human body muscles

Dutch writer controversial book and film Only decent people receives death threats

Cast of "Only decent people" with Dutch author Robert Vuijsje right on the photo

The controversy surrounding the film adaptation of the controversial bestseller by Dutch writer Robert Vuijsje, entitled "Alleen Maar Nette Mensen" (�Only Decent People�) has lead to death threats to the writer.

Vuijsje received death treats from listeners of a Black [Surinamese] radio station last Sunday. According to the listeners the book and the film are giving a wrong and damaging image of the Black Amsterdam suburb the Bijlmer [Amsterdam Southeast] and its inhabitants. Vuijsje would be interviewed tonight at the local black radio station Radio Mart in Amsterdam, but the interview in Amsterdam has been cancelled.

Last night the local radio Station in Amsterdam Southeast already received many angry phone calls after the interview was announced. After the broadcast the situation escalated completely. �Some of the responses were very aggressive. I am used to hot tempered people, but this was serious,"  says Black radio host Guilly Koster on the Amsterdam TV station AT5. 

But the host still wants to go ahead with the interview, but in a different studio at another location. �It�s a worthless film if you�re Black,� says host Koster, � but it doesn�t mean you don�t have the right to make such a film.�

Author Robert Vuijsje responded that, �this is not the way it should go in the Netherlands�.

The film is about a well-bred middleclass Jewish man, who discovers he has a craving for Black urban girls from the suburbs. The film is now playing in theaters.

Actress Immanuelle Grives

Immanuelle Grives, the actress who plays the stereotypical Black woman,  says in an interview on 4 October in �De Volkkrant�: � I can imagine that Black women in the Bijlmer first think: why do we see those cheap Black woman, gangbangs and more of these images? But I would find it foolish if people who watched the film would think: oh, so all Surinamese Black women are like that.  If you look at Oh  Cherso [a Dutch tv series about anti-social people], I presume you would also understand that not all Dutch people are like that.�

Grives: �I was so stupid enough to read some of the comments beforehand, but I notice that these comments really hurt me.  I mean: I am Black woman myself. I too want more Black women on TV and in films. But I do think: Robert Vuijsje wrote this story: and if you, as a Black person, also want to write something about your culture, or want to make film of it, you just have do it, yourself. �

I dont think these death threats should be taken seriously, but I do think there would be some form of  aggression  if he had showed up at the radio show in Amsterdam.

visit link download