World's Stupidest Reviewer Claims Green Lantern Is Racist Because Kilowog Is Black Or Something

Armond White is one of the worst reviewers on the planet. While many reviewers are simply stupid and tasteless and reflective of a very lame and very safe middle-of-the-road middlebrow temperament, Armond White gets "cred" by saying stupid things almost deliberately.

And now, The Green Lantern is racist. In fact, everything is racist, pretty much. But let's start with the Green Lantern.

"Duncan voices a character named Kilowog, a member of the Green Lantern Corps, brother from another planet... Duncan’s speech patterns seem to dictate the character’s physical appearance; he looks like a police suspect sketch (a dark-skinned, menacing hulk as if derived from the British racial epithet “golliwog”). Essentially emulating the famous Lou Gossett Jr. badass drill sergeant role, Duncan suggests that racist stereotyping exists even among alien cultures."

Michael Clarke Duncan's speech patterns dictated the physical appearance of Kilowog?

I wish there were some way to check this claim against facts.

Oh wait, there is.

Kilowog in the film:

Kilowog as he's been drawn for 25 years:

Kilowog as an action figure:

Apparently that is a figure assembled April 2010 from parts scavenged from other toys. Correction: No it's not; it's a stand-alone toy. The guy there is just figuring out what prior molds the various pieces of Kilowog came from.

See, Armond White: Kilowog has always looked like this. He has always been a very large, sort of pig-faced alien.

He would have to have deep booming bass voice. That's why he's voiced by large, deep-voiced actors, sometimes white and sometimes black.

Including Michael Clarke Duncan, Henry Rollins, Michael Madsen, Diedrich Bader, and either the President or the Voodoo guy from Major League, Dennis Haysbert.

But oh, let's not bother to google this for five seconds and discover Kilowog is a long-lived character who has always been the big, bad-ass, loveable lunkhead alien for 25 years and haslooked pretty much like he does in the film for all this time.

Let's assume they cast a black guy for the role and then said, "Hm... what should Kilowog look like? (snaps fingers) I've got it! Let's make him a Space Negro!!!"

Stupid.

Armond White specializes in this sort of stupid, attention-getting provocation, and, further, is the world's worst movie reviewer.

Google says so.

Thanks to GM.

If Armond White Counted... Which he doesn't, because no one pays him any mind, but if he did: Hollywood would simply stop hiring black talent for fear of the next idiotic thing Armond will accuse them of.

Hemidall, the big Asgardian who stands guard at the Rainbow Bridge and whose eyes can see everything in the universe?

Yeah, that actor got a lot of notice for his presence in that role, and will soon get roles in American productions all over the place.

But not if Armond White had his way.

Because Armond White looked at this character and somehow got from it:

"Butler."

Oh did I mention that Kilowog is sort of beloved as everyone's favorite Green Lantern (possibly ranking ahead of the Green Lantern of Sector 2014, Earth)?

Does that count?

Or is the World's Worst Reviewer just going to ignore the fact that Kilowog is a hero in his absurd 1972-Black-Panther-Open-Mic-Comedy-Night routine of every black actor being cast as some kind of Steppin Fetchit?

Update: A lot of people are telling me I'm being unfair to Armond White. Commenters say he's actually... conservative-ish in knocking down liberal nonsense?

I have to say I don't read him very often. I've seen his reviews in, what, the Voice? Is that where he is? And I've generally not liked him.

Never got a conservative vibe off him. But I'm not familiar with him, so who knows.

One thing I thought was sort of unfair even as I was writing about it -- and so I stopped writing about it -- is a recent attack of sorts on him, noting that he's liked a lot of movies critics didn't like and has disliked a lot of movies critics did like.

I was going to mention that, then realized: 95% of movie critics are awful so actually I guess that's a point in his favor.

In any event, apart from a general "I don't really dig this guy" vibe picked up from a couple dozen reviews, I don't know his work, and who knows, maybe he's a better critic than I'm crediting him for.

posted by Ace at 05:10 PM

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