Kind of sends the wrong message as well. That black people blindly voted for Obama because of race, rather than belief (which to some degree is true, but still...). The movie started off okay, but just got ridiculous as the random celebrities started to pile in along with the pretentiousness. IMO, The Help was a superior film.
shareYou mean the superior 'n-word' film?
I love n-words!
Or maybe... superior film dealing with racism, Civil Rights, and several other common themes.
Are you dense or something? Your first thought was "ni--er film"?
No. Yes.
Hope this helps.
this movie didn't deal with any of those issues in a honest way. black people were fighting back. those presidents that showed ''mercy'' to black people didn't do it out of the kindness of their hearts. they did it because internationally they were getting bad press. this movie is full of BS black inferior white superiority
i've got feelings too, ya know - inbetweeners
What?
shareThat is a side effect of all of this. The focal point should be the historical significance of a black man in the white house, not the individual himself or his politics. Unfortunately its impossible to fully separate the two. The Obama election shows where this nation has come to from a disgusting racial past, some a long time ago, some fairly recent.
shareVery nicely put.
The instrument has yet to be invented that can measure my indifference to that remark.
You mean the historical significance of a half white, mixed race man in the white house.
shareI don't think you understand the meaning of "random." Nothing presented in this story was "random", it was all part of telling the story that the writer wanted to tell.
I don't believe anything in this movie suggested that "black people blindly voted for Obama." They were happy he won, but he couldn't have gotten elected without a large share of white vote also.
While I agree the use of various celebrities (Opray, Lenny, Mariah) detracted from the overall story, what does "The Help" have to do with "The Butler"? They are two quite different movies.
TxMike
Make a choice, to take a chance, to make a difference.
Too many blacks did, in fact, vote for Obama simply because of the color of his skin. In fact, his re-election was one of the most racist moments in the pat 50 years of American history. There was all the evidence one could ever need to not vote for that dunce cap, but blacks still voted for him by 96 percent.
share@Cobb_Ty
Okay, I'm tired of racist ignoramuses like you claiming that black people only voted for Obama because he was black. If that was the case, then both Shirley Chisholm and Jesse Jackson would have been president already.
Too many blacks did, in fact, vote for Obama simply because of the color of his skin. In fact, his re-election was one of the most racist moments in the pat 50 years of American history.
"Okay, I'm tired of racist ignoramuses like you claiming that black people only voted for Obama because he was black. If that was the case, then both Shirley Chisholm and Jesse Jackson would have been president already."
Yes, because we all know the black vote can single-handidly usher someone into the presidency!
"And calling Obama a dunce----half of you posting probably aren't even qualified to run a damn lemonade stand, much less anything in the government. It's easy to talk s*** about the President not doing this or that when you're never had the job, so just STFU about that already."
Um, how about: no!
"he actually had a basic understanding of how everyday citizens live their lives, and their daily struggles and needs."
I see he had you right where he wanted you: duped and dumb.
"That's probably also because he was self-made to some extent"
Self-made?
He'd never even held a real job!
"We're talking about a guy who owned several homes while the average person was losing theirs to foreclosure---what the hell did he know about about having financial problems?"
Um, Obama is a multi-millionaire. Absolutely astounding you didn't know that.
"So to say that Black people only voted for Obama because he was black insults my intelligence as a black person."
No, your definition of "intelligence" is what insults your intelligence.
@ activista
Very well put. Its sickening that so many people say blacks only voted for obama because he is black. It's that very same thinking by some whites that had the FBI watching MLK and the panthers because blacks weren't smart enough to do this on their own, so it must be a communist conspiracy to disrupt American society from within. Give me a break. To state that blacks only voted for that reason is the same as blacks weren't organized or smart enough to have the Civil Rights movement. I guess history does repeat itself when certain people don't want to give black people credit.
How about Obama was elected because most Americas were tired of the same old wealthy individuals using the average and poor citizens, OF ALL COLOR, to keep and maintain power. Dem/Rep, it doesn't matter. They are one in the same in that they only care about winning office and maintaining power, so they lie to the masses to try to convince them they have the answers to fixing this nation, when in reality all they do is profit for themselves and their kind while the rest of us fight for scraps. It was these conditions that moved enough Americans away from the old old boys club and tried something different. Making history is mainly having the right person in the right place at the right time. If it wasn't for post-bush america then Obama probably wouldn't have been elected.
[deleted]
White people have been voting for white people simply because of the color of skin a thousand fold (even among equally qualified candidates) more than anything that happened in any single election if historical institutional racism is anything to go by.
