Copping an Attitude About Attitude

I’m glad that USC has cutting-edge professors such as Todd Boyd, otherwise we might not realize that almost all actions taken by white actors in the industry are in fact stolen from black folks (“A Nod to Cool or a New Blaxploitation?,” Aug. 7).

While I can understand his “white Negro” label in reference to that strange bit of ego known as “Bulworth,” the suggestion that Jack Nicholson stole his “steelo” exclusively from Miles Davis simply because Nicholson thanked Davis during his Oscar acceptance speech is sort of like suggesting that Richard Gere stole his method from the Dalai Lama, or Brando his chops from Native Americans.

I suppose Boyd feels that any mannerism performed by whites that isn’t stiff or awkward or WASPish (whatever that implies) must have been borrowed from blacks. The logic is troubling. As for Travolta borrowing his strut, well, Mr. Boyd, perhaps a short trip to Italy might open your eyes to a “white” culture that prides itself on style and attitude. Or maybe they just stole that too? Please get over yourself, there are other cultures influencing our pop pantheon. It is more than just black and white.

DECLAN NAUGHTON

Los Angeles

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Todd Boyd declares a rebirth of blaxploitation is underway in Hollywood. As evidence he cites the attitudinal acting of Jack Nicholson, John Travolta and Bruce Willis. Rebirth? Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman and Steve McQueen all seemed pretty cool. So did Bogart. What would Boyd suggest? Al Gore’s White Acting Academy?

If you grew up in post-Vietnam America, you grew up with Ali, with Miles, with Aretha. Martin Luther King was the man. Nicholson gets paid to represent the hip white guy because he is the hip white guy. He grew up listening to Miles, not the Beach Boys. Real exploitation takes place when every black film is a gangster film, when every black role involves kicking ass.

DANNY SULLIVAN

San Diego

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To my knowledge, Jack Nicholson, Nicolas Cage, George Clooney, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon do not pepper their speech (in life or in movies) with phrases like “gangsta lean,” “shout out” or “run game” in an effort to mimic blacks or distance themselves from their class--unlike some professors I know. If Boyd’s aim really is to clear the way for blacks to act “white” (anything other than ghetto black) without being labeled sellouts, then why does he use these phrases when he himself is middle class?

Contrary to Boyd’s opinion, Karl Malone is cool. He’s right that Clarence Thomas isn’t, but I think he has more courage than Boyd, with his gangsta leans, shout outs and steelos.

Whoomp, there it is.

ERICH STONESTREET

Los Angeles

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I am a white male who has been in the entertainment industry since 1967. As a young man, I was cursed at, beat up, jailed and urinated on for my support of civil rights for black Americans. I continue to be committed to the struggle for equal rights, so I find Boyd’s contribution to be particularly racist, offensive, shallow and contemptible.

The fact that he is unable to distinguish between an actor portraying a character or a filmmaker creating mood and atmosphere with hijacking the black lifestyle disqualifies him, in my opinion, from serving as a professor in a film department where the thinking of future film artists may be polluted by his demeaning stereotypes.

MARC B. RAY

Sherman Oaks

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Peter Fonda defined and exemplified cool better than anyone else in American cinema without ever having to appropriate black hipness or becoming a “white Negro.”

His Captain America character in “Easy Rider,” a free-spirited individual with a rebellious style and attitude riding a Harley-Davidson to the accompaniment of hard rock music, established such a high degree of cool that it has influenced the way motor vehicles have been marketed to consumers for nearly 30 years!

STEPHEN THATT

Encino

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“Let’s assume that those names at the top of [Nicholson’s] list had some real meaning,” Boyd writes. Yes! How about Bob Mitchum and Rupert Crosse?

My husband, composer-arranger-producer David Axelrod, kept asking aloud, “How does he know Rupert?” Axe knew him from Ben Shapiro’s Renaissance on Sunset Boulevard, where jazz was offered nightly and on Sundays classical music, including Arnold Schoenberg. Rupert was the espresso maker and eventually he moved in with my husband.

Crosse was in John Cassavetes’ “Shadows” and was nominated for a 1969 best supporting actor Oscar for his role in “The Reivers.” He was black but he did not get high, which Boyd seems to think is a black trip; in fact, he was a vegetarian.

Tragically, Rupert Crosse found out he had cancer and went home to Jamaica, where he died in 1971. I thank Jack Nicholson for reminding the public of him.

TERRY AXELROD

North Hollywood