Despite advice to the contrary -- from a number of movie critics and even one of my sons (the one who thinks that Norm Macdonald's "Dirty Work" was the best film of last year) -- my wife and I went to see "Wild Wild West."
We should have listened.The list of what's wrong with the latest Will Smith summer vehicle is far too long to chronicle here (bad script, bad jokes, bad acting, bad special effects . . . bad idea).
But there was one aspect that particularly struck me: the tasteless racial gags.
It's easy to make a case for not casting Smith as Jim West, a government agent in the Old West during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant (1869-77). The likelihood of a black man, however resourceful, being able to mingle in white society as he tracks down villains during this time period is simply nonexistent. And Smith's swaggering style seems woefully out of place, a ridiculous anachronism.
A solution might have been to cast Smith as West's partner, fellow Secret Service agent -- and master-of-disguise -- Artemus Gordon. With Gordon's ability to hide behind makeup while coming up with all kinds of inventive James Bond gadgets (albeit old-fashioned versions), Smith could have had a field day, and the film might not have seemed quite so botched.
But the only way to make "Wild Wild West" work with Smith as West is to place the action in some parallel world, a comic universe where it doesn't matter that the character is black, and without the need to reference it.
Instead, however, the brilliant minds behind this movie chose to address West's color at every turn. Gordon (played by a surprisingly low-key Kevin Kline) brings up the subject with some frequency, as do the various bad guys they meet (especially during a lengthy, unfunny lynching sequence).
But worst of all are the confrontations with chief villain Dr. Loveless (scenery-chewing Kenneth Branagh). Every time they meet, Loveless spews racist epithets at West in the form of crass double-entendre one-liners. And then West responds by spewing equally crass jokes at Loveless -- making fun of the fact that he is missing his legs! (In the original TV series, the Dr. Loveless character was a dwarf.)
All of this is played jovially enough, as if the movie means to cross its source material, "The Wild Wild West" TV series (1965-70), with Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" (1974). But the result is neither witty nor funny, lumbering along with a surprising mean-spiritedness.
Aren't meanness, anger and hate common enough in real life? To bring these elements to what is supposed to be a lighthearted entertainment like "Wild Wild West" is just wildly wrongheaded. Especially when that entertainment is aimed squarely at kids.
I remember, many years ago, seeing an interview with Sidney Poitier, wherein he discussed his Oscar-winning performance in "Lilies of the Field" (1963). One of the things that attracted him to the script, he said, was the fact that his character -- a handyman who helps a group of German nuns build a chapel in New Mexico -- was not described as "black."
The handyman could have been any race, any color. And the fact that it was offered to Poitier, not because he was black, but simply because he was a talented actor who could play the part, appealed to him.
I thought of that while watching "Ally McBeal" this past season, as Ally had a romance with a doctor who happened to be black. Not once in any of the episodes in which the doctor appeared was any mention made of his race. Ally didn't mention it, her (black) roommate didn't mention it, her colleagues didn't mention it . . . it never came up.
Sadly, it seemed unusual. Happily, it worked easily.
This is not to say, of course, that TV shows and movies shouldn't continue to examine race relations, in both dramatic and comedic contexts. But in a day and age when taste has been tossed out the window, the tasteless extremes of "Wild Wild West" -- toward both blacks and amputees -- is still a bit shocking.
Add this to complaints of racial stereotyping in "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace" and you have to wonder if we've come as far as we think.
Entertainment editor Chris Hicks may be reached by e-mail at hicks@desnews.com.