Movies / Movie Reviews

Red Tails: George Lucas Raped Your Adulthood

By Troy-Jeffrey Allen
January 23, 2012 - 19:30

I walked into Red Tails spoiler free, but well aware of the grumblings that heralded its opening weekend. I knew that Spike Lee and Samuel L. Jackson had passed on it. That producer George Lucas pulled from film archetypes instead of real life Tuskegee Airmen to develop the story. I also heard that (not surprisingly) the film was in development limbo for years. Largely because nobody wanted to make an FX-driven World War II adventure with an all black cast. To all these things --- these creative decision that some would call questionable --- I simply shrugged. In spite of everything that Lucas had done before (the hurt that was the Star Wars prequels, the fourth Indiana Jones film that was so bad that even Spielberg through George under the bus) and during the course of making this movie, I recognized that what he was trying to accomplish was a noble effort. I, once again, was willing to give George the benefit of the doubt. And, once again, I walked out the theater painfully disappointed.

Admittedly, Red Tails is a deliberate re-imagining of the very real Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American aviators in the United States military. The Tuskegee Airmen have been the subject of films before, however, in this interpretation, the intensity and ugliness of attempting to desegregate the armed forces is played to the tune of Star Wars. It’s this Rogue Squadron approach that damages the movie as a whole, denying it any type of honesty even when it is forced to address the obvious issue of discrimination.

For example, in the film, when a white airmen drops the n-bomb during a confrontation with one of the Red Tail pilots, it’s voiced with a cheesey film serial delivery. The scene seems to want to manipulate the viewer by referencing a very harsh reality, but the execution is something out of Ming the Merciless. It’s embarrassing, a little insulting, and only calls to attention how horribly out-of-touch this $58 million “passion project” is with its likely African American male audience (which I am part of).



There are other examples too. To a lesser degree, the same misguided gullibility can be seen during the awkward romance between an Italian love interest (Daniela Ruah) and the plucky pilot named Joe “Lightening” Little (David Oyelowo). The two come together without the slightest acknowledgment of their 1940s interracial relationship. If anything it floods in painful memories of Padme and Anakin stiffly courting one another in Attack of the Clones.

While some critics have taken umbrage with the idea of re-working history for the sake of action and adventure, I’m quick to point out (and run to Lucas' defense, oddly enough) that all films based on real life take liberties with the facts in order to highlight the more interesting parts. I also want to point out that, undeniably, African American cinema lacks an honest to God action hero. Blade died with Wesley Snipes’ bank account, Black Dynamite is a parody, and, prior to that, every hero we’ve had has been birthed from the horribly dated Blaxploitation era. Producer George Lucas wanted to invoke the Indiana Jones spirit for an audience that has been without far-reaching representation in film. Unfortunately for us, George reached a little too far himself. 

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12