Trendspotting

Trendspotting: Brownface, bags, polibiopics.

Thursday, June 5, 2008 | 4:51 PM

I remain on the lookout for an overview trend as convenient and analysis-friendly as last year's Summer of Threequels, but so far, not so much. Will "the season of overlong run-times" count? How about "the summer of our discontent"?

Trend: Brownface

"Outside of color-blind Shakespeare adaptations, cross-race casting has been one of Hollywood's obvious taboos for decades now -- a no-no so basic it didn't even merit discussion. No more: Enough Hollywood stars are enthusiastically applying bronzer in 2008, either for a quick gag or for a serious leading role, that we're forced to hesitatingly declare this movie season the Summer of Brownface." —New York's Vulture blog

As evidenced by: Adam Sandler going Israeli and Rob Schneider Arab in "You Don't Mess With the Zohan"; Robert Downey Jr. donning blackface in "Tropic Thunder"; Fred Armisen as Barack Obama on "Saturday Night Live"

Possible significance: "In the age of Barack Obama, the idealistic interpretation is that it's simply not a big deal, and what we're witnessing is Hollywood's unusually astute reaction to the onset of the post-racial society... A more cynical explanation is the delayed box-office aftershocks from Borat: If Americans were ready to laugh at a Hebrew-speaking British Jew pretending to be a Russian-speaking Kazakh oaf, then why not fake Arabs and Israelis?"