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True Story©… Despicable Moe

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       Despicable Me debuted in 2010… As I was still yet 361 days from being a father at the time, it was a children’s movie that I was not interested in at the time.   The follow-ups arriving during the maelstrom of elements between 2011 and 2015 that will forever serve as my own supervillain origin story allowed me to manage to miss the whole of the series as it was coming along.   I mean, I knew it existed and was aware of the minions and their gibberish but I was busy having my life ruined.      As I exited the more depressive of my situations as a fully realized superfuckingvillain, I lacked time to go back and do the homework on that wrinkle of the subject.   I thought I had it down.      Thought… With some time on my hands since the Thanksgiving weekend, I made way to watch the Despicable Me series.   In it, I learned that the Minions have existed since the beginning of time and have historically hitched their wagon to the biggest supervillain of any given time. And here

Hotep Hollywood... "Black Friend™" vs. "Friend who is Black"

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     “There is no way I could be racist, some of my best friends are black!” is what they say when some greasy shit has been said or they’ve been caught agreeing with 45 about kneeling for the anthem.      Cruel fact: that “… some of my best friends” black friend is not even a friend at all.  He/she is some brown person – who might actually not even be black! – that the person who has found themselves cornered in conversation used to work with, or went to school with, or whose sister he tried to fuck in college.  That “friend” has never been to their house, eaten their food, met their family or played spades with them. There is nothing honorable about being the “black friend,” it is a token position for which there is no real benefit… -    Will the cops not shoot you first if y’all get into some shit out in the world? -    Would their great-grandfather not kick someone out of the family if you dated their sister? -    Have they ever ACTUALLY attempted to properly pronoun

Hotep Movie Moment -- Lean On Me

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     Y’all know one of the Hotep-est movies ever made was based on a real-life event, right? In the 1989 classic film Lean On Me , Joe Clark (above right), portrayed by the voice of everyone’s conscience Morgan Freeman (left) is tasked with the tall order of being the cleaner of beleaguered East Side High in Paterson NJ.      Hollyweird norms would serve it that he would fail MISERABLY in this task and eventually need to be saved by someone whose skin is much paler than his own, but be-damned-lieve it or not, he succeeded! He went up in that school and he yelled at people, he bullied the crackheads, he threatened the dealers and risked his own freedom to keep those kids safe and get those damn test scores up! Hoo-fuckin’-ray Hollyweird!  One time in the then-76 years of motion pictures featuring sound, they let a Black man come into a shit situation and make it a NOT shit situation without first involving a White Savior™. AND this shit was based on a real true story? S

Hotep Movie Moments - Top Five

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Hollywood is here to teach us to hate our own.  We are not, under any realistic circumstances to see ourselves in a positive light in the movies coming out of that shithole.  Today, we are here to discuss the five types of Negro that they WILL allow us to see ourselves portrayed as. The Black Friend© This is the cat you normally find in buddy cop movies.  He is partnered with an alcoholic, but grizzled veteran, cop who does all the thinking and decision making.  His role as Black Friend© is to be the comic relief and come up with Sassy Black Phrases™.  You can expect to see shit he/she says to steal cheap laughs on a t-shirt at the nearest HBCU homecoming to you. . The Magic Negro™ We’ve all seen The Green Mile.  That is the most prominent Magical Negro film ever created.  But not all “magic,” as employed is necessarily metaphysical.  Remember that Eddie Murphy movie last year Mr Church ?  Of course you don’t, the film only had a domestic take of $700k and most people sto

Hotep Movie Moments... Black Romantic Comedies

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     You get a budget of approximately $11 in food stamps, a liter of Hennessey and a pack of Newport 100s… What kind of movie do you make?      You don’t get to go summer blockbuster because those require a star commanding $20m or more a flick.  You don’t get to license a cutesy franchise because of your budget above.  You want people to come see your movie, and you want them to come in groups so you need a “date night movie.” Solution?  Black Romantic Comedies!      Here at Hotep Movie Moments, we have come to notice a few things about these movies and will spend a few minutes today discussing them. 1 – They always have the same people. How may different ways can Morris Chestnut fall in love with Taraji P Henson contained inside of 97 minutes of pseudo hilarity?  It is kind of like the black church plays circuit in that you KNOW what you’re going to get and who you’re going to get it from, but you are made to feel obligated to throw money at it anyway. And sp

Hotep Movie Moments - Tom Hanks... "Paint it Black"

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     Welcome back to Hotep Movie Moments!  This week, we introduce a new concept that we will from henceforth refer to as “Paint it Black,” wherein we lowlight the cancer that is White Privilege by taking something that is patently white and imagining what would be if that very item happened to be black.      Our subject for this exercise this week will be Mr. Thomas Jeffrey Hanks.  Look, I know that Tom has an EXTENSIVE library of movies to his credit, and we don’t intend to take up all of your week with this post, so we will focus on only three of them. Without further lining, we will get right into it… Big: In this 1988 film we find Tom as 12 year-old Josh Baskin who wishes to be “big” after being sent away from a carnival ride for being too short. First of all, being “too short” for a carnival ride at 12 is bullshit, as most of them have a lower limit of 4-feet and I was at least that by 12 and I am only 5’8” now as I am closer to 40 than I am to 35. Sor

Hotep Movie Moment - The Rocky Theory

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I have found the very reason that we are not allowed to see many movies about strong Black upliftment from Hollywood. I call this my Rocky Theory, brothas and sistas. Look back at the Rocky movies… Rocky – Rocky matches up against a superior but supposedly cocky Apollo Creed and uses the Black man’s hubris against him and stays upright for the whole fight.  No winner was declared, but we all assumed Rocky to be because of how it all played out. Rocky II – Having had his name sullied by being matched by an inferior fighter, Apollo asks for a rematch and is rebuffed.  The still-cocky black man spends a whole movie making him take the fight, then LOSES the fight due to a brash obsession with knocking the white man out. Rocky III – Now having disposed of the original cocky negro, Rocky is the best thing ever invented and can move on to new targets.  This time, a NEW cocky original African Black man named Clubber Lang assaults Rocky’s precious manager causing him a heart a