--- title: The Perfect Guy: Race in Hollywood description: The thriller is part of a recent "boom" of "race-themed" films, but its creative team wants you to focus on the plot canonical: https://time.com/4047630/the-perfect-guy-hollywood-race/ author: Daniel D'Addario article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-09-24T19:31:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T11:12:43.397Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: The Perfect Guy: Race in Hollywood og:description: The thriller is part of a recent "boom" of "race-themed" films, but its creative team wants you to focus on the plot og:url: https://time.com/4047630/the-perfect-guy-hollywood-race/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0d60ce1cf86aaa3d/698865553c16397df2459e90/the-perfect-guy.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: The Perfect Guy Michael Ealy; Sanaa Lathan og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Perfect Guy: Race in Hollywood twitter:description: The thriller is part of a recent "boom" of "race-themed" films, but its creative team wants you to focus on the plot twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0d60ce1cf86aaa3d/698865553c16397df2459e90/the-perfect-guy.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # _The Perfect Guy_'s Director and Producer Explain Why Hollywood's Racial Categorizing Goes Too Far  by [Daniel D'Addario](https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Sep 24, 2015 7:31 PM UTC  Carter (Michael Ealy) takes Leah (Sanaa Lathan) on a date to a reggae club in Screen Gems' THE PERFECT GUY. Carter (Michael Ealy) takes Leah (Sanaa Lathan) on a date to a reggae club in Screen Gems' THE PERFECT GUY.Sony Pictures  by [Daniel D'Addario](https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Sep 24, 2015 7:31 PM UTC At the end of summer, something unusual happened: The box office was ruled, for five weeks, by movies about the lives of black people. For three weekends, the NWA biopic _Straight Outta Compton_ reigned at number-one, followed over the Labor Day weekend by the Christian-themed movie _War Room_ and then by the thriller _The Perfect Guy_, a thriller made on a modest budget starring Sanaa Lathan, Morris Chestnut and Michael Ealy. But in an era in which any successful movie starring black people, from _Selma_ to _The Best Man Holiday_, is categorized as a “race-themed” film, the director and producer of _The Perfect Guy_ have reacted against the characterization of their movie as specifically for black audiences. After all, its plot, about a woman stalked by her suitor and forced into desperate measures, shares certain elements with _Fatal Attraction_, a movie starring white actors that wasn’t, _per se_, about the white experience. “People have been thinking about these films and calling them ‘urban’ for a long time,” director David M. Rosenthal tells TIME. “It’s a psychological erotic thriller, and it works on that level. Race isn’t an issue.” The film’s three leads are black, though, and the movie gets covered in a different manner for that fact, something that Rosenthal acknowledges. “The fact that we’ve had this run all at once is bringing it to people’s attention, in a way—maybe to deactivate race for the audience.” Rosenthal is a white director, and claims that the casting of three black actors in a race-neutral script didn’t change his process: “I honestly didn’t think about it,” he says. “I thought I would have to have extra sensitivity to things as I started in the process. It became clear to me that my interaction with the actors isn’t changed at all, and the storytelling we’re doing is absolutely the same for me.” His sentiments were echoed by producer Tommy Oliver (who is, unlike Rosenthal, black): “For me, it’s not a black movie. There are black leads, but it’s not a black movie. There are bad storytellers and good storytellers: Bad white storytellers and good white storytellers, bad black storytellers and good black storytellers.” In an era when black storytellers of all stripes, from filmmakers to actors, have been rightfully demanding their share of space more than ever, the risk of getting cordoned-off as a special-interest group making films for a select audience is real. And that may be why, asked what he made of coverage depicting _The Perfect Guy_ as part of a unique boom around films about the black experience, Oliver says his feelings are “neutral-leaning-negative. It is a bit bothersome. But people need to reduce things to soundbites, and they need to encapsulate it in an easily digestible manner. Three black leads? Of course it’s a black movie! Why not!” “It’s also partly our fault in terms of the way films are marketed,” Oliver continues. “It’s a complicated situation. Do I wish it could just be a movie with black leads? Absolutely!” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4047630/the-perfect-guy-hollywood-race/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4047630/the-perfect-guy-hollywood-race/"},"headline":"The Perfect Guy's Director and Producer Explain Why Hollywood's Racial Categorizing Goes Too Far","datePublished":"2015-09-24T19:31:24.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T11:12:43.397Z","description":"The thriller is part of a recent \"boom\" of \"race-themed\" films, but its creative team wants you to focus on the plot","url":"https://time.com/4047630/the-perfect-guy-hollywood-race/","keywords":["movies"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0d60ce1cf86aaa3d/698865553c16397df2459e90/the-perfect-guy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel D'Addario","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0d60ce1cf86aaa3d/698865553c16397df2459e90/the-perfect-guy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The Perfect Guy Michael Ealy; Sanaa Lathan","caption":"The Perfect Guy- Michael Ealy; Sanaa Lathan","creditText":"Sony Pictures","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4047630/the-perfect-guy-hollywood-race/","name":"The Perfect Guy's Director and Producer Explain Why Hollywood's Racial Categorizing Goes Too Far"}}]}] ```