Chance the Rapper called out the racial undertones in Netflix’s Bright on Twitter.
Bright, directed by David Ayer (Suicide Squad) from a screenplay by Max Landis (Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency), centers around an alternate universe where humans, orcs, elves, and fairies try to live side-by-side. Orcs, however, are the new minority. Joel Edgerton plays Jakoby a orc who is assigned as the partner to Will Smith’s police district.
The character is referred to in the film by other cops as “the diversity hire,” while another character pokes fun at Jokoby with “listen to your master” when Ward orders him to get in the car. Another scene shows Will Smith’s character killing a fairy with a broom and in the scene, Smith says “Fairy lives don’t matter”.
“Wondering how you guys are feeling about the lynched [orc] in #Brightmovie,” Chance tweeted. “I found the way they tried to illustrate [America’s] racism through the mythical creatures to be a little shallow.”
He continued, “I always feel a lil cheated when I see allegorical racism in movies [’cause] that racism usually stems from human emotion or tolerance but not by law or systems the way it is in real life.” Adding an emoji with a raised eyebrow, Chance added, “The characters in #Bright live in a timeline where racism is gone… cause we hate [orc] now.”
The rapper continued to talk with fans on Twitter, including one fan who suggested the filmmaker and screenwriter “weren’t trying to make a metaphor.”
“I tried to look at it that way but a few minutes into the movie they make [Will’s] character say ‘Fairy Lives don’t Matter,’” he wrote.
I always feel a lil cheated when I see allegorical racism in movies cause that racism usually stems from human emotion or tolerance but not by law or systems the way it is in real life. The characters in #Bright live in a timeline where racism is gone… cause we hate ork now ?
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) December 27, 2017
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