If there’s such high approval rates for black and white marriages, why haven’t we seen more of them?
However, words appear to move faster than actions because according to the latest census data, interracial, opposite-sex couples make up one in 10 marriages in the U.S.–a 28% increase since 2000, indeed–however, when you parse out the data, unions between black and white couples are among the lowest (7.9%), and are far behind white and Hispanic couples (37.6%). There’s a connection and very long history between Smith and Theron’s characters but in the end, it’s decided the two are better off apart.Ī 2013 Gallup Poll found 87% of Americans say they’re in favor of black and white marriages. Before Robbie in Focus, there was Charlize Theron in Hancock. Though some of those films are box office and critical hits, it’s hard to overlook the use of race as an element for melodramatic tension in a relationship–that is, if a relationship forms at all. Since Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner in 1967, a kind of ground zero for on-screen black and white couples, Hollywood has fumbled with films like Save the Last Dance, The Bodyguard, Monster’s Ball, and Lakeview Terrace. If you go outside of your race, you should expect problems and isn’t love problem enough without that?'” Ramoutar says that, “We’re still getting the message of, ‘If you would just stay with your own people, it would certainly be a lot easier. She found that relationships between men and women of different races in these films were likely to be short-lived or end in disaster. Ramoutar authored a 2006 study analyzing Hollywood’s treatment of interracial couples in 15 top-grossing box office movies each year from 1967 to 2005. “There are still people who object to interracial relationships, therefore interracial relationships are still used as a conflict device within the story.” “It’s an economic issue in that a lot of times Hollywood films are created for the highest number of audience members,” says Nadia Ramoutar, digital film professor at The Art Institute of Jacksonville. If it’s not a problem of painful stereotypes, it’s a plot that’s completely contingent upon two lovers overcoming the insurmountable obstacle of being from different “worlds.” Hollywood, of course, has a messy history of racial depictions on-screen (even before Gone With the Wind), let alone interracial couples. So the idea of a black actor and a white actress comes up–that’ll work around the world, but it’s a problem in the U.S.”
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#Focus will smith movie
“We spend $50 something million making this movie and the studio would think that was tough on their investment. newspaper Birmingham Post about casting Eva Mendes, who is Cuban-American, in the lead role for the film. A romance quickly sparks that complicates what could be the biggest heist of Nicky’s career.ĭuring a press tour for Hitch, Smith dropped this salient, if depressing, truth to the U.K. In the movie, Smith plays Nicky, the leader of a band of criminals who takes Jess (Robbie) under his wing as his new protégée. That’s a continuum that begins with Eva Mendes in 2005’s rom-com Hitch and culminates in his newest film, with Margot Robbie in the recently released Focus. Over the course of his career, Smith’s leading ladies have inched closer to the Caucasian end of the race spectrum. There are still people who object to interracial relationships, therefore interracial relationships are still used as a conflict device within the story. But there’s something deeper at play in Smith’s body of work, and that is the issue of on-screen, interracial romances.
As one of Hollywood’s most bankable actors, Smith has starred in some of the biggest blockbusters that have been marketed and watched on a universal level–no one would call the Men in Black franchise or Independence Day “black” movies. You could say that Smith has also already bridged the gap between black and white audiences. Now he’s poised to solve what is arguably Hollywood’s last taboo: interracial couples. But ultimately that might not be his biggest on-screen accomplishment.
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