The Politically Incorrect Landlord

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by blogSpotter
I just watched a little-known gem from 1970, The Landlord, starring Beau Bridges, Lee Grant, Pearl Bailey, Lou Gossett Jr and several other notable actors. The movie was Hal Ashby’s directorial debut. It has a gritty, urban, hip attitude that might make you think it’s a much newer movie. Bridges plays Elgar Enders --a rich, spoiled 29 year old “tweener” (before tweener was even a concept) who buys a tenement house in Brooklyn’s Park Slope hood with the intention of gentrifying it.

Before Elgar can repaint and remodel, he must evict an assortment of poor black tenants. He doesn’t remain long on his high horse -- he soon becomes friends with Marge the Psychic and Fanny the beautiful hair burner. I won’t wade too far into the plot line with spoilers… Suffice it to say that Elgar becomes very deeply involved in his new milieu; he also becomes a bit estranged from his conventionally white, elitist family.

The movie was an excellent time slice from 1970 when it was released. The clothing styles have a certain panache that’s lacking now; the background vocals by the Staple Singers give the movie a nearly gospel sensibility in places. What I have to say more than anything is that The Landlord would never be greenlighted in 2011. Political Correctness has made such a pronounced takeover of our society that a plot involving a rich white landlord and black tenants would be deemed inherently racist. (Who exactly is offended? All parties are shown with depth and compassion). This movie makes extensive use of the word “nigger” which has been banished from all 21st century publishing, to be replaced by “N-word”. The people using the word look far more ridiculous than anyone else -- it doesn’t bestow class to anyone saying it.

In this age of Obama, some people (clueless Republicans and white limousine liberals) like to fantasize that racism, sexism and homophobia are all in the past. I need only think of one black coworker who (recently) couldn’t get service at a car dealership until he wore a suit and brought his wife. I need only think of how recently LGBT people had to fight tooth and nail to be admitted to military service and how women are still trying to level the military playing field.

There’s a large, grey nebulous cloud of politically correct “oneness” that hangs over all our heads. We’re not even to broach certain topics or utter the words -- it means that we’re somehow uncool or unenlightened. We’re all assumed to be on some “same page” … and I myself have to ask, “What page is that?” The page that says redlining, redistricting and denial of marriage rights is all OK? Because those things are not OK and they still exist.

What I like about movies and TV from the early 70’s is that they dared to utter the word and ask the question. Butterflies Are Free, All In the Family, Sanford and Son, Harold and Maude, The Landlord … several others too … we pulled up some chairs and had ourselves a meeting. We did some much-needed soul-searching. If you look at our pop culture now in 2011, it’s basically “Don’t Ask, Don’t Discuss” on a much grander scale than ever was done with LGBT’s in the armed forces.

I remember when sitcoms like Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley overtook the socially relevant shows like Good Times in the late 1970’s. Mainstream pop culture basically played into the hands of a palliative, complacent status-quo. Our teachable moment washed away like a chalk picture on a rainy-day sidewalk. Discussion closed. In recent days there has been discussion of taking the word “nigger” out of Huckleberry Finn. I can think of no worse form of cultural castration than to erase our history and remove the touchstones of who we are and who we have been. It opens a Pandora’s Box of “what next?” I know words like faggot, bitch and whore have peppered other works -- do we need to go after those with politically correct White-Out?

I think we need to open the doors to our past unashamedly and ask all the relevant questions. There may be some colorful words and painful expressions in the process. We can do it no other way -- butterflies must remain free.

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