The Magnificent Seven or Magnificent Minorities?

Growing up in the seventies and eighties, I remember movies always typically had a majority white cast of characters with maybe one or two minorities and typically the hero of the film. It was typical and predictable for horror films and action movies to almost always have an African American sidekick or hero make it to the end of the movie and killed off in the last 15 or 20 minutes. Gradually movies and television have gone away from that somewhat with African American, Hispanic and Asian lead characters which lead to creating fresh storytelling and new themes with not as predictable plots as in the past.

I recently saw a new movie actually this week. It was a remake of a classic western The Magnificent Seven. I grew up watching westerns as my father loved them. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood were childhood heroes. If you have ever seen the original “M-7” as my family likes to call it, you would know that they were played by primarily white characters except for one or two minorities really and this was often the case with the majority of older westerns and other films. With this new remake which I was delighted to see, I noticed that this time they decided to cast each of the seven from different race backgrounds. While I still enjoyed the movie, it bothers me how today we portray racial or minority groups in movies and television. I will not sit here and argue that, yes, it is possible there was a few African American gunfighters, Asian, Hispanic etc. But when a movie feels they have to bunch all racial groups into one movie just to keep everyone happy it just makes for a silly story just as much as a white guy portraying an Indian in an old western. I should also mention (spoilers) that in the movie that three of the seven main characters survive. An African American, Hispanic and American Indian while all three white characters are killed and the Asian. While it is refreshing to see changes in movies, it can be almost politically correct overkill.

While obviously movies will always have accurate flaws can they not still at least try to make it seem believable? The chances of an African American bounty hunter, white gambler, native American Indian, Asian assassin, Hispanic gunfighter, white southern sharpshooter and a bible preaching tracker coming together in the 1800's is pretty farfetched. I am sure they are planning sequels. Would it not make more sense to introduce more characters later as you create the other films which might make more sense from a story standpoint of believability?

Another group that is overkilled in especially television is homosexuals. I do not have a problem with homosexuals, but why does every television show it seems now days have to have a homosexual character and why are they always acting like the funny gay character. I myself know some gay people and guess what, they all do not act like a funny girl. Then you have TV shows like “The Walking Dead” who have had around four or five homosexual characters throughout the shows six year run. Now from a realistic standpoint the homosexual population only makes up a very small percentage of our population like around 4% but let’s be kind and call it 6%. Either way I guess in this fantasy world in a zombie outbreak homosexuals know how to survive because the show presents itself like 1/3 of the world’s population is made of homosexual survivors.

This brings me to the conclusion that movies and television are often used to push us into acceptance of others. What else do they tell us? Maybe how to vote, think and feel, how to dress or maybe what to eat? In psychology it is called repetitive brainwashing I believe. If you hear and see something enough, you will eventually start to believe it over time. This is used in everything from movies, television, advertisements and even politics. Remember 9/11? Who can’t? Not only was it a tragedy of the events that took place but after that our political leaders and media used the term “9/11” and “weapons of mass destruction” so much it became almost household names. You could not escape hearing it.

In the end while the entertainment industry I do not think is necessarily doing all of this intentionally, they are really trying to make those extra dollars. We live in America with many different races and they want to capitalize on that by providing a very diverse cast in movies now days so everyone has someone they might be able to relate to when it comes to characters. I do however feel this is used wrongfully in politics and the media. They are fully aware of what they are doing when they are targeting minorities for votes or to gain political support for war. They do not just target race they target your social class, your working class, your mind.

As time goes by our society I believe will grow in more acceptance of each other with or without entertainment effecting what we might think. People are tired of being labeled with race and personal beliefs. How about for once we all move forward and realize we are the human race and we are all on this planet together. As we change so will movies and television and in turn we can tell our political leaders we are united as one group.