This is one of the things that MIGHT have just been done with no thought but thanks to current day we see it through an ideological lens.
Give you two examples: John Stewart as Green Lantern and Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury. If they were done NOW not previously, regardless of quality they'd be a lot of people saying that they were blackwashing a character.
This could've been resolved with having a young White or Latino kid be the one getting the 'innocent' line but even back then there was a known predilection for young Black men to have 'wrong time, wrong place' syndrome so this scene might've been made under that than agenda pushing.
I know since I started "noticing" sometimes it's difficult to tell when a cigar is just a cigar. Even watching older tv with my mom, I'll catch what I believe is subversive material in The Andy Griffith Show. I dunno if it's there or if I'm putting in there.
This is one of the things that MIGHT have just been done with no thought but thanks to current day we see it through an ideological lens.
Give you two examples: John Stewart as Green Lantern and Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury. If they were done NOW not previously, regardless of quality they'd be a lot of people saying that they were blackwashing a character.
This could've been resolved with having a young White or Latino kid be the one getting the 'innocent' line but even back then there was a known predilection for young Black men to have 'wrong time, wrong place' syndrome so this scene might've been made under that than agenda pushing.
I know since I started "noticing" sometimes it's difficult to tell when a cigar is just a cigar. Even watching older tv with my mom, I'll catch what I believe is subversive material in The Andy Griffith Show. I dunno if it's there or if I'm putting in there.
Your first instinct is the correct instinct.
There really is no such thing as coincidence when it comes to institutions that require deliberate structure and format for deployment.