In The Force Awakens a black man is tasered twice, drinks putrid water from a trough alongside an animal resembling a pig, and - in his own words - states that he used to work in sanitation. OK. Let's let those details slide. Call me politically correct. A Cambridge lefty. I can take it. By the way, that black man is the film's male lead. Does that make everything okay? By now everyone pretty much agrees that there are no major surprises, aesthetically or narratively, in The Force Awakens. OK, maybe the aerial dogfights have a few more twists and turns than last time, and what happens to Han Solo is, well, something of a surprise (though we all saw it coming). But everything from the film's color palette to its chase-scene structure (where's the map? C'mon people!) smacks of deja vu all over again. Of course, it's supposed to. You don't make a billion dollars on a $350 million investment (that's some cabbage right there, folks!) innovating . You ma...
Casual writings on classic and contemporary culture, American and otherwise.