delacourtings: (Default)
forever is the sweetest con ([personal profile] delacourtings) wrote2017-05-11 09:28 pm

[trailer talk] baywatch

I had zero intention of seeing the new Baywatch film but after seeing a trailer for it (thanks, Hulu) I'm more than just apathetic about it. I'm angry.


At the end of this trailer Zac Efron says to Dwayne Johnson "You're like a big, hairless, gorilla." At first i thought I'd heard incorrectly. There's no way that a film, particularly one with a Black star, would call said star a gorilla. Not in 2017. Right? Wrong. Efron calls Johnson a gorilla and it is meant to be taken as a joke. This is not okay. The writers of this movie could have chosen any other animal without a horrible racist connotation to compare Johnson to but they didn't. It's disgusting and I'm appalled that it was not only allowed in the film but that, at least from my point of view*, no one has seemed to call anyone out on it.

*Granted, I am known for my dislike of most films so I don't exactly run in film reviewing circles. If someone has noticed this please don't hesitate to link me to it.

While I was searching for the trailer so I could be sure that I hadn't heard incorrectly, I came across another trailer for the film that was horribly offensive, albeit in a different manner. In this trailer (at around 1:50) Zac Efron and Dwayne Johnson both put on disguises. The joke that arises from this is that Efron's disguise is a dress, heels, and a wig. (And then, in another scene, acts effeminately.) This is so incredibly transphobic. I'm less surprised by this offense than the racism because sadly transmisogyny and transphobia are still extremely prevalent in current media. That doesn't mean it's okay.

All of the aforementioned scenes are incredibly offensive and insensitive and should have never been written, let alone included in the final cut of the film or any of the trailers.


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