3/1/2024 0 Comments Drag me to hell plot![]() Writing that draws its power not from its poetic quality or its inspired structure but from its willingness to tap into centuries old negative stereotypes. Throw these two powerful stereotypes together and what you have is a film that is full of lazy writing. Other Magical Negroes include, most famously, Uncle Remus from Song of the South (1946) but also much of the recent work of Morgan Freeman. Both characters are, quite clearly, variations on the theme of the Magical Negro a racist throwback to the idea that non-White people are somehow Other and different to White people. Both of these characters are ‘closer to the Earth’ and possessed of magical powers that they to help the white protagonist. I would have some sympathy for the idea that the Raimi brothers – as Americans – have little awareness of the spectre of genocide that still hangs over the European treatment and depiction of gypsiesexcept that, even accepting that this kind of gross ignorance is acceptable, it does not explain why the same kind of racially-inspired, type-based characterisation also applies to other non-White characters.ĭrag Me To Hell also features the ‘seer’ Rham Jas and the Latina medium Shaun San Dena (Adriana Barraza). Her family are presented in a similar tone as a pack of ugly, sinister and unsympathetic people playing weird violin music in the basement of a tumbledown old house. A vindictive and dishonest creature who needs little provocation before lashing out at honest white middle class people using her sinister gypsy powers. Ganush is physically disgusting, replete with disease and foul habits. The film’s depiction of the Roma people is straight out of the darkest dreams of the Daily Mail and a tradition of racial prejudice, fear and scape-goating that stretches back at least as far as the Dark Ages. What most struck me as I sat watching Drag Me To Hell is its quite overt racism. In an attempt to save herself, Christine enlists an Asian psychic named Rham Jas (Dileep Rao) despite the protestations of her sceptical boyfriend. Ganush retaliates by sending a demon after the loan officer that will torment her for days before dragging her off to hell. In the hope of securing herself a promotion, she turns down an old Roma lady’s (Lorna Raver) attempt at re-mortgaging her house, resulting in her losing her home. Insecure about herself and her status she spends her nights terrified by the thought of her rich boyfriend Clay (Justin Long) not approving of her, and her days locked in a life-and-death struggle for an assistant manager’s post with a guy who just joined the company (Reggie Lee). Ballard James Salter Japan Japanese Film Kim Longinotto Last Night LGBT Literary Criticism Manga Masters of Cinema Maurice Pialat Misogyny Noir Olivier Assayas Ooku Pedro Almodovar Politics Postmodernism Psychological Thriller Psychology Racism Religion review Roman Polanski Science Fiction Sexism Short Fiction Some Thoughts On Stalker Stripp'd Theory THE ZONE Thriller TV Video Games Videovista Search Search for:Ĭhristine (Alison Lohman) is a former rural beauty queen who has moved to the big city. Tag Cloud 2014 2015 American Film Andrei Tarkovsky Anime Art House Art House Film Blasphemous Geometries British Film Capitalism Claude Chabrol Colin Barrett Comedy Comics Consumerism Crime Crime Film criticism Death Documentaries Documentary Empathy Existentialism Fantasy Feminism Film film criticism Film Juice FilmJuice French Film Fumi Yoshinaga Futurismic gender Genre Gestalt Mash GLBT Hadrian's Wall Heart of Darkness Horror J. Andrei Rublev (1966) – Some We Call Nothing at All.REVIEW – What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984).REVIEW – Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988).Auto Focus (2002) – Made Free, Yet Everywhere in Chains. ![]() Release of A Traveller in Time – The Critical Practice of Maureen Kincaid Speller (2023) edited by Nina Allan.
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