Yeah, I saw it. It was a pirate DVD, a couple of weeks before the opening.
Maybe it's because I have a titanium-reinforced ego, but I'm really feeling anyone who ever laughed at Def Comedy Jam or a Redd Foxx joke (or anything similar) really needs to relax. This isn't what you'd call a positive review, but neither do I feel the movie is even capable of causing damage.
Black Celebs Speak Out on 'Soul Plane'
Date: Tuesday, June 01, 2004
By: Associated Press
HOLLYWOOD - The "first black-owned airline" has barely lifted off, but a determined campaign is already under way to ground it, or at least clip its wings.
…Declaring in a recent speech that "Soul Plane" is "coonery and buffoonery," Spike Lee is one of a number of entertainment figures saying that the film is among the most offensive ever in terms of showing blacks in a negative light. Their protests are mostly based on the R-rated film's trailer, advertising campaign and early drafts of the script.
Other actors, writers and directors have called "Soul Plane" a modern-day minstrel show and a throwback to films in the 1940s and 1950s, when blacks were mostly shown as lazy clowns. The South Los Angeles-based National Alliance for Positive Action has aimed its protest at MGM, the studio behind the film. "Soul Plane" is the latest in a slate of urban-based films being developed by MGM after the crossover success of the studio's 2001 release "Barbershop."
"There is definitely a feeling in the community that this is the film that really does cross the line, that doesn't have any conscience whatsoever," said Lee Bailey, publisher and executive producer of the Electronic Urban Report, a Web site linked to the "Radioscope" entertainment program.
…"First and foremost, this is a comedy that is an equal opportunity offender," said Peter Adee, MGM's president of world wide marketing. "It takes shots at everyone."
Jessy Terrero, a music video director making his directing feature debut with "Soul Plane," said, "I'm part of Generation X, part of the hip-hop culture, and I just wanted to make a good comedy for my generation. I don't see this as a movie about race, it's a movie about class." Terrero said he cut out many of an early script's jokes about race.
"Soul Plane" is the latest in a series of black-oriented movies and TV shows where questions of taste and appropriateness have provoked controversy.
