Midnight In Paris and Stuff White People Like

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Midnight in Paris. I believe the untitled name of this project was Night at the Museum of White People.

The movie posed the essential white people first world problem: “I’m jaded from my current work so how can I escape my reality.” It starts with a group of privileged white Americans taking a vacation in Paris, and enamored by the life and inspiration that the city holds, one of the white tourists, Gil Pender, decides to make it his home. You’d never see that happen in the case of a brown immigrant without la migra playing a central role in the storyline. But I digress.

“Night at the Museum of White People” is a reference to all the writers and artists that the struggling, not-so-talented lead protagonist meets through time travel after the clock strikes midnight. From Pablo Piccaso to Ernest Hemingway to Toulouse Lautrec, Gil Pender wines and dines with these (white) historic figures. As is characteristic of whiteness, Gil Pender quickly inserts himself into the history books as the love interest of Adriana, who has been the mistress of Modigliani and Braque and now slept with Picasso.

Seriously Gil, I’m not even asking why you couldn’t travel back to the ages of slavery and indentured servitude. Could you not run into Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera during your adventures? They are also displayed in museums. But maybe Woody Allen is making fun of where Pender subconsciously sees himself in terms of history and the kind of people he feels most comfortable with: rich, white privileged people.

It’s not all that bad. Midnight in Paris deals with how nostalgia hinders growth and how our true glory days are really right now. It’s a good message.

The other message I gathered from the movie was not to settle for someone who doesn’t find taking walks in the rain romantic.

I’ll give it a C+. Mom gave it a snooze.