumb as a man and an artist. It is a study, it's not a work of praise, it's a picture of a man - a very bizzare and talented man - whether for good or bad. I'm not going to be the one to say it one way or the other, but I think it is valid to argue that what Crumb does is at times immoral and should not be tolerated, but you can't deny his talent any more than you could deny the talent of D.W. Griffifth when he made "Birth of a Nation" which for it's time was a very well-crafted and visionary work of film. But even if you can appreciate that, the movie is fundamentally flawed and offensive in how racist it is.
But this film about Crumb as a man neither commends or condemns him. It's a look at what he does. You don't have to like Robert Crumb to like this movie.
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