Red Tails

That was so much fun. It's hard to believe they turned a movie about entrenched systemic racism in the military set during World War II into an inspiring, exciting, heartwarming popcorn picture. But they did it.

This movie gets a lot of credit from me for not having a major white character. Some of the white characters in the movie are sympathetic to the Tuskegee Airmen, and some of them are hostile. The movie gets credit for not making one of the few sympathetic white characters a main viewpoint character to comfort the audience into believing things weren't as hard for the Airmen as they were. And yeah, there are victories, and they eventually earn respect, and even friendship from the white soldiers they've saved. But the movie remains refreshingly from the Red Tails' perspective, and the white characters' opinions, good and bad, don't drive the narrative or the character arcs themselves.

This was based on a real story. And the Tuskegee Airmen were famously awesome. But the way the movie is structured tells the story in the way it matters most.

I did like the bit of Smokey talking about the differences between the terms colored and the preferred (at the time) Negro. I though the white guy's amused reaction to it was absolutely wonderful, and was probably a turning point for every white person there who heard that funny joke.

The Black Jesus thing makes me laugh because Aaron McGruder cowrote the picture. McGruder has been an underrated writer in my mind, mostly due to the fact that I believe The Boondocks animated show is outright offensive. McGruder takes shots at the black community on that show that are harsher than anything Tucker Carlson has ever said, and since he attacks it from the left, it hurts so much because it's sometimes partly true. It doesn't make that show less offensive though. I was very pleased that McGruder is a gifted enough writer to write an inspiring, heart-warming/breaking story that builds up black history and culture instead of tearing it to shreds. And that's another thing that makes me think less of The Boondocks cartoon in hindsight.

Truthfully, I knew McGruder had this in him. Because as subversive as Black Jesus is, it's one of the most positive and life-affirming shows on television, and one of the best portrayals of Jesus on film ever. Black Jesus is great because it's not actually cynical. This is even better because it goes one further and is completely sincere. And I love that about it.

It's Lucasfilm, so I'm trying to come up with something in the movie I disliked to give my Lucas-hating nerd cred SOMETHING. But I can't. This is like the perfect movie. *****.