Excerpts from a Diary

Straight off the Sugar Boat

I need to start exercisng more often, you know like, hardcore workouts are a "heart pumping pace". I don't understand these commercials that advertise products like the BowFlex - anyone remember the ThighMaster?

Anyway, you have these incredibly lean and supertoned athletic-looking models stretching and pressing in these commericals. They expect the viewing and slightly overweight public to "suspend belief" just enough to buy into "just 10 minutes a day for 8 weeks will have you looking like this". The best part is the before and after pictures. The person is in the same clothing just a few sizes smaller, or on the beach in a swim suit running. Like they were really able to achieve that they were now posing in. I am certain that the ThighMaster can be equated to their whiter, brighter smiles, their simply orgasmic hair and well-moisturized skin.

Speaking of which, I was tuning in to USA's rerun of Law & Order, a few nights ago just to have something to watch with a girlfriend of mine. It was an episode about stolen diamonds and poor families that are forced to mine them for the stake of profiting rich Americans. In the middle of our daily gossip and jokes we tuned into the show just in time to see the lead detectives questioning some poor immigrant that got caught up in all the action. By far one of the worst accent immitations (worst that Tye Diggs in "How Stella Got her Grove Back" and the questionable Haitian-Jamacians in "Bad Boys II") that I have ever seen. I don't know why when these shows turn to depictions of Africans, West Indian (Haitians, Jamacians, etc) or other black immigrants the characters take on this extra greasy appearance. Like they just got off the sugar boat.

We both compared this character to the black detective that was also in the room with him, assuming that it is a New York City police department building and there is air conditioning in the interogation room, why would this man be so shiny, he was glistening. He brow was furrowed (as most black men are when in an interogation room) and his gaze a steely one, as he "eyeballed" his captors - cause you know there was the epic chase through the streets and back alleys of NY before he was tackled and handcuffed by the heroic police officer.

This is the significant difference between shows like Law & Order and COPS. The chase scenes in COPS almost never end with one police officer by himself, having ran for what seemed like 40 city blocks and outlasted his target. I mean real cops know that if the perpetrator wants to get away he will run a mile barefoot and over gravel to get away.

So here is this poor immigrant, obviously illegal and INS has still not been called to the scene and he is in the interogation room answering questions with an extra thick accent, enounciating every syllable and stressing every "t" and "d" in the english language. The same actor have seen play countless other immigrants from varying countries of origin and here we are asked to believe that he is South African - a fact that we can only know when we are told because most of us are still trying to pinpoint the root of his horrendous accent.

In court he is placed on the stand and asked more questions, this time the question of why he has done the atrocities he is charged with are revealied. In a tearful narration this poor immigrant relates that he has travelled miles from his homeland to murder the representives of a corrupt, capitalistic system that had starved and slaughtered his family.

One has to ask, if he could pay for a flight into the US, why was his family still working in the diamond mines in Africa? When did he have time to find a sponsor? Did he travel economy class? We know he did not take a boat. And when coming in through customs didn't one of our post-9/11 newly trained and well-paid TSA agents notice that the man did not have a passport?

But then again we have illegal immigrants cross our borders every years and can go years without being detected. It was all very interesting to watch being a black immigrant myself. Talk about Homeland Security.

As we sat and watched we had to agree that the only Hollywood production that nailed all of its accents was "A Shark's Tale", that and the fact that they paid real Jamacians to play Jamacian roles - the West Indian American nation thanks you.

posted by Onika @ 1:35 PM