In my feverish search for more Matrix: Reloaded news today, I came across this wonderful tribute to the stupidity of the American people. It seems that albinos have been persecuted in mainstream entertainment media for well-nigh half a century! Well sh*t on a stick, they gone done it again, Martha! First it was Native Americans, then it was black people, then it was men with moustaches (slowly morphed into men with sunglasses), and now it's white people. Really white people.
Now I don't know about you, but does it seem likely that even by mentioning a certain arbitrary racial/ethnic classification I will get someone all fired up and offended? Next thing I know, I'll have some advocacy group on my ass: the "Native American Black People with Moustaches and Sunglasses for Justice" group(NABPMSJ for short). Believe me, I am very aware that there are some very basic lines of offense that should not be crossed in any media, but I have often struggled with the idea that people are just too easily offended these days. For instance, white men who get angry because their jobs are threatened by (gasp!) people of a different background! You'll have to read the article I mentioned above about albinos to get what I'm really talking about...but please. Have you ever seen an albino in a villian's role? The only movie I've even seen with an albino was Powder and I don't believe there were villianous albinos in that. There was just a lightning-shootin' albino. And that was just plain cool.
I guess my point is get something real to whine about. Who in their right mind would actually get up enough energy to be offended by some white-dredlocked bad-guys? Don't you have something better to gripe about? Was there a support group for offended white men when every single white guy in The Godfather was a villian? You didn't hear complaints from clown-faced pasty white people when The Joker capered around in Batman, did you? Did sharp-nosed green women cry and moan when the Wicked Witch of the West set the Scarecrow on fire? That was pretty badass, by the way.
I know what you're thinking: that I'm an insensitive clod. That it's easy for me to talk when I am very white and very much in a majority group and am sheltered. But in fact, right now I am thinking "OH SH*T, the bad guy Biff in Back to the Future was a middle-class white guy...HEY they're saying white guys are all villians! Time to get PISSED OFF!" Seriously though, come on, toughen up people! I really doubt that the producers of Reloaded were sitting at the storyboard saying "Gee, albino people are pretty evil folks. Let's make some villians out of them and really piss some people off!" If I roll my eyes any more, they might roll out of my head.
You're also probably saying "Gee, if he's gonna rail on people who whine, maybe he should shut up too." Well, I have a webpage to do it on so nyaaaah.