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2 Fast 2 Racist?
Out in Hollywood last night, a judge ruled that a race-discrimination suit against Universal Pictures could go ahead, despite the studio’s attempts to have it dismissed. The suit, filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on behalf of Frank Davis, alleges that Davis “a first assistant director on the studio’s hit 2 Fast 2 Furious” was fired because he was black. Davis, who had been directing for 12 years before he was fired, claimed that he was fired without cause, and over the objections of the film’s director, John Singleton “the only black director ever to be nominated for an Academy Award for directing.”
In the judge’s ruling, he said that “Singleton adamantly asserts that Davis was performing satisfactorily and that Singleton would have terminated Davis had he not performed,” which was enough evidence to create a genuine issue for trial concerning the true motive for Davis’ firing. For its part, the studio is claiming that “Davis was replaced on the film solely for inadequate performance and not for any other reason.”
Not to pick bones here, but really “given Davis’ history as an assistant director on films like Se7evn, Terminator 2, Next Friday and Road Trip” how much more difficult could this gig have been? We’re talking about 2 Fast 2 Furious here. It’s not that Herculean a task to point the camera at Paul Walker’s abs and ask him to jump in a car and drive real fast, is it? It’s not like there were a lot of complexities here; action-diva Vin Diesel didn’t even bother with the sequel. Seriously, if anyone should’ve been fired, it should’ve been screenwriter Michael Brandt, for whom 2 Fast 2 Furious was the apex of his writing career - I mean, what does that say about incompetence?!
