Casino Royale
I recently read an interesting discussion on a website (www.imdb.com) about the new James Bond movie, Casino Royale. While this isn't by any means an accredited source, the fact that so many people felt so strongly one way or another really struck a chord, especially after Tuesday's discussion about multiculturalism. Apparently, there are some rather vociferous individuals who believe that the underlying premise of the movie is about racism. Many people cite the fact that the villians in the beginning of the movie were African American, and that another character was simply put in as a "token black" character. Additionally, they object to the sophistication of the terrorists, saying that based on the fact if they were black or some European portrayal, the complexity of weapons, and planning varied, an insinuation about the inherent "characteristics" of differing races.
This reminded me of Pinker's book actually, and how rationality and politics don't always coincide. For the aforementioned argument, the opposite could be made, that the makers wanted to incorporate a multicultural feel by employing people to represent different areas of the world equally. We see everything through a prism, where ideas and images are filtered through first, and so one person's prism might catch one tread, one wave that another would completely miss. So are we to encourage people to make things that are so flat, so one dimensional that there is only one interpretation? Can said interpretation exist?