I don't think the attempt to make Goddfrey Cambridge white worked to any great extent. It obviously wasn't the same state of the art makeup technology we have today, that can transform the Wayans' brothers into White Chicks or turn Michael Jackson into whatever it is he has become. Plus, Cambridge always sounded black in the movie, which further made his role as a white man not even close to credible.
That said, what struck me as strange was...how odd we were all those years ago. It all started with Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat to some fat-assed white man...and that led to the civil rights movement and a whole new world. There is certainly racism today, that's not really the issue and there's a good chance that racism will ALWAYS BE WITH US. But the difference is that back then, the hypnotism we lived under made our racism seem inevitable...a law of nature. Now it's just some form of almost conscious ignorance. Did you notice that Goddfrey Cambridge never actually kissed her? I mean, on the mouth? Was this in fact even a gender/race issue? Cambridge was a BLACK MAN and Estelle Parsons was a WHITE WOMAN. What if it was reversed? This was already 1970. William Shatner, a WHITE MAN, and Nichelle Nichols, a BLACK WOMAN, were the first people on television to share an interracial kiss, on the mouth, in Star Trek, and that was in 1966 so one could argue that a precedent had been reached but not the right KIND of precedent. The genders were reversed. As I watched this movie, I could see the reluctance that Parsons had with the physically intimate scenes, such as they were, she had with Cambridge.
For a movie that was 35 years old, I was actually surprised how many scenes I laughed at.
That said, what struck me as strange was...how odd we were all those years ago. It all started with Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat to some fat-assed white man...and that led to the civil rights movement and a whole new world. There is certainly racism today, that's not really the issue and there's a good chance that racism will ALWAYS BE WITH US. But the difference is that back then, the hypnotism we lived under made our racism seem inevitable...a law of nature. Now it's just some form of almost conscious ignorance. Did you notice that Goddfrey Cambridge never actually kissed her? I mean, on the mouth? Was this in fact even a gender/race issue? Cambridge was a BLACK MAN and Estelle Parsons was a WHITE WOMAN. What if it was reversed? This was already 1970. William Shatner, a WHITE MAN, and Nichelle Nichols, a BLACK WOMAN, were the first people on television to share an interracial kiss, on the mouth, in Star Trek, and that was in 1966 so one could argue that a precedent had been reached but not the right KIND of precedent. The genders were reversed. As I watched this movie, I could see the reluctance that Parsons had with the physically intimate scenes, such as they were, she had with Cambridge.
For a movie that was 35 years old, I was actually surprised how many scenes I laughed at.