star maps

‘Prometheus’ exhibits subtle (and not-so-subtle) Hollywood racism

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First things first – Ridley Scott is an asshole.

OK. Now that that’s out of the way, I recently rented the film Prometheus and boy did it suck. I had to check the credits and make sure David Duke wasn’t executive producer.

There are a ton of sites that discuss why this film sucks so I won’t go into those here. There are also a ton of sites that get into why film snobs like me just don’t “get it” and that’s fine – I was actually disappointed to find that Roger Ebert not only liked this film but thought it was “magnificent.” Four stars? Pfft.

This film, while visually stunning at times, is just another notch in the belt for the subtle and not-so-subtle racism that spews out of the Hollywood machine. I Googled “Prometheus racist” and found one thread that had people mocking the very notion:

Racist?! Give me a break!

Mas…‘Prometheus’ exhibits subtle (and not-so-subtle) Hollywood racism

You can see all the stars as you walk down Hollywood Boulevard

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Hollywood and Formosa looking West (Google street view)

“You can see all the stars as you walk down Hollywood Boulevard, some that you recognise, some that you’ve hardly even heard of. People who worked and suffered and struggled for fame, some who succeeded and some who suffered in vain,” according to the Kinks.

But artist Ramiro Gomez Jr. — whose art installations make the invisible visible — will have none of that. That’s why, on Sunday, Oscar Day, on Hollywood Boulevard, he positioned an image of one of the ubiquitous but unacknowledged Latinos who survive on the fringes of “The Industry.” One of those dudes you see hanging out on corners selling tourists “Maps to the Stars’ Homes.”

Mas…You can see all the stars as you walk down Hollywood Boulevard