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A2 Media Studies

Representations of Black Hollywood

Essay development:

Examples:

Gone With the Wind (1939) Hattie McDaniel first black Oscar Winner

portraying familiar Black Stereotype of mammy servant. Period film which

endorses racial stereotypes within its Civil War context. At awards ceremony

McDaniels clearly overawed by circumstances. Comment regarding earnings

7 to be a maid, $700 to play one in a movie. Hegemony evident? Was the

award evidence of real change in Hollywood OR evidence of Hollywoodreacting to changes in society and a growing black audience?

Birth of Nation (1915) technically impressive and from film history

significant movie also dealing with Civil War history BUT representations of

Black people is negative. KKK seen as heroes and even main black characters

played in black face by white actors. Emancipation of African Americans

still live issue and US nation divided.

Historical note: in Da Vincis Last Supper, the only dark skinned character is

Judas, historic prejudice and fear of dark skin is evident through history and

art.

Guess Whos Coming to Dinner (1967) and In the Heat of the Night (1967)

both films set and made during immediate civil rights aftermath. Both films

dealing with Black Middle class character subject to prejudice. Guess who

explores how a white liberal couple cope with the romance between their

daughter and a black doctor. While his father and he also have to contend

with their differing understandings of black identity you see yourself as a

coloured man, I see myself as a man. Pitched as a modern love story it

explores the live contemporary issue of interracial marriage. In the Heat

confront robustly the prejudice of the deep south of the states by throwing a

black detective in with a white Sherriff and allowing both to change. Thepositive moral attitudes of both film chime with the hope and liberalism of the

times.

Malcolm X (1992) directed by Spike Lee set during Malcolm Xs life between

1940s and 1960s when he was assassinated makes overt connection with its

contemporary audience through the opening sequence. Video footage of the

police beating of Rodney King is intercut with the burning of the stars and

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stripes while we listen to a speech of Malcolm X denouncing white rule and

itemising the abuse black people have experienced under white domination.

The incendiary opening sets the tone for the film itself which is a tragic tale.

Recall how the video footage sparked race riots in LA mirroring those of the

1960s in the Watts area contemporary with the setting of the film. Malcolms

character goes from crook to fanatic from someone who sleeps with whitewomen as revenge to one who extols purity and ultimately peace but who

dies like so many black figures, brutally and unfairly. Lee often treads this

path and takes his morally opinionated male heroes to a place where they

will ultimately fall and die, often by black hands. Is this the message which

he wants us to understand? It is after all the message which the news media

is still giving us. Important details to explore Black men as a physical threat,

violent, sexually dangerous, the purging of slave history by renaming as

Malcolm X, attitude to Malcolm at school, his fathers death. Institutional

support for film from black Hollywood stars who raised finance to ensure film

was released at full length NOT cut as studio wanted it.

Bamboozled (2000) Spike Lee satire exploring TV industry. Highly

contentious and once again incendiary. Politically incorrect and playing on

this to expose racial issues within entertainment industry. Narrative once

again leads to violent death for the black men is this a Lee attitude or does

this bear out a wider prejudice in Hollywood. Black Face and the Minstrel

show is the crude format which Wayans character is touting as a vehicle for

virulent satire on black representations the uncomfortable tension between

the deeply offensive reps and the responses of the characters provide the

film with bite. All black stereotypes are exposed and exploited in the show

and also outside it the white boss as a wigger of White Nigger who feels heis more black than his black producer. The tap dancing, shoe shining

homeless characters who become stars but who cannot be allowed to

succeed. One resigning through conscience the other shot by Rap Ganstas

live on TV while tap dancing. Lees savage satire elicits gasps from the

audience and shows us the futility of protest at the same time as stating that

prejudice still exists. Marxist in tone this film subversive message is that

change is impossible.

Crash (2004) on the other hand explores prejudice in an even handed way

Haggis is concerned with how stereotypes exist and how his characters

cannot escape them while making us acknowledge the trap we are in. The

films post 9/11 setting affords it the chance to look beyond white/black

stereotypes to deal with Mexican, Chinese and many others. The scenes

involving the light skinned TV director, Cameron, the two car jacking black

youths and the black detective are all focussed on differing representations

of black and how white society struggles with its prejudices. The abuse of

Cameron by the cops, his wifes sexual assault and his own flaccid fearful

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response reveal the fear of middle class black America in the face of the law,

a police described as a racist, fucking institution like the LAPD by a black

police commander. The subsequent overruling of Cameron when on the TV

set again reinforces his lack of power, his uncle Tom attitude to his white

boss when challenged on the blackness of an actors performance, as if this

was a recognisable thing. The discussion which Ludacris and friend haveabout service in a cafe based on colour and how they live up to the

stereotype they are objecting to when they car jack a white middle class

couple with guns. And of course the subsequent tragic death once again

somehow inevitable of a young black man, killed we discover in error by a

well meaning white cop, the least racist character in the film.

Compare with My Wife and Kids how are stereotypes played with in this sit

com?

Precious - TBA