Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

When rap group Public Enemy took aim at stereotypical, servile Black roles in 1990’s “Burn Hollywood Burn,” one of their main targets was Driving Miss Daisy, the 1989 Best Picture winner starring Jessica Tandy as a wealthy white woman and Morgan Freeman as her chauffeur, Hoke. When he endures her surliness, they become best friends and she teaches him to read.

Alfred Uhry, who wrote the stage and screen versions of Driving Miss Daisy, based it on his own grandmother and her driver. But however well-intentioned the movie is, few Hollywood producers in this era are excited about yet another film about Black servants and the white people who help them. (Yes, Miss Daisy learns from Hoke, too, and Morgan Freeman brings dignity to the role, but modern-day social media that doesn’t have time for that kind of nuance.)