Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates

Was checking out movie trailers the other day, and came upon one that looks pretty good. It's called, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. There are a few observations of note.

First off, does anybody really get married anymore? Half of adults are unmarried, and more than one in five have never been married. Couldn't they have made it a gay wedding, at least?

The movie does look hilarious. But sort of hidden in the trailer is the sister's fiance. He doesn't have any lines in the trailer. Notice anything that stands out about him?

I know, who wears a v-neck argyle sweater anymore, right?

The fiance is played by Sam Richardson, and he is fairly dark-skinned. Will his character play to type? And just what is his type?

Judging from his manner of dress, his character stereotype is black nerdy guy. You know, like Theo, the computer hacker that wore glasses in the movie Die Hard. Our cultural influencers need to make the black folks non-threatening and/or smarter than everyone else.

An alternate trailer includes a friend of the sister asking, "you take all that?" Stereotypes that reinforce positive aspects of black people are deemed non-problematic. Stereotypes which reinforce negative attributes are studiously avoided. There won't be so much as a microagression ("no, where are you really from?" or "you really listen to Taylor Swift?").

One can't help but notice that the media is obsessed with race mixing, but they invariably show a black man and a white woman. Doesn't that reinforce negative cliches about black men who always choose white women when they achieve a desired status? It's probably not as messy as pairing a black actress with a white actor. Then you get into the black collective memory of the slave owner taking the flesh of his female slave.

So, why cast a black actor in the first place? I doubt it's to bring black audiences out to see the movie. No, casting Richardson is sending a message, that they are going to shove diversity down our gullet. Well that, and the likelihood this movie's target audience is wiggers.