Social Optics of Race - DTC 475

I saw "The Matrix" a long time ago (didn't see the sequels) and I haven't seen "Minority Report", so I found Nakamura's chapter 3 very interesting when she talked about the details of the movies. I couldn't remember "The Matrix" very much. I am going to rent "Minority Report" soon! I was deciding between 3 arguments for a while. I decided I was most interested and compelled about the passage that starts with the first paragraph on page 112 and ends after the first paragraph of page 113. Nakamura describes blackness (the dancing, dreadlocks, etc.) as cool. She describes whites as not being able to feel the "visual vibes" that blacks can feel when it comes to their dancing, styles, and "fashion flair". An example of this is how Apple's IPod uses the black silhouette to represent the "cool" black man (or woman) to show their product is "in" or "cool" for marketing purposes. This definitely has worked for the Apple company in sales of their IPods. They have "capitalized on cool". Some movies are capitalizing on cool as well. Nakamura explains how "The Matrix", with the cool black guy, became popular partly because of the "cool" black guy in it. There is a scene (rave) in the movie that shows how black bodies (forms) are cool because they are "sexually-driven" and the blacks move to the rhythm and beat of the music being played.
As (Donnell) Alexander states in his essay, "Cool Like Me (Are Black People Cooler than White People?)," blacks possess a cool style that whites and everyone in the world could learn from. Blacks, as Alexander says, remain in the "American cultural mix" because of their cool ways.
I have seen a few movies (that I can think of) where the black character is in control of things and very cool, and the white actor sort of follows along and doesn't seem as cool. "Pulp Fiction", "Half-Baked", and "Beverly Hills Cop" are movies that come to mind to support this certain Nakamura argument. Each of these movies has a very cool black guy (Samuel Jackson, Dave Chappelle, and Eddie Murphy, respectively with the listed movies) and one or more less-cool white guys that "follow" the black guy along on different missions. In "Pulp Fiction", Jackson is a very cool and tough black guy that gets things taken care of. He has the cool afro, style, and stereotype that Nakamura discusses of cool blacks. Travolta, the white guy, is very active too, but Jackson seems to be more in control. "Half-Baked" follows a few guys that try to get their buddy out of jail. Dave Chappelle seems to be the one that has the best ideas and takes most control (despite smoking weed here and there). The white guys (Jim Breuer and others) smoke more weed and are lazier than Chappelle. Chappelle is the guy, basically, that steals the show and makes it more "cool" to the younger crowd. Finally, Eddie Murphy steals the show from his white counterparts in "Beverly Hills Cop". He is very tough and aggressive, besides being cool, funny, fashionable, and suave. I honestly don't think there's a white actor out there that could have performed Murphy's role as well. That black style that Nakamura (as well as Alexander) discusses is clarified well by Murphy.
In each of these movies, in summary, the black guy is the main actor (most would think so in the mentioned titles), he is stylish, strong, full of determination, and just outright cool. The main white actors in these movies just don't quite have the style, sexuality, and "fashion flair" that the black actors have. The white actors goof around and are not as focused on their certain missions in the movies as the "cool" black actors. In short, the blacks are "in" with the movie-watchers more than their white counterparts.