What Makes Minorities Cool?

After watching Shaft, I have been trying to figure out whether or not minorities have some kind of innate coolness that exists simply because they are minorities. Take the example of John Shaft. His coolness comes primarily from the way he has to overcome great obstacles to protect the innocent people of Harlem. Because he is an African American man, he must overcome racial boundaries in addition to his struggles for justice. From this, it can be deduced that the effect of being a minority on Shaft is that it increases the difficulty of his primary struggles, and because he overcomes these harder struggles, he is slightly cooler than he would be if he was white.

Another minority that is cool is the Russian cosmonaut Lev Andropov from the movie Armageddon. When the space shuttle crews meet the cosmonaut on board the Russian space station, he is very eccentric from living alone for months with little contact with other humans. As a result of a lack of interest in space travel in recent years, Lev believes that he will be in the shadow of the heroes that are flying to take out the asteroid. However, when his space station explodes due to an accident, Lev must act to save the astronauts. From this point forward, Lev performs heroic acts selflessly to help the astronauts destroy the asteroid. Lev's Russian heritage also helps to amplify his coolness. Because he is not American, he must overcome the cultural barrier that exists between him and the astronauts. This increases the amount of work that is required for Lev to reach his goals, and because these goals are reached, he is cooler as a result.

As a general case, minority coolness is not generated as a direct result of being a minority. In all cases where a minority is cool, the ethnicity of the cool person is simply another obstacle that the person must overcome. In effect, the only cool minorities are the minorities who transcend their ethnicity in order to reach an ultimate goal which is independent of their original minority. A few more examples of this are T E Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, Bruce Lee and his promotion of Jeet Kune Do, and Dr. Foreman from House.

Minority coolness is opposed by sheer minority stereotyping. When done tastefully, stereotypes can be explored through satire to produce comedic effect. However, when done without taste, there is nothing more uncool than stereotyping. A perfect example of uncool minorities is the movie Soul Plane. When characters act in a way that does nothing more than promoting generalizations about a race, there is no way that the character can be cool. However, when minority characters overcome racial differences and fight for a good cause, they truly become cool.

Why Shaft is Cool

Shaft is cool. I wish I could leave my analysis of Shaft at that, but I must delve deeper.

Throughout Shaft, I kept questioning whether or not minorities have some kind of inherent coolness. In comparison to the majority race of white people, do the minority races have some underlying trait that causes their coolness to be multiplied? In the case of John Shaft, coolness is not generated through his race. It is instead generated by his kindness, sense of justice, and his dominance in every situation. Although he is equally harsh to both his associates and his enemies, he shows an incredible sense of kindness to the innocent citizens of Harlem. When traveling the streets, he kindly converses with both white and black people equally, and he openly gives away his money to help people out. For example, when a small child is cold and hungry on a doorstep, Shaft gives him money to buy a hot meal. His sense of justice is intertwined with his sense of kindness. Shaft acts kind only towards people who are innocent. When dealing with his allies in both the police department and the black liberation movement, he treats them nearly the same way that he treats his enemies. He does this because every member of these groups has done some wrong in trying to achieve their goals. This is why Shaft still talks Bumpy with a strong, insulting voice when he sincerely wants his daughter back; Bumpy does not have any innocence, so Shaft treats him harshly regardless of his intentions.
Another component of Shaft's coolness is his dominance. Throughout the entire movie, there is rarely a time when Shaft does not have control of the situation. From the start of the film, Shaft disregards traffic lights as he strolls across busy streets while oncoming cars are forced to stop for him. Additionally, he treats authoritative figures like Bumpy and the police as if they were subordinate to Shaft's will. The coolness that originates from his dominance is tied to the general concept of power being cool. Without power, a person's will is subject to the whims of superiors. It is nearly impossible to be cool while still being subordinated to other people. As long as freedom in personal choice is nonexistent, then all choices, regardless of their intentions, are bound by the rules of superiors. With enough power to have complete control over personal choices, coolness cannot be bounded by rules. Ultimately, this freedom of choice is an almost necessary component of cool, and Shaft, with his complete dominance over every situation, definitely has the power to project his kindness and justice enough to be an incredibly cool jive-talking cat.

Drugs...cool or not?

