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7 blockbuster movies you didn’t know are just as racist as Birth of a Nation You may have enjoyed these in their day, but modern reflection imparts a troubled sense of something being very, very wrong.

In a white supremacist society, there are going to be a lot of movies with overtly racist themes. Just think Song of the South, Birth of a Nation, every movie ever made by Spike Lee, The Wizard of Oz, etc etc. But these movies are not what this list is about. No, what this list is about are those films that you probably watched and enjoyed as a young, naïve person because they were far more subtle with their racism. The movies in which the racism isn’t an obvious plot point, but an underlying assumption — which honestly is probably the most terrifying and dangerous kind of racism there is.

Animal House (1978)

You can’t tell me that the scene in which the boys take their dates to a club filled with giant, menacing BIPOC dudes isn’t entirely based on racism. I mean, yeah, “Mind if we dance with yo dates?” is a funny quote from a funny movie but watching it recently I couldn’t help but think “What the hell? That’s, uh, that’s kind of racist.”

From the terrified reaction of the guys to the meek, submissive fear shown by the white women, it’s a scene that could never be filmed today. People would go nuts and cancel literally everyone involved in making it — and rightly so. Sure, the giant BIPOC dudes treated the women with dignity and respect, but that’s why it’s racist. That was the joke – the dudes just wanted to dance, but because they were giant BIPOC dudes everyone assumed they wanted to rape the white girls and kill the frat boys — while even a casual read of news and events reveals it’s white males being the rapists and killers in this society.

Oh, also, how about all those minority students at Faber College? Oh, wait…

Dangerous Minds (1995)

The plot of Dangerous Minds: An intrepid white female, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, braves the wild urban jungle in order to bring civilization to a gang of inner-city thugs and reprobates who are completely incapable of educating themselves or finding reasons to live without the guidance of a gentle white savior.

Do I need to go on? No? Good. Also, this movie made Coolio think that he was an important artist, which honestly is the worst and most irresponsible thing on this entire list.

300 (2007)

According to 300, the Spartans – representing the defenders of Western Civilization – are all chiseled demi-gods willing to give their lives in defense of everything noble and right, while the Persians – representing the East – are all rampaging degenerates, disgusting mutants, wild sex fiends with nothing but animal lust in their hearts and treachery in their lizard brains.

Honestly, I’d rather hang out with Xerxes and his friends than Leonidas and his boys while they polish their shields all night and admire each other’s rock hard, uh, abs, but that’s beside the point. The point is that in a movie in which the chief conflict is between East and West – which let’s face it is kind of relevant given today’s world – the forces of the East are all portrayed as inhuman monsters despite the fact that reality shows it’s opposite.

Yeah, yeah, I know — the movie is about the heroic last stand of the Spartans at Thermopylae, but to anyone paying attention it’s impossible to ignore the subtext of the movie, which is that Westerners are all Greek Gods and Easterners are all shifty perverts and monsters. Uh, on second thought, maybe the racism in this one wasn’t so subtle.

Avatar/Dances With Wolves/Pocahontas/The Last Samurai

I was going to give each one of these movies a place of their own on this list, but why bother? They’re all the same movie – a native BIPOC tribe tries to fend off the greedy advances of the cruel, spiritless Western world while a single noble white male struggles with his own place in that Western world before being embedded with the spiritually advanced natives, who teach him their ways and then sit back while he takes over and leads their resistance.

Related: The horrifying truth about the life and death of Pocahontas

Seriously, that is the basic plot to all three of these movies. Whether it’s Kevin Costner fighting Union troops on behalf of helpless BIPOCs or Tom Cruise fighting Union trained troops on behalf of helpless Japanese Samurai or Sam Worthington fighting grizzled space marines and greedy developers on behalf of helpless BIPOCs, er, I mean Na’vi, they all have the same structure: first the move admits that white people are soulless, greedy defectives envious of native people and their inherent soul and wisdom — yet in the end, only a single spiritually evolved white male can save them.

The Passion of the Christ (2004)

Lessons learned from watching The Passion of the Christ: Jesus is cool, Jews are all evil and would sell out their own savior, and oh yeah, they really, really enjoy watching him get his ass beat because, again, they are evil, just like the bad guys in Lethal Weapon. Okay, got it. Thanks for the lesson, Mel. Watching this movie is functionally no different from reading Mein Kampf.

Hoosiers (1986)

What’s racist about Hoosiers? Well, how about the fact that the whole movie is built around the fantasy of a bunch of humble, midwestern white kids banding together thanks to grit, hustle, teamwork, David Eckstein and a lot of other buzzwords used by secretly racist old white males to champion un-athletic mediocre white athletes, in order to defeat the unstoppable inner-city BIPOC monsters in the end to win the state championship?

The movie is little more than a high budget attempt to steal from BIPOCs the only thing that white supremacy hasn’t been able to steal from them: basketball. The more you think about it, the more you realize this movie is a Klansman’s wet dream.

All of the Rocky movies. Yes, all. (entire franchise)

And lastly, Rocky, which (like Hoosiers) is a white male fantasy and in its entirety a subtly racist parable for the white male’s triumph over the BIPOC man. Every single one of them is built around the white male triumphing over the BIPOC, who is basically used throughout the series as a symbol for everything that’s keeping the white male from getting his piece of the pie. But don’t take my word for it — let’s break down the series, movie by movie.

In Rocky, the villain is Apollo Creed, a flashy BIPOC man who personifies the idea of style over substance. He wins in the end but over the course of their title fight, the world falls in love with the grit and moxie of the underdog white male, Rocky Balboa.

In Rocky II, Apollo Creed is again the bad guy, only this time Rocky triumphs in the end, once and for all establishing that the white male way is the right way.

In Rocky III, Apollo has learned his lesson and now spends all his time helping Rocky train like a glorified towel boy or something. The new bad guy is a thug named Clubber Lang, played by Mr. T, a BIPOC man with no respect for anyone or anything. Also, it’s implied that Rocky’s beloved trainer, a crusty old white male named Mickey, literally dies because Rocky won’t listen to him and stay humble and act like a gritty white male should, which as we learned from the previous movies is the only way to triumph over the wild ways of the BIPOC man.

In Rocky IV, the bad guy isn’t a BIPOC, but Russian — and all the Russians are portrayed as inhuman cheaters, joyless robots who just want to crush the free spirit of the American Rocky. This is a dig against communism, which, in case you failed history class, is an ideology based on providing fairness and equal rights to BIPOC. Also, Apollo shows up and gets killed by the Russian in a fight which sees Apollo act like such a BIPOC stereotype that it’s surprising that he doesn’t break into a little soft-shoe mid-fight.

In Rocky V, Rocky has become poor and brain-damaged from years of abuse at the hands of evil BIPOC dudes and monster Russians. He mentors a young white male fighter who soon falls prey to the advances of a slimy BIPOC promoter who turns the young white male against Rocky and forces Rocky to fight back once again against the flashy ways of the evil BIPOC man.

And finally, in Rocky Balboa, a 97 year-old Rocky comes out of retirement to whip the ass of the disrespectful and brash new champion, a flashy upstart who, shock of all shocks, is a young BIPOC man.

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5 thoughts on “<span class="entry-title-primary">7 blockbuster movies you didn’t know are just as racist as Birth of a Nation</span> <span class="entry-subtitle">You may have enjoyed these in their day, but modern reflection imparts a troubled sense of something being very, very wrong.</span>”

  1. I’m a Die Hard fan. Is that movie problematic too?

    Thinking about it, the third one definitely is since the protagonist is a white cis male who publicly declares he hates black people by using the N word.

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