I
must see
this movie. It's sounds like a laugh riot!
The best way I can describe his narrative technique is to explain the
movie's most hilarious scene. It's early on, and D'Souza is recounting,
via voiceover, a debate he once had on Stanford's campus with Jesse
Jackson. (D'Souza has a thing with Jesse Jackson; he shows up, like,
seven times in the movie. Is it still 1988?) He talks about how Jackson
claimed, in their debate, that racism was less overt than it used to be
but still existed, bubbling under the surface.
While D'Souza's telling this story, the movie shows us a black guy
walking into a bar full of white people. He sits down at the bar between
two white guys and, just as D'Souza's relaying Jackson's message that
race is a larger part of society than we want to admit, the two white
guys flat get up and walk away from him, right out of the room. Everyone
in the bar then looks at the black guy, accusingly, menacingly.
Oh shit, right? But then D'Souza hits the moral of the story. He
tells us, still via voiceover, that what he told Jackson back then was
that in his experience, racism had been mostly eradicated.
While he's saying this, while the words are coming out of his mouth, the
two white guys come back to the bar and ... give the black guy a birthday cake.
It was his birthday all along! Everyone in the bar then gives him a
standing ovation. It turns out this bar wasn't full of crackers who
instantly sprint out of the room when you sit down, black guy. It was
just your birthday! Surprise! White people love you!
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