Shrain. My entire point was that your very accusations/concerns of racism were racist. . . .
If you approach an analysis of the film from a neutral perspective there are plenty of explanations that do not involve racism. Yet you passed those over without a thought in order to call white folks racist. . . .
You're probably used to being called open-minded and tolerant when you assume white people are racist and judge them on that basis, . . .
And it doesn't matter at all that there actually were prevalent racist attitudes when that film was first made. . . .
Skar. Thanks for clarifying your objection. In other words, you're saying that I should've said nothing about racism being a possibility because merely suggesting the possibility based on the timperiod assumes that all white people back then were racist. That's a good point.
Here's what you need to know: first, I did have other reasons besides the timperiod to support my concerns that I didn't make clear earlier (see below); second, I'm not racist nor am I "sold" on the idea that the film must be racist simply because I approached the movie with a "stereotypical" skepticism about the underlying messages of ethnicity.
The only things I can say in my defense is that while 1) I realize that it's all too easy to wonder if all films created during a certain time are racist, 2) the fact remains that the POSSIBILITY of a film being racist--esp. one featuring two ethnic groups of such widely disparate cultural lifestyles--is not automatically invalid.
Intellectually, I should've done more research to see what else besides the following were grounds for concern: a) the timeperiod, b) the two strikingly different cultures, and c) the stereotypically blonde, blue-eyed Arian beauty.
HOWEVER, I think it's best to simply call a truce, agree to disagree, and give everyone else a break. You know, talk about the actors and the special effects and the quality of writing and other interesting, less volatile stuff.