This ‘Ride’ Only Moves Us Backward

It’s not that I can’t accept the fact that I paid $8 for a horrible movie. Hey, it happens. What I refuse to accept is that movies like “Ride,” which purport to portray slices of African American culture that both black and nonblack America can appreciate, instead reinforce the self-hatred and stereotyping that have aheadlock on each of these cultures.

John Anderson in his review (“A Wild ‘Ride’ Into the World of the Rap Music Industry,” Calendar, April 1) makes two staggering points: First, “Ride” is “just about as funny as it is vile”; and second, although “Ride” writer-director Millicent Shelton “uses a lot of shtick and a lot of dubious material that relies on stereotyping and racist attitudes,” Anderson concludes that the movie is “worth the trip.”

In the ‘70s when Hollywood did not open its doors to African American directors or create substantive films revealing black culture, the best that was offered to both black (and white) America was packaged in the crude and demeaning gift wrap now known as the “blaxploitation” era.

Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed “Shaft” and “Cleopatra Jones” just as many of us did. But at the same time I resented the intimation that black America was little more than pimps, prostitutes, drugs and misguided dreams of materialism.

Fast-forward some 25 years and the “shtick” and “dubious material” that Anderson found “just about as funny as it is vile” takes the form of two carjackings, an armed holdup of a stereotypical Asian grocer and a slew of other sight “gags” strewn about the screen.

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Since Anderson and I seem to be in agreement that this movie neither invites deep introspection nor relies on our ability to distinguish witty humor, then obviously we have to find a laugh or two somewhere in the midst of the all-too-familiar genitalia jokes or a situation in which a honeymooning couple is being carjacked at gunpoint. Did I forget to mention the recurring joke about the gun that jams each time it’s ready to shoot someone in the face? Chuckle, chortle, sniggle, guffaw.

Maybe I’m just getting all worked up over nothing. Maybe I’m making a mountain out of this dunghill. Or maybe I’m just too old (28) and don’t know what’s funny anymore and I’m about as un-hip now as I thought my father once was. No, I don’t think it’s that.

I know there is a high rate of crime in the inner city. And whether anyone should agree with me on why this problem is, we shouldn’t disagree on whether it’s funny.

I understand that there is a pervasive problem with the preconception that the African American male is a career felon. I’m reminded of it every time a woman (black or white) clutches her purse as I pass or when my car is searched for a routine traffic stop.

I don’t need Shelton and/or Anderson to further cloud this issue. As long as we encourage and reinforce these images or, worse yet, find humor in them, one might argue that we as people deserve what we get when it comes to race relations.

Spike Lee took Quentin Tarantino to task for his alleged gratuitous use of the N-word as it could send the wrong messages. We could do far worse than holding ourselves to similar standards.

The fact that this movie does have one redeeming male role model is about as comforting as James Evans was to the “Good Times” family. In other words, not very.

I support African American films and directors and the stars that are born from them. We shouldn’t, though, support that which only takes us (all of us) further and further backward. It sends the wrong message.

“Ride” ostensibly could be termed as “House Party” meets “Smokey and the Bandit” and “Bustin’ Loose.”

The overriding difference is that all of those, though not critically acclaimed, were at least funny and didn’t do a large disservice.