Depictions of Racism in Love Field
Racism is prevalent throughout the film, as well as displays of discontent from the black community concerning Kennedy's efforts to improve race relations. Despite the efforts of the filmmakers to include the black perspective during this era, one critic complains that the black characters function "merely as analogies of oppression." Criticism aside, the film is unflinchingly realistic in its portrayals of violence against Paul, by white men and Lurene, by her husband, Ray. Historically, the film relates to findings of the Kerner Commission from 1968. This commission found that "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal." Love Field relates to the commission in the depiction of differing opinions about Kennedy in the white and black communities, represented respectively by Lurene and Paul. The makers of Love Field try to portray the boundaries between these two distinct societies during this era through Lurene's naïve point of view. One example of this is an interaction between Lurene and Paul in which she states, "I don't know when we started killing people to solve things," and he responds, "I didn't know we stopped." The inclusion of such moments of racial tension serves to make Love Field a film about more than just the Kennedy assassination.
Read more about this topic: Love Field (film)
Famous quotes containing the words depictions of, depictions and/or racism:
“Surely, of all creatures we eat, we are most brutal to snails. Helix optera is dug out of the earth where he has been peacefully enjoying his summer sleep, cracked like an egg, and eaten raw, presumably alive. Or boiled in oil. Or roasted in the hot ashes of a wood fire.... If God is a snail, Bosch’s depictions of Hell are going to look like a vicarage tea-party.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“Surely, of all creatures we eat, we are most brutal to snails. Helix optera is dug out of the earth where he has been peacefully enjoying his summer sleep, cracked like an egg, and eaten raw, presumably alive. Or boiled in oil. Or roasted in the hot ashes of a wood fire.... If God is a snail, Bosch’s depictions of Hell are going to look like a vicarage tea-party.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“Few white citizens are acquainted with blacks other than those projected by the media and the so—called educational system, which is nothing more than a system of rewards and punishments based upon one’s ability to pledge loyalty oaths to Anglo culture. The media and the “educational system” are the prime sources of racism in the United States.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)