Try to be more logical when you speak.
he may have gotten in the first time around because he was the first black person to run but if you looked at the reelection at all you would see he was reelected because there was no one else to vote for. obama was by far the best choice considering it was him or romney who under no circumstance could be allowed become president of america. the problem is the election system not people being racist.
shareThere were no good choices in 2008 or 2012 but Obama was the least bad. Who else were blacks supposed to vote for? McCain and Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Hillary?
sharePeople voted for Obama because the other guy was, in both elections, a moron.
Seriously, just look at the GOP these last few years. Anybody with a sane mind would vote Obama over and over again just to prevent the other guy from becoming president. (And this is coming from a European who is neither from the left nor from the right.)
his re-election was one of the most racist moments in the pat 50 years of American history
Well, it makes you wonder whether the dice were already loaded, and whether Obama was programmed to win anyway ... if only to make up for the disastrous international image inherited from good ol' W. Obama was handsome, classy, and of course a 'historical' candidate.
But now, 6 years after his first election, he revealed to be as much a warmonger as W., babbling the same fallacious in-the-name-of-Democracy-and-fight-against-tyranny arguments, he proved to be much as much a boot-licker to the Israeli right-wing and military government as his predecessors, as much obedient to all the powerful lobbies and banks as any President ... he fools no one, and it really makes you wonder if he isn't just another puppet assigned to pursue the same international policy, but with a more telegenic face (W. looked like a moronic baboon) It's pure marketing, you change the cover, not the product.
Obama owes his historical status only to the color of his skin, nothing else, but people gets the word historic and heroic mixed up. Nelson Mandela was a hero, but Obama doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath than Mandela. This is why "The Butler" totally misses the point with (indeed) the random ending propaganda, relying Obama's value to the color of his skin, which is a form of reverse racism in a self-patronizing way.
I understand the point was to show how things have changed, but because of its political agenda, the film had to paint Obama's election in a positive way, hence ignoring the disappointments he caused in the hearts of many followers.
"Darth Vader is scary and I The Godfather"
It's not propaganda. The Butler is based on a real story and the real butler and his wife supported Obama. That's why it's in the movie. It's not for any political agenda.
Anyway, this is hardly a political movie. It's about the life journey of this black man and the situation for blacks during various decades but it never pretends to have political depth or a political message.
So why didn't Hermain Caine get the nomination since blks are such blind sheep?
Honestly when it comes to the USA, As blks we all know that no matter who gets into office we are going to screwed either way, we all just pick the candidates who use the most lube.
So why didn't Hermain Caine get the nomination since blks are such blind sheep?
Too many blacks did, in fact, vote for Obama simply because of the color of his skin. In fact, his re-election was one of the most racist moments in the pat 50 years of American history. There was all the evidence one could ever need to not vote for that dunce cap, but blacks still voted for him by 96 percent.
@starcraft
There wasn't a damn thing propaganda-like about showing Obama in this film. The whole point was to show that the main character, who grew up in a time when a black person could not even imagine there ever being such a thing as a black President being elected in this country, actually lived to see it happen---that was the significance of that. As a black person, that was VERY significant to me---obviously it wasn't to you.
That black people blindly voted for Obama because of race, rather than belief (which to some degree is true, but still...).
IMO, The Help was a superior film.
You must don't know your history very well. Nixon was one of the most crooked men to ever step foot in the white house.
God has a hard on for marines because we kill everything we see. He plays his game, we play ours.
The first hour of this movie was very good, very interesting I thought. It started going slightly downhill in the second half and then the last 15 minutes turned into one, big Obama commercial. Movie could have been so much more, but lost too much steam in the second half. I also didn't find Cecil's change to be that believable. He was a nonpolitical, hard-working person the whole movie, but just seemed to switch in the last 20 minutes or so.
shareBig Obama Commercial? Unless I made a mistake, Obama had already won his final term prior to the film's release, so if it were a commercial, what was it promoting?
I'm fairly sensitive to propaganda in film,(funny how the OP spelling mirrors his understanding of the word), but I didn't see it in The Butler, especially as referenced to Obama was concerned.
The central theme throughout the film was the social resistance for blacks to advance throughout the period of the lead character's service, in the White House and throughout the country.
As we age and out live many of our contemporaries, we look for reasons not to die. For Cecil, it's easy to understand why living to see a black man elected to the White House was in itself a reason to live.
It wasn't trying to sell us on his second term, but it tried to paint him as some exceptional guy that would change the way the presidential office operates. Pretty bold way to culminate the movie considering the guy's approval rating is hovering around 40 percent. You could feel the movie gushing over Obama as it showed speech footage of him.
I liked the way the movie started, but it just didn't end well. And considering one of the most common complaints I'm seeing about this film is that it feels a lot like a Lifetime movie, I'd say other viewers felt there was something just a little off about the final product. Maybe some would just say it's the camerawork; I'd say it was the second act.
You can't have a propaganda piece without the king of propaganda himself - aka, Barry Obama.
share