Thing: Pride and Prejudice (2005)
Director: Some white guy
Screenwriter: Some white lady
Actors: A lot of white people but I like that actress from Lovely and Amazing—she’s the MOM. (Nicole Holofcener made the Lovely film.) Oh yeah & Keira Knightley
Dear White People,
What is it about white people? Why do they do the things they do? Why are they so obsessed with “propriety”? Why do they flail their hands so much? Why do they always tell kids what to do when kids can see that the white people are doing all the things they said not to do?
I just want to know because yesterday, someone actually saw me for the first time in like, years, and it made me realize that I don’t trust white people because they be scheming and dealing all the time. They pretend they’re good and right and everything, but I see what they do behind closed doors and it ain’t good. It’s dirty and underhanded and their whole focus seems to be how they can control people like me.
Like, get a new day job, women! You don’t need to do something if your heart isn’t in it. You can get on a boat and fish for a living, or you can fly to France and drink cappuccinos or whatnot—just lay off me, okay? Like, I am real. I am really, really here. And I have been sitting here every day, trying to listen to your stupid rules, and trying to play the games you ask me to, but you never even ask me what I want, or seem to see who I am. It is just, “Hey kid, hey kid, do this, do that, don’t do this, don’t do that.”
So then I went to see this movie Pride & Prejudice because this pretty white lady told me to do it, and she has this really beautiful accent and was wearing a cape with flowers, so I thought, “I’m doing that right now. That film is going to give me the answers I need tonight.”
And I went. I didn’t even eat no popcorn because I already had fries, and I am watching my weight. It’s almost summer.
So I was watching this Pride & Prejudice movie and I’m like, bored. So bored. Where is the root chakra in all of this? When do people get up and dance like crazy animal beings? When do the people in their fancy dresses strip off their long leather lacy boots and just dance barefoot on the earth?
Like, how do these people in this movie—or in that time of Jane Austen—even function?
If I were Mr. Darcy, I’d be spending my afternoons in a gym, beating on a ball and sweating my ass off. I wouldn’t even need gloves; I’d just wear myself a tank top and shorts, and sweat and keep hitting a punching bag so I could get rid of all the toxic pollution that it takes to function in that ridiculous uptight society where people have to dance in straight lines and everybody is so worried about money. Women exchanged for money. That is how this goes and goes, ya know? Like, how do these white people not see that?
And the mom is worse than the dad in the movie. The dad is just a little absent-minded and hairy. And old. But the mom just wants to sell her daughters to a guy—almost any guy—who walks in. She has these 4 beautiful daughters and she wants to sell them so she can stay in her nice big house.
Like, what is this shit?
And Mr. Darcy is the only one who actually has standards because truthfully, he is so right about this family! He was so right to tell Mr. Bingley not to marry into this family! Darcy’s a good friend and he’s also astute, and he watches the way a fox watches.
But then he’s also dumb, too, because he wants to marry Elizabeth Bennett, so he’s going to mess up his whole life for love, and when does that truth about people ever really change?
Ugh.
White people be up in my craw all damn day!
So I just think it would be better if Pride & Prejudice were hip-hop. Like, it is so obvious that Keira Knightley is a Goth-girl, and she belongs in vampire movies, not romances. She’s scary and she’s full of rage but she has to hide it to be “appropriate.” She belongs flying through the night in black leather and sucking the necks of bad people, and getting out all the poison inside them, and then spitting that poison into a dish and performing some magic spell so that it becomes sweet nectar of some kind, and she starts to heal whole communities with the sweet nectar, but she stays in the shadows and pretends other people are doing the hard work. I just think people who make these movies need to see what is right in front of them.
Also, I think there are differences between movies and things shot on film. Like, Pride & Prejudice was a book by Jane Austen, and then these white people said, “Let’s put this into a screenplay.” And they did that, and then they said, “Let’s get some actors and some producers to put people in a room and act out the screenplay we have prepared.” And then they did that. And then we sit down in the Ambler Theater and we watch it, but is that really a movie? It’s not a movie—it’s something a bunch of white people got together and did.
I might have to find my way to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, because I suspect I will like it way better than this boring movie I almost walked out of. Like, what was the point other than for Elizabeth Bennett to finally tell her dad, “I was so wrong about him?” meaning Darcy, and to let go of her pride and her ego and accept that the right person for her was the one who gave her the hard truths, and he happened to be rich, and he happened to be able to solve her family’s main problem anyway?
People need to talk, yo! People need to just sit down and talk over coffee or something. Like, get it together and just talk and stop assuming so much about everything when you don’t really know.
Anyway, I didn’t feel good leaving that movie; I just felt annoyed that the Ambler Theater didn’t listen to me when I emailed them two weeks ago and told them that they are showing too many movies with white people and they need to diversify. They were all nice and “professional” over email, and then two weeks later, “Pride & Prejudice” from 2005 shows up.
Excuses, excuses, Ambler.
You think black people and brown people don’t know how to act and make movies? They can do it well, and often, better. It’s just all about money all the time with these white people and they control everything with their damn money.
I wonder how they got all that money. Hmm.
Churches, churches, churches. It’s like we up in carnivale land.
Alright, I’m out. Have a nice day.
Ms. Wonderful
May 17 Vinyl Playlist for Pride & Prejudice
Listen to it on Spotify here.
Also, stay tuned for the videocast coming up this weekend on Rose Woods TV wherein two east-coast ladies examine whether Flashdance or Working Girl makes a better film/story, and what money’s got to do with it all. (I just love Ms. Cool. She’s my best friend.)
My book of letters to young women (We gotta get in tune, Barbie Dolls)
*Strange shit be happening, people. Pay attention to your keystrokes. (Recyclable paper is where it be at, right’?)