African American film genre - Essay Example

Johana Nadler African American Film 28 Feb. 2006 An African American Film Genre Long before John Crow's laws, white Americans had already a pre-conceived view of black people as inferior, which helped them justify slavery. After all they were unable to learn English and spoke Pigeon English, another proof that blacks were not intelligent. From the 1620s, blacks were stereotyped and the emergence of minstrel shows in the 1840s only helped in branding even more this misconception, (Davis) and introducing black caricatures, portrayed by white actors with black-make-up, as the coons, the toms, and the mammies at first, and later on followed by the mulattoes and the bucks. The first movie ever where African Americans appear was screened in 1898, where it showed black soldiers in the Spanish-American war. But it was with the 1903 movie with a black character, Uncle Tom, directed by Edwin S. Porter, a white man, that we can pinpoint the beginning of the American film industry incorporating black characters. Tom was portrayed by a white actor with black make-up. In the movie, Tom is the typical skinny, middle-aged, desexed slave, totally loyal to his white master, a far cry from the original Tom portrayed in Harriet Beecher Stowe's book Uncle Tom's Cabin, which showed a gentle, kind, and forgiving man. This first portrayal of a black in film sealed even more this misconstrued idea of black inferiority and became a vehicle used to the advantage of whites not only for entertainment but also for economic reasons - advertisement for sellable products -. What no one foresaw then was the planting of the seed of the actual African American film industry with a slew of black actors who "elevated [these roles] and brought to [them] arty qualities if not pure art." (Bogle 23). That was the essence of black film history. When one tries to discuss and describe African American film industry, one cannot help but go back in time and start with the characterization that white people so strongly believed in, leading them to create caricatures of black people in the burgeoning entertainment industry. So, it is impossible not to describe the four categories of stereotypes that kept reoccurring throughout the twentieth century. These four characters were the foundation of the entertainment industry as seen by white producers, who soon came to realize that it was also a tool to instigate war or peace, tolerance and understanding versus discrimination and segregation. The four black figures were the Tom, the Mammies, the Coons, and the Bucks. The Tom, the ever subservient, good-natured, stoic, selfless and loyal to a fault, as seen in Jezebel (1938), Love Thy Neighbor (1940), where Tom was portrayed by Eddie Anderson, Edge of the City (1957), and The Defiant Ones (1958), where Sidney Poitier characters sacrifice themselves for their white friends. The Coons with very black faces, bulging eyeballs and thick red lips, which represented the black buffoon, himself subdivided into two groups, the Pickanny and the Uncle Ramus, "a cousin to Tom. (Bogle 8) Mantan Moreland made the coon character renown from the late 1930s to the early 1970s when "he still [made] cameo appearances"(Bogle 72). The Mammy, usually fat, big and cantankerous, but still sweet and good-tempered, made her first big appearance in 1914's Lysistrata, and was used as the recognizable face on pancake boxes and syrup, but was made famous by Hattie McDaniel in the 1930s (no one can forget her in Gone with the Wind). Of course, the tragic Mulatto caught between the white and the black world and unable to find her place in neither one of them as portrayed in the 1912 movie The Debt, and the tear-jerker movie Imitation of Life in 1934. Finally, the last of the categories, the Buck, whose introduction in the 1915 racist movie by D.W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation, brought a slew of controversies, was a brute, a liar, a cheat and a rapist. This blatantly anti-black movie that became a propaganda vehicle for the Ku Klux Klan, was also the coup de grace, which led the "first steps toward a specifically black cinema . Bill Foster, an African American whose work has been lost made The Railroad Porter,a black comedy [set in 1912] (Blacks In America). After decades of portraying black characters in supporting roles with no allusion to their social, familial and emotional profile, and decades of political changes, a new black movie industry was born. Hollywood was ready to delve deeper than the surface in exposing poverty, interracial relations, what it meant to be black in a white society and all the dilemmas that ensued. America had finally come to term with its black population and several films were made to portray the real life of Blacks, and the bridge that still existed between them, especially when viewed under the concept of interracial marriage. Portrayal of black females, in particular, were mere mirror image of their white counterparts: Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, Diahann Caroll, all three of them having in common that ounce of white blood which made look more like very tanned white women. But what else could you