The Abundance of Interracial Movies: Lakeview Terrace
By LMReviews on Oct 22, 2008 in Uncategorized
Well it happened again with Oakbrook Entertainment’s Lakeview Terrace. While I think you can’t get much better than Samuel L Jackson for a lunatic socio-path cop, the only glimpses of this movie I caught were his menacing glances and creepy laughter. Until I read an article on Kerry Washington an African American actor and co-star in the film, I would have never known the target of Samuel’s obsessive rage was an interracial couple who had moved in next door. Some of the publicity this movie has been getting expresses the conflict as being Samuel’s disapproval of a neighbor’s interracial relationship, but some of my research revealed that earlier on what the Jackson’s character finds objectionable is the new neighbor’s lifestyle.
Well, lifestyle could mean anything. I never really viewed my interest in white men as a lifestyle choice. You tend to be attracted to who or what culture you know, but then again, as the cliché goes, “Opposites Attract.”
One particular poignant moment in the film is when the neighbor Chris Mattson played by Patrick Wilson comes home after work blaring rap music. He’s catching a quick smoke in his car before heading into the house because his wife doesn’t approve of his smoking when Samuel’s character Abe Turner taps on the window pretending to be a carjacker. Abe introduces himself after scaring the life out of his new neighbor only to give him the third degree about his educational background and how he came to be married to an African American woman. His demeanor starts out as inquisitive but quickly becomes passive aggressive and judgmental. Doubting that the man could have anything in common with black people and even more skeptical when Chris tells him he is the one who likes rap while his black wife does not, Abe’s parting words are, “You can blast that noise all you want, but you’re still a white guy.”
The whole crux of this movie is the quick and aggressive unraveling of Samuel’s psych and the danger of his prejudices projected on this mixed couple. As the movie climaxes and begins to reach a resolve, you learn that it is more than this particular couple that’s got his goat but what this couple represents.
It’s a good movie; I just found the timing and the subtle reference to its interracial themes very interesting. Now that the movie is out Oakbrook must be far less subtle regarding its themes and I’m glad, because intolerance doesn’t have a white face or a black face, it resides to some degree or another in all of us.
