Bad Words (2013)
August 21, 2016 4:38 PM - Subscribe

An adult man uses a loophole to get into National Spelling Bee and a reporter goes along with him to figure out his reasons.

A pretty solid movie, if you like your world view kind of absurd and a little fucked up. The cast was perfect to me, and I really cared for even the worst of them. One of those movies where everyone's flaws are on full display.

If anything I learned quite a few new insults.
posted by numaner (6 comments total)
 
I saw the trailer for this which looked pretty racist against the Indian American kid. In fact, I found it pretty infuriating.
posted by zutalors! at 8:24 PM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


Having seen it, I'd say Bateman's character is pretty racist, at least initially. I wouldn't say the movie is, though.

It calls to mind Gene Siskel's truism, "A movie isn't about what it's about, it's about how it's about it."

To that end, the movie certainly thinks his character is an asshole and a racist.

Still, I wouldn't blame anyone for being unwilling to watch the journey of a character like that, particularly not since the payoff is less "man moves past racism" than it is "misanthrope who hates everyone and will say lots of awful shit including racist stuff develops grudging respect for/friendship with one kid."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:01 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


FWIW, the kid is interesting and weird and is sharper and cagier than Bateman's character grasps at first. They actually find an interesting balance of neither writing to stereotype nor writing to consciously avoid stereotype. He's a peculiar and singular little person, not a cartoon or a feel-good creation.

All of my observations on him are inherently suspect, though, admittedly, since I don't actually know a lot of Indian kids. And I don't have the wariness that comes from having had to endure the attendant stereotypes myself, so I may have missed something shitty.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:09 AM on August 23, 2016


All of my observations on him are inherently suspect, though, admittedly, since I don't actually know a lhis ot of Indian kids. And I don't have the wariness that comes from having had to endure the attendant stereotypes myself, so I may have missed something shitty.

Yeah I am an Indian- American and just the trailer itself with Jason Bateman telling a kid to shut his "curry hole" was pretty offensive. I imagined that the white guy character probably learned and grew and stuff but as a kid I got a lot of those insults and so pretty much noped out of that experience and my estimation of Jason Bateman has dropped.
posted by zutalors! at 11:50 AM on August 23, 2016


Oh, I didn't miss that. That was shitty, for sure. And I totally get why you would nope on out, even if you can tell it's probably meant to make him look like an asshole.

The reason for that qualifying bit was, as far as I can tell, the portrayal of the kid in the film is good, though I don't have the personal experience to say that with a high degree of certitude.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:56 AM on August 23, 2016


I'm around a few Indian American kids of roughly the same age a few times a year and I'd say the portrayal of the kid is actually similar to those kids I know in that they are just your average American born Desi kids with all the ideals American kids have that are raised here.

I sympathize with you zutalors!. Having heard many slurs against my being Asian growing up, I can understand the memories hearing them in a movie can bring back. You can rest assured though, that the way the kid is portrayed as a character was as ideal as Hollywood could be about people of color.
posted by numaner at 3:51 PM on August 23, 2016


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