FastReels | Viral Moments

When comedies are this insidious, you have to take them seriously. 🎬National Security (2003) Onscreen: Martin Lawrence Directed by: Dennis Dugan After being stopped by white copper Hank (Steve Zahn), Earl decides to get some payback and falsely accuses Hank of beating him Rodney King-style. Hank loses his badge, his (black) girlfriend, and his life. After a spell trying not to pick up the soap behind bars, he ends up working for National Security where he’s partnered with (yep, you guessed it), the completely unrepentant Earl. So, is it an ironic parody of American race relations between whites and African-Americans? Certainly not. Is it a thoroughly offensive attempt to disguise a reactionary view of African-Americans as manipulative, self-serving, serial complainers as “comedy”? Definitely. Give or take a few mouthfuls of fried chicken, Lawrence’s lazy, stupid, sexually voracious hero is a throwback to the African-American stereotypes of 30s Hollywood - where performers like Stepin Fetchit and Mantan Moreland ruled. This means that either the star is too dense to recognise racial stereotyping when he sees it. Or maybe he just has too many dollar signs kerchinging in his eyes to care. And if that weren’t enough, scriptwriters Jay Scherick and David Ronn (who penned the far superior “I-Spy”) even turn the tables on Lawrence. They make him not only the butt of the script’s racism, but a racist himself as he denounces interracial marriages and harps on about his hatred of poor old whitey. BBC | National Security, reviewed by Jamie Russell (March 2003)