Movies They Would Never Make Today: Soul Man
It’s sad but true: America has a major stick up its butt.
That’s one reason 80s movie were so wonderful: nothing was taboo. The bad guys were always Russian—too bad if they didn’t like it—unlike today’s bad guys, who always have an accent you can’t quite place, so as not to offend anyone. Bah, humbug.
Now Soul Man…ah Soul Man. Apparently, racial prejudices are quite funny and entertaining, and this is the premise the movie is based on. And the movie RULES.
C. Thomas Howell, in the height of his career, plays Mark, a spoiled brat whose dad refuses to pay for Harvard. What’s a boy to do?
Well, duh. Take an overdose of tanning pills to become ‘black,’ and get in on a minority scholarship, of course!
Although Mark is not at all convincing, he manages to fool some of the smartest people in the country, and much hijinks ensue.
Some people lambast this movie as being racist, but I don’t think it is. Unless you count the way it makes white people look like complete morons, though that’s something of a given, isn’t it?
Go rent Soul Man, and revel in sentiment for days long past.
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