Rating: 4/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2024 | 7/52 | Blaxploitation
Don't make it too clear that we're saying "Fuck you." — Melvin Van Peebles to Mantan Moreland, 1969
Jeff Gerber (Godfrey Cambridge) is your typical white American. He lives in a white suburban neighborhood with his white liberal wife, Althea, who can barely stand him. He wakes up every morning, lays under his sun lamp, hits the speed bag, and runs to catch the bus.
No one likes Jeff — not even the bus driver, who tries to outpace Jeff before he can get on. But Jeff doesn’t seem to mind or notice — like most white people, he is far too self-involved to see his privilege.
Of course, the Black counterman at his favorite diner (Mantan Moreland) laughs at every joke, including Jeff’s unapologetically racist ones. And the women at his office tolerate his aggressively misogynistic jokes. What option do they have?
Althea loves watching the race riots on TV, but Jeff can’t stand hearing about it. Althea performs a rehearsed spiel about racial inequality in America, but Jeff isn’t interested.
As Jeff Gerber awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his mirror into a Black man.
A nightmare, or too much sunlamp? Boy, what a great sunlamp.
Thank god Melvin Van Peebles came onto this project, or else it would have been another Soul Man or worse. The original goal was to make a movie about a white man’s redemption — he becomes Black to learn the error of his ways and then returns to whiteness with an “enlightened” perspective. They only hired Van Peebles to generate positive press for hiring a Black director.
Van Peebles tactfully maneuvered within the studio system to make a film that critiques Hollywood and presents revolutionary politics that undercut the studio’s aim. He brought Godfrey Cambridge and Mantan Moreland onto the project. He “forgot” to film the ending the studio wanted, where it was all a dream.
It is, of course, a fucking shame how relevant this movie still is. Thankfully, it is also still hilarious and uncomfortable.
Hello, Althea? Guess who’s coming to dinner?
Thank you to Racquel J. Gates. Her writing helped me piece together my perspective in this review.