Here's the thing -- if you watch the movie having never interacted with these sorts of people, you think it's a joke, campy. But the shallow childishness and materialism is right on target. So is the sense of entitlement simply for being considered attractive. Now, take that junior high school maturity and throw a lot of money at it in the big city, and you get Mahogany. The movie at least has the good sense to show the struggle for minorities is different than for Whites.
All that said, I never thought bony, bug-eyed Diana Ross was all that attractive, but she's a good enough actress to pull it off. Billy Dee Williams is his usual smooth self. The 70s was a different era, where Black actors in particular started to finally get more roles than domestics, prostitutes, the occasional teacher or scientist, and ambassadors from some made-up African country. It's sad that by the 80s and 90s, roles like these had dried up, relegated to the modern versions of fast-talking clowns as evinced by Eddie Murphy and Will Smith.
Now, is the movie over-the-top? At times, sure. But it's no more silly than Peyton Place or the VIPs, and it's a lot less campy than Valley of the Dolls. At times, it captures the youthful spirit of adventure and ambition, and the sequence when Tracy arrives in Rome is a cliched montage that nonetheless is able to show us new images of old architecture. Yes, the story unfolds as a soap opera, but again, if you know people like this, that's how they choose to live their life. Most get used up and burnt out quick, but that rarely teaches them anything useful. They're caught up in a kind of fantasy that sometimes pays off.
All that said, I never thought bony, bug-eyed Diana Ross was all that attractive, but she's a good enough actress to pull it off. Billy Dee Williams is his usual smooth self. The 70s was a different era, where Black actors in particular started to finally get more roles than domestics, prostitutes, the occasional teacher or scientist, and ambassadors from some made-up African country. It's sad that by the 80s and 90s, roles like these had dried up, relegated to the modern versions of fast-talking clowns as evinced by Eddie Murphy and Will Smith.
Now, is the movie over-the-top? At times, sure. But it's no more silly than Peyton Place or the VIPs, and it's a lot less campy than Valley of the Dolls. At times, it captures the youthful spirit of adventure and ambition, and the sequence when Tracy arrives in Rome is a cliched montage that nonetheless is able to show us new images of old architecture. Yes, the story unfolds as a soap opera, but again, if you know people like this, that's how they choose to live their life. Most get used up and burnt out quick, but that rarely teaches them anything useful. They're caught up in a kind of fantasy that sometimes pays off.