Kudos To People Mag For Acknowledging That New York, I Love You Is Lacking Quite A Few NYers
14 October 2009, 10:47 AM. By Alex Alvarez
We’re giving credit where it’s due. In the latest issue of People magazine, on newsstands now, a movie review for the upcoming movie New York, I Love You (Yes OF COURSE we’re going to see it. Self-absorbed navel-gazing is our favorite movie genre.), the (uncredited) writer says:
This collection of 10 short films about New Yorkers flirting with romance is a mixed bag. Missing in action: black women, Latinos and gay people. That’s not the New York I love.
Thank you, Uncredited People Writer! Too many mainstream romantic comedies that use New York City as a setting neglect to remember that Latinos, black women and gay people exist as something other than sympathetic-yet-sassy best friends for white, Anglo heteros.
The film does, however, include Cubanaso Andy Garcia (just don’t call him a Latino actor) playing the boyfriend of Rachel Bilson as she cavorts through Chinatown with real-life fiancé Hayden Christensen. Because two white actors falling in love amid a backdrop of Chinese people really cuts to the core of what Chinatown is: A place for white kids to brunch on dim sum while comparing tattoos, hoodies drawn and Converse-shod feet turned slightly inward in that way that is both awkward and oh so alluring.
The film has another Cuban on board in the form of director Brett Ratner. His short deals with a kid who finds himself dateless for senior prom and a girl in a wheelchair - neither of whom are Latino. Another short, featuring Julie Christie and Shia LeBoeuf, also takes a look at a character with a disability.
The film does manage to featurea short that includes two characteristic although often ignored New York populations as it follows a brief flirtation between a Hasidic Jewish women (played by Natalie Portman) and a young Jain man who, uh, haggle over jewelry prices in the Diamond District. And then go eat dim sum in their hoodies.
Reviews for the film so far call it very hit and miss, which seems almost unavoidable for a collection of shorts. In any case: We’re glad that a mainstream magazine called the movie out on its failure to highlight many of the people who are currently falling in love and lust in this city right now. These stories are interesting to us, and we want to see them play out in something other than obscure indies, although watching those movies does lend us cred when it comes to tattoo’d boys in hoodies. We want to see two long-married Colombians in Elmhurst walking along Roosevelt hand-in-hand. We want to know what happens to the recently-arrived Mexican twenty-something in Corona who slowly falls in love with a Chinese girl from Flushing during their nightly commute on the 7 train. We want to know whether the black Puerto Rican woman who regularly performs at the Nuyorican ever called that New Jersey Cuban girl in the audience who handed her a hastily-written phone number after her set. This is what we want to see.
But, rest assured, we’ll eventually get to see Brazilians falling into and out of love. Upcoming cities in this “city love” franchise include Rio, Shanghai, Jerusalem and Mumbai.
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What is film if not for the director’s idealization of both individuals and locale? It’s not uncommon for films that are about specific places to idealize and romanticize the city for what it’s not. A perfect example is Amelie, the much adored french film about the Montmartre district of Paris. If people took Amelie at face value (and alot of them do), they would think that Paris is nothing more than cute idiosyncratic white girls and the awkward guys who love them. No one ever comments about presence of minorities in the city (whether these be North African immigrants, people of middle eastern descent, etc.) In fact, the only minority character in Amelie plays a slow butcher apprentice.
This comparison is ridiculous, especially because there is a “Paris, I Love You”, in which African, Muslim, Asian, and even Latino characters were the main focus/love interest.
I wish “New York, I Love You” had taken the same approach to showcase the melting-pot aspect of New York.
How is the comparison ridiculous? Nowhere in my comparison do I equate Amelie’s Paris with the Paris of “Paris, Je t’aime”. What exactly invalidates my comparison?
Alex, are you falling in love or lust in the city right now?
Oh ho ho. I can’t comment on that because the object of my affection reads this site.
Well then it’s a good thing this movie is not taking place in San Jose. There ain’t no love here. ;)
Brett Ratner is Cuban, really? Wikipedia says his mother is “the daughter of Eastern European Jews who lived in Cuba before moving to Florida in the 1960s”. My mom lived in Mexico for years in the 70s, and my dad lived in Venezuela for a time. Does that make me Mexican and Venezuelan? And more importantly, is Brett Ratner someone Latinos want to have on their side? If there was a Latino Draft, à la Dave Chapelle’s Race Draft, I’d gladly trade this dude in for Beyonce or something.
I’m pleasantly surprised People magazine actually went out of their way to point out the flagrant omission of non-White people in the film, considering the fact that Whites are probably the minority in New York City at the moment. But! Has there really been a mainstream film or TV show set in New York that actually reflects the city’s diversity? I’m seriously drawing a blank here.
Oh I’m by no means throwing my arm around Brett and calling him my compay. It’s just not inconceivable that his mom’s time in Cuba may have inspired her to pass some cultural awareness down to her son. I’m not sure whether she identifies as Cuban herself, but I’m first-generation American and, were I to move someplace else, I’d still consider myself as such.
And it’s sad that, in response to your question, the first movie scene that pops up for me is the one in 25th Hour where Edward Norton’s character complains about different groups in NY:
God. I love New York.
The 25th Hour is a Spike Lee film, so it doesn’t count. Try again!
Haha! Um. Maid in Manhattan? This is depressing me. Ugly Betty?
You know what? I think Ugly Betty wins. And Law & Order. And I don’t watch Gossip Gossip Girl but I hear it involves both Asian AND a Black token characters, that’s an improvement from a lot of other shows, believe me.