Throughout Easy Rider, Captain America and Billy constantly use drugs. The pair of Captain America and Billy is cool, but I believe that their drug use has little to do with their coolness. Furthermore, their use of LSD near the end of the film definitely detracts from their coolness. When they enter their acid trip, Captain America and Billy become completely imprisoned in a world of hallucinations which, instead of freeing their minds, strips them of their American freedom. Because their coolness originates from this freedom, and because acid causes their freedom to fade, LSD is definitely not cool.

Drug use for anyone is not cool. In most stories, any character that uses drugs is portrayed with a shade of uncoolness because of their drug use. For example, Dr. House in the television show House is horribly addicted to vicodin, a prescription painkiller. Even though he has the opportunity to take physical therapy in order to mitigate his pain and perhaps even back off of the vicodin, he is too attached to his drug to leave it. This ultimately leads to a lessening of House's coolness when he is brought before a trial for his drug use. During this trial, his friends are forced to risk their careers in order to falsely clear his name. The amount of pain that his addiction causes for his friends leads to a lessening of his coolness. If he had instead went through rehab and suffered through attaining a drug-free life, he would have been a much cooler person as a result.

A unique case where drug use is portrayed as cool is the movie Drunken Master. In this film, an old drunkard is a kung fu master who relies on being constantly being drunk in order to perform amazing martial arts feats. Throughout the film, he trains a young Jackie Chan into taking his place as a new drunken master. Eventually, the student slips into alcoholism, and combined with rigorous training, he surpasses his master in the art of fighting. However, even though the old drunken master and Jackie Chan are both require alcohol to fight, their coolness is a result of their fighting skills. Even though their alcoholism is cool, it is only a small shard of their overall coolness. However, in most cases, drug use of any kind is not cool. Drugs only separate people from the true coolness that lies at the heart of their personalities.

American Freedom: Cool

Easy Rider was definitely a cool film. However, I would argue that Dennis Hopper's character Billy was much cooler than Peter Fonda's character Captain America. Captain America lacked coolness because of his constant striving to reach an ideal. He did not see the real life in front of him. Instead, he was striving to reach the same kind of life that the farmer and the commune were trying to achieve. Also, instead of taking advantage of the commune's offer to join them, Captain America decided to leave the commune to continue his search. Ultimately, his lack of coolness stems from him not seeing what he really wants. When he descends into New Orleans, he is furthest away from the life he wants. Nevertheless, he decides to use acid at an absolutely horrible time in a continuation of his search. This is what leads to his bad trip-instead of using it in good company at the commune, he uses acid in the synthetic happiness of Mardis Gras with bought friends. Captain America himself proves that his path for truth is wrought with failure when he says "We blew it".

Conversely from Captain America, Billy was a very cool person. Throughout the film, he only wants three things: drugs, money, and freedom. Normally, I do not find people who are entrenched in drugs and money to be very cool. However, Billy has an almost transcendental quality about him. Instead of reveling in decadence, Billy just wants to enjoy life as much as possible, and because he sees the conventional ways of living in America as a roadblock to happiness, he simply chooses to live in his own way. Furthermore, although Billy has the mainstream want to retire in Florida and relax for the rest of his life, he is still retaining his transcendental qualities. Just because his goals and the goals of mainstream America interact, he sees no need to change his ways to match some goal of nonconformance.

Regardless of the coolness of Captain America and Billy, the absolute coolest idea in the movie is the road trip across America. The road trip symbolizes the epitome of freedom in America-the ability to travel anywhere in the country without being impeded by laws or traditions. In a way, this is a continuation of people traveling west to live in the lawless frontier. No matter when the time, the idea of being able to live without rules will always be cool.

This is the movie you should show instead. Seriously.

When I first started watching Blowup, I could not help but think of the Austin Powers movie series. Honestly, during the uselessly long stretches of Blowup where nothing happened, I was sitting on the couch reminiscing about Austin Powers. Strangely enough, there are many parallels between the two films. The first thing I noticed was the photography that's present in both films. Austin and Thomas both follow similar patterns when photographing things that they find to be good. However, while Thomas uses photography in an attempt to find some kind of greater truth, Austin uses it both a fun escape from his espionage filled life and as a tool while spying on Dr. Evil. Another great similarity between the two men is their sexuality. Austin and Thomas use their sexual appeal to have sex with many different partners. This is definitely a stereotypical characteristic of 60's coolness for both men. By having a life filled with unprotected sex with multiple non-committing partners, both Austin and Thomas are able to easily fit into the mold of coolness for the 60's.
Although there are definitely many similarities between Austin and Thomas, I do not believe that Thomas is a cool person. Ultimately, this is because the underlying qualities that fill the two men are different. Austin a very joyous and carefree person that stands up for just ideals, and although he wants to maximize the amount of sex he can get in life, he ultimately cares about people and does not want them to come to harm. Thomas does not come close to this way of life. He cares only about his photography, and he only wants to get better and more intense photographs in an attempt to find the truth that he is searching for. Additionally, he wants to control the people that come into his life to fit his ways. For example, when the two girls come in wanting to be photographed, Thomas uses their innocent desire to take advantage of them and practically rape them with no remorse. This attitude towards life is not cool in any way, and because of it, Blowup shows viewers a gilded view of the 60's: While we normally see the 60's portrayed as the carefree and sexually fun times that we see in the Austin Powers series, there is also a core of lead that is made up by the much more serious and questionable actions that take place in Blowup.

