Explore the representation of black males in Hollywood films since the year 2005, with specific reference to I am Legend (2007), The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) and 12 Years A Slave (2013). “We as black people, in Hollywood films, have been celebrated more for when we are subservient, when we are not being leaders or kings or being at the centre of our own narrative, driving it forward.” - David Oyelowo, quoted at Santa Barbara International Film Festival, February 2015. http://mic.com/articles/109712/one-quote-perfectly-sums-up-a-disturbing-truth-about-how-hollywood-treats-black-actors Introduction Hollywood has long been the symbolic centre of the American film industry - It also dominates the world’s film industry. This essay will specifically …show more content…
Neville is a scientist who is immune from the Krippin Virus, a deadly disease which has wiped out the entire world and left Neville as the only human survivor. A short but important scene within the film is when Robert Neville is wandering the vacant streets of New York City and befriends a dog named Sam. He feeds the dog and cares for it. The scene itself is no longer than 5 minutes but it is highly significant in the representation of Robert Neville, portraying him as sympathetic and an animal loving person, this scene would have also certainly diversified the films audience. Will Smith, an African-American, plays the role of Robert Neville. However, in the original 1954 novel by Richard Matheson, Robert Neville was illustrated and described as being “...A strong, bold and daring young man with fair skin...”- (Richard Matheson, I Am Legend and Other stories, 1954). The fact Hollywood managed to change this and use a black actor to play the main role portrays the industry as being liberal and ever changing with modern society views. Many critics believe that African American Will Smith earned the role due to his outstanding Oscar nominated performance in the film The Pursuit of Happiness, released in 2006, a year before I Am
Hollywood is not simply a point on a map; it is a representation of the human experience. As with any other location, though, Hollywood’s history can be traced and analyzed up to present day. In 1887, Harvey Henderson Wilcox established a 120-acre ranch in an area northwest of Los Angeles, naming it “Hollywood” (Basinger 15). From then on, Hollywood grew from one man’s family to over 5,000 people in 1910. By then, residents around the ranch incorporated it as a municipality, using the name Hollywood for their village. While they voted to become part of the Los Angeles district, their village was also attracting motion-picture companies drawn in by the diverse geography of the mountains and oceanside (15). The Los Angeles area continues to flourish, now containing over nine million people, an overwhelming statistic compared to Wilcox’s original, family unit (U.S. Census Bureau 1). However, these facts only s...
Lewis, J. (2008). American Film: A History. New York, NY. W.W. Norton and Co. Inc. (p. 405,406,502).
Paramount, one of the big five Hollywood studio corporations, controlled the most amount of theatres in the United States during the 1930s and 40s. This meant they had an advantage when the economy in the US turned around after the great depression. This being said, many more factors come into play when defining to what extent the studio is a typical representation of a major Hollywood studio corporation in the 1930s and 40s. In this essay I will be going in depth into what extent Paramount is a representation of other key studios in Hollywood in the 1930s and 40s. I will be discussing how Paramount’s methods as a corporation such as exhibition, distribution, star system and genre to see how it is a typical representative of a Hollywood studio corporation. I will be using material such as Richard B. Jewel’s The Golden Age of Cinema, Hollywood 1929 – 1945 to go into detail in explaining my points.
Due to Neville being isolated and also in danger, he sometimes acts insanely, for example, he “cried out in his sleep and his fingers gripped the sheets like frenzied talons,” which shows that extreme fear and also sorrow have a great impact on Neville’s mind. Due to the situation he is in, he is not able to control himself and his depression causes him to act abnormally, and his fingers’ comparison to a vulture’s talons also make this more effective. This shows the impact of isolation on Neville’s mind, which is essential in the novel.
...g place for a long time now; blacks have went from not being banned from certain stages to dominating theater with actors and actresses such as Halle Berry and Denzel Washington. In modern day film, African-Americans have prevailed over all of the negative setbacks, and as the old Negro spiritual says, "We shall continue to overcome."
