To be fair to writer/director Etan Coen, I did enter “Get Hard” with knives at the ready to draw. I am currently enrolled in a sociology course on race and ethnic relations, and a film that appeared chock full of vast generalizations seemed like a great potential paper topic for unit focusing on explanations for enduring racial inequality. Because of that, I perversely did not leave the movie disappointed.
“Get Hard” is not actively, avowedly racist, although Coen does perpetuate some troubling stereotypes. He can try to hide the film under the protection of satire and exaggeration, yet those labels hardly excuses the underpinnings and assumptions that come with wading into such territory.
Not to mention, he also tries to turn topics of concern into an invitation for laughter. Making an educated guess that a black man has been to jail, as Will Ferrell’s James does, based on their disproportionate rates of incarceration is a sad truth. It ought to inspire genuine reflection, not a quick giggle.
But the only cause for concern in “Get Hard” is gay panic. Everyone in the film seems to be in agreement that any sort of oral or anal sex is a punishment infinitely worse than systemic racism (never mind that any heterosexual person could engage in either act). The homophobia that runs rampant through the movie made me wonder if the script was secretly written by Dr. Ben Carson, the Republican presidential hopeful who uses prison as an example for why homosexuality is a choice.
Marshall and the Movies 
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