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Taxi Driver Was Always About Race
A new film by Arthur Jafa restores the Scorsese classic to its original intention.
The lore surrounding the 1976 movie held that Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader changed the race of the pimp — Sport, played by Harvey Keitel — from Black to white from political considerations. It clearly signals that Bickle views Black people as part of the scum that needs to be washed away, along with the “animals” and “fairies” and “buggers” and “dopers.” Taxi Driver is a cultural landmark marking an onset of American carnage, but the racial confusion at the end makes it seem as if it is afraid of itself. The critic Alex Greenberger has dismissed***** as “nauseating” and “not unlike the horrifying footage of snuffed-out Black life that has become an unfortunate staple of our current moment,” a “nihilistic loop” from which viewers will want to escape.
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