"Scarborough" is filmed well, some of the acting is decent, and there are definitely some cute moments in it, but the movie is "This is Us" emotional porn. There is little dimensionality to the characters other than how they're struggling against a broken system, and of course, the added layer that every white person is the devil. I believe there were ten total in the movie-yeah, I was counting towards the back half. Nine of them were objectively awful, with the one exception of a sweet little white girl. She was one of the main characters... and she ended up dying in a fire.
I could write a comparative essay on 'criticisms of whiteness' in "Scarborough" vs. "Atlanta". There are so many valid and insightful criticisms to make, and plenty of white devils to highlight. But where "Scarborough" is incredibly heavy handed with it, Atlanta does an incredible job in knowing how to balance subtlety with directness, using absurdity and surrealism in the appropriate contexts to highlight a point, and I could go on, but this isn't the place to express my love and appreciation for "Atlanta".
The last thing I'll say is that this sort of 'heroism' in people of colour, having lived that life when my family and I first got to Canada in the early 90s, strips the humanity out of us. We're flawed too. There are bad people and good people and good bad people. It's just frustrating because I think representation is so important and it has mattered a lot to me personally, but when it's done in this capacity it feels like we're taking one step forward, and two steps backwards.
I could write a comparative essay on 'criticisms of whiteness' in "Scarborough" vs. "Atlanta". There are so many valid and insightful criticisms to make, and plenty of white devils to highlight. But where "Scarborough" is incredibly heavy handed with it, Atlanta does an incredible job in knowing how to balance subtlety with directness, using absurdity and surrealism in the appropriate contexts to highlight a point, and I could go on, but this isn't the place to express my love and appreciation for "Atlanta".
The last thing I'll say is that this sort of 'heroism' in people of colour, having lived that life when my family and I first got to Canada in the early 90s, strips the humanity out of us. We're flawed too. There are bad people and good people and good bad people. It's just frustrating because I think representation is so important and it has mattered a lot to me personally, but when it's done in this capacity it feels like we're taking one step forward, and two steps backwards.