Hi All- Read this and see if you die laughing as hard as I did!!!

"I was already quite familiar with the story of the Amistad, so I was excited to hear about a major motion picture describing the tragic situation. When I finally was able to break away to see the movie (arriving at the theater a few minutes late, I'm sad to say), I was completely perplexed by the liberties taken with the story!

First off, the ship had clearly been filtered through the sensibilities of Hollywood! For starters, practically everyone on board was white! Not only that, but many of them were clearly British, and most were very well off.

How on earth, even in an avant-garde, post-modern setting, could one seriously portray a boat full of African slaves as a ship full of upper-class British and American citizens!

Then, even though the true focus of the story of the Amistad is on the bravery of the slaves in their escape and the legal maneuvering once they reached this country, the movie almost completely focused on the goings-on on the ship (except for a poker scene at the beginning whose relevance to the whole slavery controversy escaped me). Then, in the final travesty of history, this ship does not come to America and an incredible, portentous legal battle. Instead, the ship sinks! I COULD NOT believe my eyes! While the effects were, I suppose, credible, I must stress, for all who saw this movie and were confused, the Amistad NEVER struck an iceberg of any size!

There were some good points to the movie, of course. The scene in which the young slave lad drew the upper class naked white woman was a lovely metaphor for the ambivalence of whites in the face of this most inhuman institution. Also, when the young, inexplicably white slave boy slowly freezes and drowns in the arms of the southern gentlewoman, I was weeping as openly as the hundreds of teenage girls surrounding me.

Still, the movie is a travesty, plain and simple, and I shudder to think of all the young people who left thinking that the Amistad was a luxury liner, and not the floating pit of Hell it truly was!"

HEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!!!!!!

-- Laura (lrc@usit.net), February 06, 1998

Answers

Response to Hilarious Story! (Sorry, it's kinda long....) {Amistad review}

Thanks. I laughed. I'm sure others did too. Regards.

-- Bob Gregorio (rgregori@pacbell.net), February 07, 1998.

Response to Hilarious Story! (Sorry, it's kinda long....) {Amistad review}

You didn't ... ?!!
Really!!! Haa haa haa haa haa! ;o~

-- Jamie (d9733954@mail.connect.usq.edu.au), February 24, 1998.

You are a whiney baby, just because you felt something was a little off you have to go and spread crap about. Well boohoo get used to life

-- Jeremy Uitto (JeremyUitto@hotmail.com), May 12, 2003.

Did you not notice the name Titanic was used alot???? Good story, though.

-- Tommy Lynskey (tmt1219@aol.com), August 10, 2003.

ok is this amistad the porno....cause these things never happened in the movie... if your gonna tell us something get it right.

-- Scott (scottaroony69@yahoo.com), September 22, 2003.

what were you smoking while you wrote this........ how can someone get the story so wrong...... you freak

-- Sam (armor35002000@yahoo.com), September 22, 2003.