Mixed Responses to Melting Pot/RACE (all on my part)

Not to be predictable, but Melting Pot wasn't really my favorite movie. It did make me uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong, I do believe there is great value in being disturbed. I just sometimes wonder how effective things like that are. I mean I feel like I'm pretty sensitive to racial stuff and pretty aware of white hegemonies and stuff like that. In my case he's kinda preaching to the choir, and making me uncomfortable in the process, so not so effective on that level. And then what about the people who aren't already in the proverbial choir? How likely are they to watch a film called Melting Pot or RACE? I'm just not sure what the goal of that film was.

I thought the Q&A was like pulling teeth and turned into more of a film crit, which didn't seem to be the point to me. But what seemed strangest to me was that people seemed to be harping on how the film lacked an antagonist, and I was sitting there thinking, "seems to me, this film had nothing *but* antagonists!" But whatever. I also find the American desire to have everything in a film be wrapped up in a neat little bow at the end so frustrating and I can only imagine how much more so that must be for a filmmaker.

Finally, I found Musca's assertion that he thought race would be a non-issue in 50 years a little naive, which is weird, because he didn't seem like naive kinda guy to me. But I mean really? So long as there is noticible difference between humans there is going to be some degree of tension over it, race isn't just going to go away. Certianly things have gotten better and I hope that they will continue to get better and I like to hope that some day we will evolve so much as a species and as a civilization that we'll get beyond discriminating against people, especially based on something so silly as race, which only exists because we believe it does. But the realist in me figures that race won't truely become a non-issue until the vast majority of the population becomes so inter-racial that meaningful distinctions can no longer be made and I think that's going to take a whole lot more that 50 years if it's ever going to happen. I mean, I'm sure there were people who were celebrating the successes of the Civil Rights movement who probably said "in 50 years, I bet race won't even be on the radar anymore!"
Guess we sure showed them.