Source: Adult Industry News
By: Rich Moreland
Color Blind is written and directed by B Skow and stars Kasey Warner, Adriana Chechik, Reena Sky, Layton Benton, Steven St. Croix, Isiah Maxwell, and Jovan Jordan. The film is a product of B Skow for Girlfriends Films, reviewed by Rich Moreland.
Meal time in the kitchen of a working class home opens Color Blind, a drama from the talented director B Skow. Mom (Reena Sky), Dad (Steven St. Croix) and family are watching the TV news, except for one. Noelle (Kasey Warner) is unsighted and the small television is on the counter behind her causing Dad to look past his daughter in an image that defines where this film is going.
It’s 1992 and the LA riots erupting from the Rodney King arrest dominate the news.
Dad is an angry Archie Bunker type whose racism is overbearing. Daughter Shauna (Adriana Chechik) sarcastically says she’ll iron his KKK shirt because he’d “make a great wizard” in a statement that carries a double meaning: The Klan’s Grand Wizard and the Wizard of Oz, who is nothing more than political hot air.
As stores are being ransacked, Dad goes through a litany of stereotypes, suggesting today’s large screen TV is the black man’s “forty acres and a mule,” a reference to the expectations of freedmen immediately after the Civil War. Incidentally, what they got instead was sharecropping and poverty.
This film pokes fun at stereotyping as only B Skow can do it. The family is dining on fried chicken, corn on the cob, and iced tea, a favorite menu of southern blacks. Dad reminds everyone that basketball and unprotected sex characterize the black community though, unbeknownst to them, he has an African-American stripper girlfriend (Layton Benton) on the side. He does her without a condom in the film’s fourth sex scene.
Talk about hypocrisy.
Later Shauna mentions that Dad caught her with her “pants down” masturbating with a dildo she calls “a big, black cock.” We see her sex with the toy in some detail, making this film the Adriana Chechik show.
In Color Blind, Skow believes being politically incorrect teaches all of us an important lesson. And so it does, but more on that in a moment. First, a quick comment on the sex scenes, all are solid and three are interracial (the exception is Reena Sky/Steven St. Croix) which carries a stereotype of its own, by the way.
Two stand out. The Kasey Warner/Isiah Maxwell action isn’t the usual porn fare. Tender and warm, it’s the sexual awakening of an unsighted girl for whom color is meaningless. On the other hand, for gonzo fans Skow includes an extended anal scene featuring the raunchy Adriana Chechik and Jovan Jordan.
What makes Color Blind a must-see film is its social statement. The groundwork is laid early when the Bible-selling brothers, Mathew and Tyson (Thomas and Jordan) show up at Dad’s door. They “are reaching out” to their neighbors, “extending the hand of friendship,” they say.
Skow throws in his message with a few words. Mathew remarks that “love is blind, color is only color” setting the viewer up for the rest of the film.
Of course, Dad will have none of this and slams the door on them. But the girls are persuaded. The brothers have much to offer which is the remaining journey of the film.
The final ten minutes is the movie’s tour de force, but the resolution is shocking and thought-provoking. Kudos are extended to Steven St. Croix who holds the narrative together with superb acting. He captures the Archie Bunker persona perfectly. Also, Kasey Warner handled her difficult role well, perhaps learning a thing or two from Maddy O’Reilly who plays a blind daughter in another Skow production, Daddy’s Girls.
B Skow takes chances with Color Blind. In fact, he’s courageous beyond what I’ve ever seen in an adult director because his work moves past any political/social statement we usually see in porn. Understanding the back story to “get” what he is doing can be challenging, but in the end rewarding.
In the case of Color Blind, Rodney King said in retrospect, “Can’t we all just get along?” That is the question Skow presents the viewer in this dynamic film and for those in our society who can’t, the consequences can be dire.
Rating: Power on.
