Youtube daily land Apr 2 2017

Not even going to pretend that I just stopped my previous video and started recording again.

Let's talk about La La Land.

The movie everyone has been talking about and raving about and just loving so, so much.

Let's talk about why I'm not a fan.

First off, initially when I watched the previews for La La Land.

Just the music, it showed aspects of magical realism and I thought

oh this could be a really cool movie.

I did automatically go into it with a negative vibe of knowing that I may not like this movie

because of the fact that it was two white leads.

Nothing against Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.

Clearly they're both very talented actors and we saw in "Crazy, Stupid, Love" how they

have great on-screen chemistry.

But I've just gotten to this point where whenever I see a movie with white leads, I think "why?"

What was the reasoning behind choosing that instead of literally anyone else.

Let's be honest for a second, that opening number with all the people of color dancing

around was like a slap to the face of look at all the talent you could have cast, but

we chose these white leads who can barely dance and sing.

So that's the point of view I was going into when watching this movie.

I thought I'm not going to like it and really there was nothing that convinced me otherwise

in watching the movie.

The music, yes, is very charming.

I do enjoy the music so I thought is it really just the casting, or is it this entire story

that is bothering me so I turned to the screenplay.

I read the screenplay and wanted to figure out is it the story or is it the casting.

And I found the screenplay to be this very whimsical story of two people who were seemingly

parallel for a while in their dreams, in their careers in Los Angeles, but ultimately things

turned out a different way.

It's two people trying to accomplish their dreams, which really anyone can relate to.

Sure with Mia you never actually see her succeed.

You see her status, but you never see what she accomplished versus with Sebastian, you

do see all of his success and dreams come true.

We know Mia's rich and married and has a child, but we don't know

if she's happy in the work she's doing.

With Sebastian, we knew he always wanted his own jazz club.

That was the goal.

And at the end you're like, this is great he accomplished his dream.

With Mia, was the goal just fame and so she accomplished fame?

That was something that after watching it and reading it, I still had an issue with that.

Visually, this movie calls back to a lot of classic Hollywood movies.

It has that classic Hollywood feel.

It makes you want to remember the movies of the good old days or whatever

Damien Chazelle is trying to say there.

In doing that then, how cool would it have been to see two actors of color

in this classic Hollywood story.

You know the movies from back then that would only have white actors, and

would do black face and make fun of people of color.

This was a book I had in college called "America on Film" by Henry Benshoff and Sean Griffin.

It talks a lot about representing race, class, gender, and sexuality at the movies.

In the chapter discussing the concept of whiteness in movies, it talks about

how white is seen as the default.

"The Hollywood assumption is that all viewers, whatever their racial identification, should

be able to identify with white characters, but that the reverse is seldom true."

"Hollywood tends to spend more money on white stars in white movies and far less money on

non-white actors in overtly racial or ethnic properties."

That classic Hollywood narrative encourages you to identify with the white protagonist.

And they'll have people of color as the supporting characters, as with

John Legend's character Keith in La La Land.

Another great point says "Whiteness represents itself as moral and good while non-white groups

are frequently characterized as immoral or inferior."

Sebastian in this movie is portrayed as having that superior knowledge of jazz.

He's the one who's going to save jazz, he loves jazz, he's going to bring jazz to all

the homes in America.

Whereas Keith's character is the one who's tearing jazz down by changing it.

White is unfortunately and always seen as the default of whatever screenplay you read.

Unless their race is explicitly stated, you assume that character is white.

When you're making this grand original movie and calling back to classic Hollywood films,

why not have two actor of color as the leads.

Why stick to the same thing that's already been done decades ago.

Why not try something new, different for a change?

Is it like people of color only struggled in the '60s and

only white people struggle today? I'm confused.

Did we only have accomplishments back then and only white people can be accomplished today?

Were there no actors of color who could also sing and dance and star in La La Land?

I watched the opening number.

They're there. They're out there.

So those are my ranting feelings and thoughts of La La Land of how I do like the story,

and I do like the music, but I had a problem with the casting.

And I'll also put the link to where you can find Oscar nominated screenplays so that you

can also read and enjoy those.

Thank you for watching this video.

I'll see you next time. Good-bye.