expect since white producers were still in control of production Black force, in the late 1960s was what black audience needed to see after all the political riots and demonstrations. Enough subserviency and out with black power! Now blacks were entering the movie arena, with producers, directors, and actors. However, there was still an area that was quasi-taboo and that was Black Love. Not until the 1970s was black and white audiences shown that black characters suffered, and felt the same angst of love and relationship as their white counterparts. The first famous black romantic movie, Lady sings the Blues (1972), finally set the record straight. But it took until the mid 70s to finally portray the black woman's character as "protector, nurturer, and communal mother surrogate." (Bogle 251) This was a big step in finally opening the gate to the overwhelming lack of exploration of the black woman's hopes and dreams, internal turmoil and social stress without leaving out the "sexual politics within the black community." (Bogle 252). At long last, the black film industry has come to reckon its black female population. The following two movies demonstrate the huge gap that existed between black female characters directed by a white and those directed by a black. Carmen Jones (1943), the first African American love story directed by Otto Preminger, and based on the opera "Carmen" by French composer Georges Bizet, on the lyrics by Prospre Merime, and adapted by Oscar Hammerstein, portrays the doom fate of Joe's (Harry Belafonte) and Carmen's (Dorothy Dandridge) love affair. Carmen is a woman who needs her freedom to exist and who obviously is scared of commitment. Is she a psychological remnant of the slave mentality Does commitment mean imprisonment The poor living condition has taught her to be self-reliable and to use whatever means it takes to survive. She has voluntarily closed her heart to feelings of love and joy for fear of getting hurt. As a free bird, at first she enjoys being encaged by Joe, whose love is overpowering and blinding. But even a golden cage is still a cage so eventually she suffocates and flies away. For her, life and love are a game where the winner takes all. The original Carmen, just like the movie version, is a melodrama dealing with two opposite poles: the middle class that finally planted its roots, leading to a sense of belonging, that is religious, patient, peaceful, respectful, honest, law abiding and even gullible. Joe and Cindy Lou represent this class. They are both simple, timid, and trusting. Joe loves his mother and wants to emulate his father, and chooses Cindy Lou because she "talks and walks like [his] mother. (Carmen Jones). On the other hand, we have Carmen who is poor and must rely on her guile to survive. She represents the down on their luck, hard working class that sometimes has to rely, not by choice but by necessity, on cunning to barely survive. When Carmen seduces Joe, and makes love to him, it is the set of values he was raised in that leads him to conclude that he and Carmen will happily live together till death do them part. He cannot understand Carmen's free spirit and where she comes from. Carmen is the symbol of how poverty molds a human being where the only way to survive is to take a detached stand toward life. But most important of all it paints the fatalistic outlook victims of society embrace when all attempts to surmount the vagaries of life itself amount to nil. With the appearance of Spike Lee on the movie arena, we now see the emergence of a new deeply rooted bourgeois and even affluent class. Today's black family is equal to its white counterpart. Its men are powerful, educated, hard working and ambitious. The same goes for the black women who are strong, opinionated, and ambitious. Today's black woman is no longer victimized either by love, by her husband, or boyfriend, or by life itself. She can make a choice. She is strong, independent, and self-reliant, yet still sexy and loving. Finally, black people are playing normal people in real life situation. Love and Basketball, produced by Spike Lee and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, is one of these films. Contrary to the title of this movie, it is not a sport movie but a love story where the sport plays second fiddle. The two main characters, Quincy and Monica, embark in a love-hate relationship where at first they are sport's rival but then fall in love. Monica depicts the modern black woman who is not limited by social expectations and right from the start decides her future: she will be the first NBA woman player. She is driven to succeed, ready to sacrifice everything for her dream. The sky is the limit! Quincy on the other hand wants to emulate his father, already a famous Clippers' giant. He grows up as any young man does and plays the field until the day his world collapses when he finds out his father's family betrayal, and ends up injuring his knee, which puts an end to his potential sport career. The beauty of this love story is that it is real. The characters are strong-willed and ready to fight the world to achieve their goals but still finding time to fall in love and understand the ramifications