Every so often, I'll watch a movie. And when I watch a movie as a music fan in general, I have to hear the soundtracks. For me, a great soundtrack could make or break a movie. As predicted, a bad soundtrack, could really piss me off and make me become highly uninterested in a movie or show no matter how good it might be.
For example, Check out this trailer for The Interview:
This trailer is laced with Black music, and so is the entire movie. But the context of the songs is so very wrong. What does EnVogue's "Free Your Mind" have to do with anything in the movie? I saw this film and all I came away with was, what does Syl Johnson's "Is It Because I'm Black" have to do with the main characters walking up to the fortress? That song is a very heavy song that was done unjustly by inserting it into a movie that falls into a comedy genre. This had some great potential, but all of the misplacement of Black music, and the fake Black slang was a huge turnoff for me. I had to give it one star in hopes nothing like that would show up in my Netflix feed ever again.
Another instance is the Deadpool trailers. Here's the first one
Here's the second one:
What does Salt N Peppa's "Shoop" have to do with the trailer? Does he sex somebody down in the movie? In this case, I 'd have to see the movie to find out, but I suspect it doesn't fit in the entire movie. That placement of Shoop really turned me off.
It's like the people who use Black music in their movies have no concept of context. It's like they go, "Dude! Here is a really cool Black song to put riiiight here! It'll be, like sooo awesome!" Except with The Interview, they decided to create something of a White Blaxploitation film sprinkled with horrible slang. It's like they don't really know anybody whose Black for real, and they had no Black writers, but somebody told them to "Black it up and make it feel more, ummm urban, ya know? Kay, thanks guys!" And a lot of the films have just one Black person in them. I don't remember if there were any Black faces in The Interview, and I probably won't see Deadpool because I'm an asshole like that when it comes to soundtracks.
All I ask is for some accurate context for the placement of Black music in these films, especially if the show has no Black people in them and has Black music recklessly strewn throughout the entire thing.
Am I asking too much? Knowing the history of this sort of thing, I probably am. This is another reason why we should hold on to our own and not be so quick to "sell" them our stuff, because this is exactly why they can't have nice things.
****Update: So I checked out Deadpool, and Shoop fits because of the relationship he has with his woman. I won't spoil it for you, but you'll get why they put it there if you go see it.
