Director Spotlight: ROBERT TOWNSEND

Had already seen: none
Watched for this: Hollywood Shuffle (1987), Eddie Murphy: RAW (1987), The Five Heartbeats (1989), B*A*P*S (1997)
Have not seen: Lots

Robert Townsend has 41 director's credits, as well as many production, writing, and acting credits.

When I started this focus on Black directors, I had originally planned to watch 22 films, including four by Townsend. I ended up adding at least ten films (I am still looking for some) and several shorts, because in many cases I felt compelled to view more. That has not been the case with Robert Townsend. I got very frustrated with him.

I saw Raw and The Five Heartbeats first, and I didn't love them, but I didn't hate them. With The Five Heartbeats, the two brothers bought a big home for their whole family based on their success; it seemed unlikely to me that they could have a falling out so big where Duck never knew that his nephew was named after him. Like, your mother never told you and tried to get you to make up? But okay, the script was based on events they wanted to happen, not completely organically: that happens a lot. 

It was easy to see where the same guy who did The Five Heartbeats also did that opening in Raw; very similar aesthetic and feeling.

Where I started to get mad at Townsend was with B*A*P*S. It's not just that it was pretty stupid (and still pretty inorganic), but it was stupid in insulting ways that did not respect the dignity of the cast. I had a hard time finishing it. 

When reading about it I learned that it was the first time that Townsend was working with a script that he hadn't written, and that made me feel very sorry for Troy Byer, who had written it.

She does not seem to be bitter. She acknowledges that it was a first for him, and if she didn't feel like her work made it on to the screen, at least she was able to try directing her own work later. I feel less forgiving.

(Two separate points on that: I don't know whom to blame for not having the title word figure at all in the movie and then be a surprise at the end; that was just weird and pointless. Also, Halle Berry is distractingly pretty, even with everything they did to make her look ridiculous.)

Then, with Hollywood Shuffle, my feelings became more complicated. 

There were definitely some laughs, and there were things that were less funny. 

One big joke that didn't land for me was in the Jheri Curl section, where the woman's breath was bad, but they were going to do it anyway, because he likes doing it. Bad breath is kind of gross, and you can play that up in a couple of different ways, but that didn't happen. It was just there for a meaningless "ick".

(Actually the repetition of "I like doing it" was pretty funny, but there were other ways of working it in.)

Then of course there was the humor that could be uncomfortable in that it was illustrating how racial stereotypes make things difficult for Black people in the film industry. That discomfort serves an important purpose. If laughter makes it go down better, great!

My problem was that there didn't seem to be a lot of kindness to the other characters, actors or fast food workers or relatives. It wasn't dark comedy either, where you expect everything to be a little scabrous and that's the tone. It was just that no one else mattered so much. 

At the end other people could talk about how sincere and appealing Bobby was - after giving up on his Hollywood dreams and going to work at the post office gets him a gig in a commercial about working at the post office - but none of the other characters get to be that special and appealing.

I felt sympathy too, because I do not doubt many bad experiences in Townsend's career, leading up to this film and continuing after. If he had really been giving Hollywood up to work at the post office, this might have been that scabrous comedy. 

Instead, Hollywood will remain for him, but you can just go work at the post office. Then ten years after making this, he would become the bad experience for yet another writer/actor/but not yet director.