Jesse Jackson Says Star Wars: The Force Awakens Was Successful Because It Had A Black Guy In It
Brian Anderson
February 1, 2016
The faux outrage over the made-up #OscarsSoWhite controversy has certainly spawned some silliness but none more ridiculous that what Jesse Jackson had to say about it. Though he’s a little late jumping on the liberal-Hollywood-is-racist band wagon, Jackson managed to get noticed today with the assertion that Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a successful film because it had a black guy in it.
Jackson wrote an op-ed about how racist the Oscars are because for two years in a row no black actors have been nominated. Since he wrote this for USA Today, the McDonalds of newspapers, he dropped this McNugget:
By midcentury, America will be a majority minority country. But it is already clear that diversity is good for business.
Indeed, the movie that broke box office records around the world in 2015, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, stars a white woman and a black man.
I loved the new Star Wars movie and John Boyega (the black guy) was great, but let’s get real here. This movie was going to be a blockbuster no mater who was in it. It could have starred an Inuit Indian and an Australian Aborigine and it still would have crushed at the box office. Under this thinking The Empire Strikes back was successful because black guy Billy Dee Williams played Landau Calrissian and not because we found out that Darth Vader was Luke’s father. Oops, I should have said “spoiler alert.”
Saying The Force Awakens broke the box officer record because there was a black guy in it is like saying Straight Outta Compton was a hit because there was a white guy in it. Oh wait, I forgot the rules of race do not apply equally to all races.
Also, if this is true (and it’s not) how does Jesse Jackson explain The Adventures of Pluto Nash? The film starring Eddie Murphy is one of the biggest box office flops in history. In case you didn’t know, Eddie Murphy is black. This 2002 film lost an estimated $96 million.
Or how about the Jamie Foxx film Stealth? It also lost $96 million and starred a black actor. In fact many of the biggest box office bombs have black actors in the cast. Does that mean black people caused the films to tank?
I know race hustlers like Jackson hate it when their twisted race logic is used against them, but if you are going to say a film is successful because it had a black guy in it, then you have to accept it as fact that black guys are also the reason why films fail.
The truth is, movies succeed or fail generally on whether they are good or not. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was awesome and that’s why it’s the highest grossing film ever, not because it had a black guy in the cast. On the flip-side of that, The Adventures of Pluto Nash sucked balls and that’s why it failed, not because it had a black guy in the cast.
Not everything is about race and maybe that’s the problem here. Jesse Jackson’s job is to find and complain about racial injustice and when there is none, he needs to make some up.
http://downtrend.com/71superb/jesse-jackson-says-star-wars-the-force-awakens-was-successful-because-it-had-a-black-guy-in-it
