Will Smith’s Hitch is a racist, homophobic, by the numbers, boring romantic comedy filled with blatant product placements.
The racism and homophobia in Hitch are subtle but still present and represent the core of the film as well providing for several of the film’s sight gags. The hook of the film is Hitch, a cool black guy, teaches men, normally dorky white guys, how to get attractive women.
Every single white guy who has more than two lines in the film is a dork, loser or somehow incapable of being cool, even for a moment. Without Will Smith’s help they are pathetic creatures that will never find love. Every single white character is flawed and incapable of finding happiness, unless of course they’re eye-candy brought in for convenient happy endings.
Kevin James plays an over-weight accountant in love with a beautiful heiress, who really isn’t so much a drawn out character as she is an object. He is of course a dork. The attractive best friend of Will Smith’s love interest is a white woman who can’t find love. At one point a one-line white woman stands up and says, “I haven’t been laid in over a year.”
Bottom line on the racial politics of this film: white people are losers who don’t know what is going on and are helpless without cool black people to tell them what to do.
Homosexuals are treated so stereotypically in this film. Even though Hitch is based in New York all the gays they run into are flaming queens. As someone who is not a flaming queen I am really sick of this.
Lastly the product placements in this film are so blatant they’re laughable: Google, Ellis Island, SeaDoo, Mini-Cooper several New York restaurants and when the film had already taken money from allergy medicine Benadryl they named a character Allegra, after the allergy medicine.
Hitch is a predictable romantic comedy. It has some good dialogue in parts and if you like this type of tripe you will probably like this movie.
Article comments
1 - Tom
Kevin Smith plays an over-weight accountant
(psst - it's Kevin James, dude.)
When I see a film has Will Smith in a starring role I find myself highly suspicious. Aside from a few examples of quality, this guy seems to appear in a run-of-the-mill pile o' turd every year now. He seems to be a good actor when he takes on a good role such as he did in Ali, but he doesn't seem to want to put much effort into trying to be anything more than a mere entertainer. A shame. We've got more than enough of those, all of whom will likely wind up forgotten.
2 - Temple Stark
I thought a big part of the film was how Will Smith ends up looking like a dork himself most of the time?
An actor as entertainer, Tom? That's just plain silly. He should be a role model and a thespian, too. :-) It'd be nice but you must be suspicious a lot when it comes to films.
Maybe you mean it in the sense that I do in regard to Adam Sandler. If he's in it. Avoid it.
3 - RJ
"Bottom line on the racial politics of this film: white people are losers who don’t know what is going on and are helpless without cool black people to tell them what to do."
Hey! Sounds like MTV!
4 - RJ
"Maybe you mean it in the sense that I do in regard to Adam Sandler. If he's in it. Avoid it."
Then you missed the awesome Punch-Drunk Love?
Sorry for you...
5 - Mike Kole
Matt- I'd like to think that I was awake during the film, but I missed the product angle. Yeah, they were on Sea-Doo jet skis, but I couldn't name any other company that makes them if I had to. Ellis Island is a historical landmark. You couldn't have invoked the disgraced ancestry scene very well without the trip there. It was shot on location, after all. What you might call product placement, to others gave location authenticity.
And I'm with bhw, that Will Smith's character looked like a dork, and Kevin Smith was confident in the end
My take was that the formulaic storyline was the most assailable component.
bhw- Ben Stiller is to me what Adam Sandler is to you, although if Sandler makes another one like Spanglish, he could replace Stiller in that way.
No, he'd have to make Spanglish 2 and Spanglish 3 in order to replace Stiller!
6 - Temple Stark
hmmm I'm bhw?
I'm frozen between complimented and complemented. :-)
7 - Mike Kole
D'oh! Why'd I type 'bhw'? My due respect, Female Shark.
8 - Temple Stark
I really come across as a chick eh? Dang, you must know some angry, scary woman.
Story of your life? :-) :-)
Temple - once a guy always a guy.
9 - Eric Olsen
I thought he ws referring to bhw as "Female Shark" - I am very confused now. Considering you linked to your picture here recently, I didn't realize there was any gender confusion
10 - Temple Stark
You mean he's not apologizing to me ?!?!?!?!?!? I'm the oh so aggrevied party here LOL.
:-)
11 - Truth in Acting
A disturbing trend in American culture has been to accept that it is ok to be "bullied" by the largest minority in America. I don't find hitch funny at all. Although American Blacks had to endure decades of highly discriminatory practices in Hollywood by the predominantly Jewish American owned studios, it is not appopriate to take it out on the majority of America. I am Asian American but I think that movies like Hitch are the most unamerican thing going.
Will Smith is a subpar musician and an even worse actor. I don't think Black America should use him as an esteem boosting mechanism. I think Colin Powell is a better example.
Wake up people. Smith is cutrate at best.
12 - bIRD
Will Smith SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS and, uh, SUCKS!!
13 - Sherry
I respectfully disagree. If you saw the ending of this movie, you will see that Kevin James ends up teaching Will Smith a lesson or two by just being himself, which goes to show your quote, "Every single white character is flawed and incapable of finding happiness, unless of course they're eye-candy brought in for convenient happy endings. " is not true. =D
14 - j boss
not cool! this movie is the epitome of a great film. Also i would like to add, your whole "racist" rant is pretty much incorrect. First off, ya he is a cool black guy that just happens to be well communicative with the opposite sex, however not every white person in this movie is dorky(Van that buisness guy), and there is also a black guy who asked for Hitch's help as shown at the beginning. Second thing is, the girls that Hitch trys to fall in love with is not a "white woman who can't find love," because she just happens to be a latin-italian woman. Also i would like to point out that there was nothing bad pointing at gays in the movie, yes there was a gay guy that asked hitch for help and he refused, because he knows the womans mind, not a guys. so how does that make a homophobe? all in all, next time before you try to stir up some kind of deeper conspiracy-plot within a superb movie just to say something you have absolutely no clue about... think first.