I have seen the future and it is 8 million Belle Bottom cosplayers · 2:58am Jul 6th, 2022
Including fat white guys who risk being mistaken for late-stage Elvis
The movie is set in the 70's, so why isn't anyone talking about
Because that's who Belle Bottom is obviously based on.
I was thirteen when Cleopatra Jones came out. I was too young to go see it but damn, you could never forget the newspaper ads. Even half a century later they leapt to mind as soon as Belle Bottom appeared on-screen.
Plus she's the blackest black character to appear in an animated movie since Fritz the Cat (and the other mostly-awful "underground" cartoons of the 70's). But unlike the black characters in those movies she's not a stereotype, and she's not there to épater les bourgeois. She's there to be herself. And she just loves being it.
Am I threatened by this? Am I supposed to be threatened? A certain school of criticism holds that a black character in a movie can't be any good if they're nonthreatening. I dunno. Pirates may be threatening. But damn, they're cool.
And if you go around feeling threatened by what's cool, you miss a lot in life.
...I've heard of pantomime horses but I'm not sure whether I'd rather cosplay as Sweetie's or Sugar's bottom