of having to make a choice between love and career and learn the greatest lesson of all, compromise. These two characters embody what today's African American society is all about: a part of the American culture. A proud extension of their forefathers, recognizing with pride their origins and celebrating the differences instead of hiding them. African American film industry has come a long way from its stereotyping style in the beginning of the twentieth century, then controlled by whites, and through decades of slow but persistent advances by the black entertainment industry to today's' real portrayal of Blacks in society. However, the black film media is not only important because it creates films representing black society, but also because it encompasses all facets of the African Diaspora, which survived by maintaining and retaining their traditions and identities. Though mainstreaming is evident, there has been a resurgence of African pride in its origins that is beautifully expressed in all art media. Retracing the black film industry allows not only a surprised discovery of the courage, determination and creative qualities of the black people, but also the incentive to continue their work in ascertaining equality not only in a white society but also in the black society itself between man and woman. Today's black woman is strong, no longer submissive, intelligent, and self-reliant. Slavery de-socialized the Africans and forced them to adopt new culture and language. There truly never was just one African American culture since each area reflected a different social, economic and political reliance on slavery. The North had relatively few slaves as compared to the South, this geographic difference consequently influenced the criteria of assimilation of the blacks. Additionally, the Africans brought to North America originated from various tribes and locations bringing with them numerous dialects, traditions, values and beliefs. Enslavement led to an amalgamation of these various traits along with the new ones learned from the whites. Even though they retain some of their traditions, culture and beliefs, the process of Americanization led to the creation of another culture, the Afro-Americans. The African American film industry is a venue that recreates the African Diaspora by allowing not only a return to one's roots and bridging the gap created by distance and lack of record keeping by the whites, but also by showing to the new generation their ancestral history and how they can learn from it and build on it. Hollywood has finally come to admire and recognize the immense contribution of its black artists (writers, actors, and film director). It is through this visual media that society is not only accepting blacks in their fold but also welcoming them. Thanks to innovative directors like Spike Lee, Clint Eastwood and Euzhan Palcy, to name just three, black is grand. These two films, analyzed above, are good examples of the fate of the black woman. One is victim to her fate (Carmen) while the other (Monica) is the new liberated woman, ready to fight society and the world. More and more black women directors and writers are found in the film industry and it is high time. Black women have long been exploited not just by their white employers, but also by the society as a whole, black and white. Personal degradation by white people was a way of life with not much to do about it. Alas, it was also encountered within the black social strata. The African American film history parallels black history itself. Researching for one led to the other. It painted the emergence of the new black woman, shedding out her exploited, ill-treated, and downtrodden skin. The women's liberation movement had one huge flaw: it forgot its black sisters. Black women have a different agenda. Their past history does not parallel the white one. At long last, today's black woman plays a more prominent role in the movement to advance equal rights for black females. The middle-class mentality of some white women were not at all relevant to the black ones, and how could they Black women had to fight for their rights and those of their children and engage a battle not just for social but also medical and educational equality. Today, most universities carry a Black Women's Studies and African American History department. It is highly time! Today's black woman has come a long long way. And she is a figure to reckon with. Works Cited "Blacks in American Film." 22 Feb. 2006.http://www.africanamericans.com/films.htm Bogle, Donald. (2002) Toms, Coons, Mullatoes, Mammies, & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. Fourth Edition. New York: Continuum (23,8,72,251,252). Carmen Jones, (1943) Film produced and directed by Otto Preminger with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. Davis, Ronald L.F., Ph.D. PopularArt and Racism: Embedding Racial Stereotypes in the American Mindset - - Jim Crow and Popular Culture. 22 Feb. 2006 http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/resources/lessonplans/hs_es_popular_culture.htm Love and Basketball (2000). Film produced by Spike Lee. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. Read More