No Racial Violence in Gooding Film

LOS ANGELES (AP) â€” Cuba Gooding Jr. says that while most current movies resort to violence when dealing with racism, his new film bucks the trend. <br><br>``This is one of the few scripts I've read

Monday, November 13th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

LOS ANGELES (AP) â€” Cuba Gooding Jr. says that while most current movies resort to violence when dealing with racism, his new film bucks the trend.

``This is one of the few scripts I've read in which a black man faced racial aggression and opposition, and rose above it ... And didn't have to kill somebody to do it,'' says Gooding, whose movie ``Men of Honor'' opened this past week.

Gooding, who won an Oscar in 1997 for his work on ``Jerry Maguire,'' plays a diver who was the first black man to become a master chief, the Navy's highest enlisted rank.

He said he's proud that the film doesn't soft-pedal the racial animosity that existed in the Navy during the late 1950s or sensationalize his character.

``I didn't want to play (him) in this movie as an angry man,'' Gooding told the Los Angeles Times.