Presidential Coolness

The place in space-time that exemplifies my generation's aspirations to coolness is Washington D.C. on January 20, 2009. With the election of President Obama, our entire generation has gained not only hope, but we have also proven that we have the capability to actually make changes if we dedicate ourselves enough to a cause. I would argue that our generation, in contrast to the generations of the past, holds the ability to forge the country to fit our ideas of morality and proper policy as a cool ideal. The previous generation believed in using anarchy and subterfuge to slip through governmental oppression. This ideal of coolness was succeeded by my generation' s idea of working towards changing the government itself so that there is no need to walk around the laws.
The reason that I lock my generation's location of coolness on inauguration day in Washington is because that day is the vertex of our feelings for change. From that day forward, the momentum of change will inevitably loose steam as information about President Obama and his administration is filtered through the corrupting factor of 24-hour cable news. However, there is little that can be done to change the idealistic day of the president's inauguration. Even though there was no real policy change made on January 20, the change in administration serves as an idealistic point for my generation to look to for political coolness.
Aside from this single point of coolness, which only covers a single shade of my generation's coolness, I cannot find a single place that fits my generation like London fit the 1960's. I believe that this may be a result of the merging of Western culture through the medium of the internet. The mass linkage of all information has made the transmission of cool almost instantaneous, making something that originates in New York lose its origins as soon as it is posted on the net. In a way, this has caused the internet itself to become a place for my generation to look to coolness. Web sites like Youtube and 4chan* are used by people to get their ideas of coolness to the entire world at once. Almost simultaneously, Facebook and MySpace allow people to discuss and send people to view the cool things that are found in other parts of the internet. In essence, this creates a quantifiable sense of coolness: More views equals more cool.

Love does not Necessitate Coolness

While I found the movie Jules and Jim to be completely devoid of coolness, I have found that love is often accompanied by coolness. Love itself is not cool. While it is a wonderful and beautiful thing, love does not necessarily have to be cool. By itself, love may lack the qualities of coolness. For example, in Jules and Jim, Jules is deeply in love with Catherine. However, he is not cool because he lacks any intelligence in dealing with Catherine. Although his love is deep, he does not have the sense to leave Catherine despite her constant affairs with other men. Because of this, he is not a very cool person.
An example of love that comes with coolness is the love between Amber and Wilson on the show House. Through a series of coincidences, the couple slowly finds out that they are deeply in love. However, their love is not enough to make them cool. What makes them cool is their just resolve to maintain their love despite Dr. House's measures to break them apart. Throughout their relationship, they are able to resist House, and over the course of a few weeks, force him into a position where he is all right with their relationship. Additionally, when Amber is hurt in a bus crash and subsequently succumbs to amantadine poisoning, Wilson does everything he can to save her as she fights for her life. Unfortunately, there is nothing that Wilson or the other doctors can do to save Amber, and as a result, Wilson must turn off her life support.
Although the couple of Wilson and Amber are cool, they are not cool because of their love. It is their resolve and dedication to each other that makes them cool. If Amber and Wilson had been friends, their coolness would have remained. Without the deep romantic connection, the pair would have retained their coolness because their strength in handling their conflicts with House and her fight with death would have remained. Because of the way that people retain their coolness if love is removed, I would argue that love is in no way correlated to coolness. I do not mean to argue against love; it is a wonderful thing. However, when love is taken out of a situation, the actions that people take can still be cool. Just as the situation with Wilson and Amber retains its coolness without love being applied, any situation can have love removed and, as long as similar situations persist, coolness will remain.