I read the Last Sumurai thread with interest. It reminded me of an old friend, who turned out to be what I would call a white supremascist. I remember, he thought Independence Day was completely rascist. His point was that a black man and a Jewish man were saving the world. He couldn't stand that. He actually believed that the producers/writers were trying to subtlely put that idea into everyones heads. He believed that was the driving factor to produce the movie.

Of course my response, joining in his logical reasonings, was that it was rascist the other way then...what about the fact that a white guy actually ran his ship up into the beam to rescue earth? So the white guy saved the earth. He just grimmaced at me and ignored that one. But he could have said...."well they were actaully trying to show that the white guy helping was a drunk, thus insulting the white race." I would have countered, "No, it was the other way...even a drunk white guy had to step in to actually save the earth..."

And on and on this could go. Since meeting this guy(one rarely actually meets a person like this!), I have seen that a person can take almost any movie, and do this same pointless logic.

I work in business. I am not sure how old everybody here is, but let me offer a short economic fact of life we all learn. In business, as in many aspects of life, MONEY decides what you do. Movie makers are motivated by whatever is in bounds to make money. It is a for-profit business. They don't have the extra funds of investors or even themselves, to spend millions to push personal agenda's. There can always be exceptions, but most of the time, when you have mixed race movies, one can always come up with some diatribe about rasicsm if they want to see it that way.

The way we interpret what we see sometimes, says more about us, than what the details before us actually represent.