JUDGE PRIEST (1934) *** Ok, it's a little hokey and manipulative, but what's wrong with trickin' people into being better folk and feelin' good about it? Captures much of what was good about the Old South, Will Rogers does. He's a good man, an' fair too. Not enough judges like that anymore, never were either. I can see how some might object to the main Black characters bein' Hattie McDaniel (always Mammy) and Stepin Fetchit (always hissef). This deserves some consideration, as there is such thing as an abominable time of apartheid in American education (separate and unequal to the point that it's difficult to even frame the disparity). This film takes place in those times. It also deserves to be said that Step an' Hattie are clearly better people than many whites depicted, and that Will treats them well and with affection, in other words just like he treats everyone else, though he has an easier time treating Hattie and Step that way. If anything, Blacks are treated worse by most employers these days, in my opinion. We've come a long way, certainly, in destroying the apparatus of apartheid, and expressions are racism are unquestionably more subtle. The more sophisticated the population the more subtle the expressions are, and an irony is that of the places that I've lived for more than a couple years the Deep South is less racist than either Southern California or Europe. Progress has been made everywhere, but the expressions of racism have also evolved to avoid the accusation while maintaining much of the worst of the reality. We've come a long way, we've got a long way to go. I don't believe that I've ever read a description of Anita Louise that doesn't include the adjective "angelic," and I do believe that I'd like my own name to be added to those who got it right.
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