His film roles not being "black" is kind of unfair though. He's in a different tax bracket as a actor. I think you can say the same thing about the big role Will, Denzel, etc. take. Will's "Oscar pushes" are more black roles but when he's doing big budget films like the Rock does? They are never unapologetically black. In part because those roles could've been given to anyone of any race .
Rock's samoan side seems to be important to him. But at the end of the day he's biracial and his pops was black. HE can't run way from his black side.....
I do get what you're saying because as a wrestler he most def. was more samoan than black but shit I kind of can't blame him because if you black you're doomed in WWE lol.
Yeah, that's where I got lost. That's more of a testament to the racism in Hollywood.
If they want to have a black-acting character in a movie, they're gonna get someone who is identifiably black to emphasize that this character is a black person. They don't put the Rock in these roles because they have plenty of black/black actors they could use, and also because of discussions like these where people act like the Rock ain't black or "black enough."
When you're that big of an actor, they just put you in roles or make roles for you where you're basically just yourself, but with a different backstory. Or they might put him in a Samoan role if they wanna tap into that market since there aren't a lot of big Samoan actors.
But I think it only seems like he's more into his Samoan side because Samoans actually have a culture that is somewhat exclusive to Samoans. We as African-Americans don't have that because we sell our culture to the white man or it's stolen from us.
For instance, when I see a brown person with a tribal tattoo, I would think there was a good chance that person is Samoan. What is the equivalent of that for black people in America?
Our culture as African-Americans is basically Hip-hop, Fashion, Slavery and Civil Rights.
Most roles the Rock is in he is usually SUPER racially ambiguous and his love interests are mostly white. Samoan and black mix that nose should be wide as fcuk! Nose job and now looks more European. Hair cut low or bald so you don't see the curls or kinks. Like I said; Be whoever he wants to be, my issue is when it is time for Black anything don't cart this dude out that he is black. When in reality he doesn't showcase ANYTHING black about him.
Sure super cute scene in a movie, but always showcases his Samoan ancestry:
Also that daughter STRAIGHT Samoan, so Black what?!?!
But that is only one time no way they'd double dip an not give love to his African ancestry in the same movie franchise:
NOPE!
So that was an action franchise. Family films are much more inclusive:
FCUK YO FEELINGS!!!
You know, I seem to remember the Rock being in a Tyler Perry movie those are usually a full black cast with a white villain so Rock MUST be black in that right?
This scene was SO insignificant that there isn't even a video clip of it and only a snippet of the scene on Wikipedia:
One year later, as Patricia exits a university building she is approached by a colleague. She tells Patricia that she knows someone who wants to meet her, a philanthropist, but Patricia refuses. The professor goes on to tell her that she can at least say hi because the university needs funds. The man (
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) tells her that her books have helped in his grieving process (divorce) and invites her to have coffee. The movie ends with Patricia smiling at him.
DERAILED!!!
And white folks will culture vulture ANYTHING that they deem "cool":
And don't get me started on how Disney has done a straight Polynesian movie (Moana), Latinx movie (Encanto) and all we got was a bastardized Brothers Grimm story (Princess and the Frog) and Soul none of which has anything to do with Black or African and the characters could be replaced with ANY ethnicity!
Our culture is so RICH and DEEP, but so much of it gets sold off and then relabeled as white we tend to forget it was ours in the first place! Rock isn't a white genre of music! WE made it our bytch, made it so that NOBODY else could emulate it and when a bunch of butter-toothed Brits came along and showed a little love we gave it away. Notice anything similar with Rap? Being from Detroit MI I get to see the same thing happening first hand: Eminem, Proof, Jay Dee...enjoy it while we got it, cause white folks have already crowned Eminem as the King of Hip Hop.