... model for how the entertainment and media industries depict black people must change. Despite the progress that blacks have worked toward since the days of slavery, society continues to give in to the monetary benefits of producing self-disparaging entertainment and media. It is not only up to the directors, editors, producers and writers to establish this change, but it should also be the demand of the people, or the consumer. If the images of black people in the media are improved the outlook within the community will improve as well. Not only will positive goals and achievements become more realistic for black people if the media outlets discontinue their practice of equating blacks with aggression, lawlessness and violence, but a greater good will also result for whites, which would be represented by a true autonomy and equality in American society.
... ed (BFI, 1990) we read … “contrary to all trendy journalism about the ‘New Hollywood’ and the imagined rise of artistic freedom in American films, the ‘New Hollywood’ remains as crass and commercial as the old…”
This cultural phenomenon is not exclusive to music, of course. One need not be a sociologist or anthropologist to clearly see this Africanist presence operating in the linguistic as well as aesthetic elements of popular culture today; however, a particularly fascinating and recent development in the use of blackness can be seen in recent Hollywood cinema. No longer a mere source for cultural self-realization, blackness now actively aids in the empowerment and redemption of whiteness and in no other film is this made quite as clear as it is in Frank Darabont’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Green Mile. A period piece not unlike Darabont’s previous film, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile is also set in a prison during the first part of the twentieth century. The central character, Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks), is an affable guard placed in charge of Cold Mountain Correctional Facility’s death row, called The Green Mile by the prison population.
A new edition to the course lineup, this week's film classic, Sunset Boulevard. This film will focus on the culture and environment of the Hollywood studio system that produces the kind of motion pictures that the whole world recognizes as "Hollywood movies." There have been many movies from the silent era to the present that either glamorize or vilify the culture of Hollywood, typically focusing on the celebrities (both in front of and behind the camera) who populate the "dream factories" of Hollywood. But we cannot completely understand the culture of Hollywood unless we recognize that motion pictures are big business as well as entertainment, and that Hollywood necessarily includes both creative and commercial
In his documentary Classified X, Martin Van Peebles describes three areas where African-Americans could be receive some sanctuary from the racism that pervaded almost all Hollywood films. These three places were: the Hollywood version of an all-Black film, the church, and entertainment. Black culture and music is prominent in mainstream society, but the people behind this culture don’t always receive recognition and respect for their creations. Mainstream White pop culture excitedly consumes and appropriates Black culture, but disrespects the source.
Marchetti, Gina, and Tan Kam. Hong Kong film, Hollywood and the new global cinema no film is an island. London: Routledge, 2007. Print.
I will begin my essay by looking closely at the narrative of Sunset Boulevard to see where and how the film represents the Hollywood Studio System. At the beginning of the film the audience is introduced to Joe Gillis, a script writer who is struggling to pay his rent as he in unable to sell his scripts to the ‘majors’ of Hollywood. The film follows Joe to ‘Paramount Pictures’ one of the major studios in Hollywood, which the film pays a large self reference to as the producers of Sunset Boulevard as well as representing the studio system.
In this essay the following will be discussed; the change from the age of classical Hollywood film making to the new Hollywood era, the influence of European film making in American films from Martin Scorsese and how the film Taxi Driver shows the innovative and fresh techniques of this ‘New Hollywood Cinema’.
In this paper I will offer a structural analysis of the films of Simpson and Bruckheimer. In addition to their spectacle and typically well-crafted action sequences, Simpson/Bruckheimer pictures seem to possess an unconscious understanding of the zeitgeist and other cultural trends. It is this almost innate ability to select scripts that tap into some traditional American values (patriotism, individualism, and the obsession with the “new”) that helps to make their movies blockbusters.
The White Savior Complex is a damaging subconscious underlay of the Hollywood system, and more broadly all of western society. It is used to further separate the notions of “us” and “other” by creating a firm separation fueled by self-righteousness, and a sense of entitlement. Hollywood attempts to address race relations, but fails because of this trope. Kingsle, from the article “Does My Hero Look White In This?” described that both racism and colonialism are acknowledged, but not without reassuring that not only were white people against the system of racist power dynamics, but also were actively fighting against it in leadership roles (2013). In the remainder of my essay I will be commenting on many modern films and their use on this trope, and why subscribing to this filmmaking strategy is problematic.