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Depiction of blacks in films
Depiction of blacks in films
Introduction to race in film paper
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Recommended: Depiction of blacks in films
Justin Choe
ENG 380
Dr. Holmes
May 27, 2014
Sidney Poitier & In the Heat of the Night
In the Heat of the Night is a film starring Sidney Poitier as an African-American homicide expert, who assists white southern lawman, Chief Gillespie in Sparta, Mississippi on investigating a murder of a white businessman. Along the ways, Poitier’s character is met with racism and bigotry left and right in which he endures with his economic and social intelligence. His role in this movie as well as several others, can be categorized as a biracial “buddy film” which were immensely successful in Hollywood and made Poitier very well known, but how effective is this form of film in breaking color barriers and challenging society’s stereotypical conventions? How did mainstream audience at that time react to a portrayal of a black man that is much more intelligent and economically superior than a white man, Gillespie? These stereotypes are worth exploring. Poitier received numerous accolades for his work but also received much criticism for various reasons and a deeper look into the roots of these criticisms answer such questions.
Cinema had a history of being “selfish” with the use of the black actor and as Guerrero states in Framing Blackness, blacks were rarely cast as complex characters and used as the problem in which the white man would “fix”. This characterized the mainstream expectations in film then and into Poitier’s emergence into Hollywood. With Poitier however, he worked alongside those directors in Hollywood who looked down upon racism and shared the same views as he, working together to push the political message of racial integration both within the films and off the screen. With the mainstream audience being that characterized by...
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Although the concept of historical and non-historical has dominated studies of Black representation, if stereotypes are used in certain ways, they can serve different purposes, in which can be historical. Stereotypes indeed have harmful effects to subjects, but analysis on how these stereotypes are used, especially in Poitier’s films, allow more understanding by scholars and other filmmakers. In In the Heat of the Night, it provides many examples of stereotypes that can be examined in such way. Poitier may be critiqued as an individual but there is no question that the films he is a part of and the stereotypical representations he is surrounded by behind the camera can serve as a reflection of the shifting historical values, evolving civil rights movement, and personal morality that serve to be progressive anecdotes of the civil rights movement as a whole.
Both memoirs—John Griffin’s Black Like Me and Dick Gregory’s Nigger—examine race marginalization as it existed in mid-twentieth century America. Griffin’s Black Like Me intimately explores the discrimination against the black community by whites to expose the “truth” of racial relations and to “bridge the gap” of communication and understanding between the two races through a “social experiment”—an assumption of alterity (Griffin 1). In Nigger, Gregory also recounts personal racial discrimination as a black man trying to survive and succeed in a discriminatory society. But unlike Griffin’s experience, Gregory’s memoir progresses from a position of repressed “Other” to a more realized, dominant identity. However, the existence of a dual persona
This week’s readings of the reviews of Spike Lee’s ‘Do the Right Thing’ and Marilyn Fabe’s “Political Cinema: Spike Lee’s ‘Do the Right Thing’, raised a number of questions regarding not only the moral issues the film addresses but also the intention of the artist. This dialectical opposition, which Pamela Reynolds suggests “challenges the audience to choose” (Reynolds, p.138) between the narrativized hostility shown between that of the hero and villain. More specifically Lee’s portrayal of violence vs passive opposition. This can be perceived through Lee’s technical employment of contradictory quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr and Malcom X at the conclusion of the film, which not only highlights this concern but also deluges further into themes of political opposition. Marylin Fabe discusses this where she states that Spike Lee’s film carries a “disturbing political message” (Fabe, p.191). Arguably, ‘Do the Right Thing’ acmes themes of racism (Black vs White); with underlining motifs of imperialism (colonisers’ vs colonised), psychoanalytic (power vs powerlessness) and even Marxist theory (ownership vs public space/consumption), with Clarence Page stating that Lee provides a “public service… (not trying) to provide all the answers, but raising the questions.” (Reid, P.144). In saying this we explore this concept of the role of the artist, with Georgopulos stating that the role of the artist is to create a consciousness within the audience by revealing a fraught set of truths about the human condition. Thusly, the reactions and responses to the films reveal Lee to be successful in conveying his intentions, which back in its zenith, explored this issue of racism in a way that had rarely been seen, and presented the ways in which t...
Over the past decades, Hollywood movies have brought out the representations of racial inequality through out various themes of racism and stereotypical ways. One frequent type of racial inequality is that there is a culture or race that is belittled, under-privilege and inferior while the other is superior and high in order. In “The Offensive Movie Cliché That Won’t Die” by Matt Zoller Seitz, He identifies the term “magical negro” as: “a saintly African American character who acts as a mentor to a questing white hero, who seems to be disconnected from the community that he adores so much, and who often seems to have an uncanny ability to say and do exactly what needs to be said or done in order to keep the story chugging along in the hero’s favor” (408) and in Mitu Sengupta “ Race Relations Light Years from the Earth” the author examines the movie Avatar as a racist film, and focuses on how it resembles the “white messiah” stereotype. The term “white messiah” is known as a white individual who hold superior power, according to David Brooks of the New York Times, “a stereotype that white people are rationalistic and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic, and that nonwhites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades” (Sengupta 213). Both articles dwell and explain the two terms and how it portrays the themes of racism and stereotypes through two elements, known as author’s purpose and main idea. These elements effectively convey the theme because it prevents our thoughts from being scattered by a broad spectrum of ideas and instead, it tells you exactly what is going to be discussed throughout the article.
The history of Hollywood cinema in the past is marked by the exclusion and marginalization of colored actors, but more and more African American actors have appeared on the Hollywood screen since 1890s. Sydney Poitier is one of them who was perceived as the most important African American integrationist due to his plenty of outstanding works. The film No Way Out is Poitier’s first movie, but audiences can see all the shining points from Doctor Brooks that would make Poitier’s characters laudable for the future decades (Bogle, 2001).
In Odessa, an oil-rich town in West Texas, there is a line that separates the two races of blacks and whites. They called it “the American version of the Berlin Wall – the railroad tracks that inevitably ran through the heart of town” (Bissinger 91). The tracks are the symbol of the barrier, tension, and attitude that stand between the two races. To the Odessan whites, African Americans are often considered extraneous, with few hopes and dreams to follow. It is also a common part of everyday language to blurt out the word “nigger,” without ever categorizing it in a racist context. To escape the predisposed perception, the football stadium, where the night lights shine, is the solitary premises where blacks accepted as an identity, as well as athletes. In the non-fiction book, Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger explores this phenomenon of racial tension and the low expectation that are imposed upon black athletes. Through the use of descriptive imagery, revealing dialogue, and anaphora, Bissinger describes the underlying message of Odessan’s racial division, coupled with the meager education that the general population receives while obsessed with high school football.
The Birth of a Nation (1915) is one of the most controversial movies ever made in Hollywood, some people even consider it the most controversial movie in the long history of Hollywood. Birth of a Nation focuses on the Stoneman family and their friendship with the Cameron’s, which is put into question due to the Civil War, and both families being on different sides. The whole dysfunction between the families is carried out through important political events such as: Lincoln’s assassination, and the birth of the Ku Klux Kan. D.W. Griffith is the director of the movie, and him being born into a confederate family in the South, the movie portrays the South as noble and righteous men, who are fighting against the evil Yankees from the North, who have black union soldiers among them, whom overtake the town of Piedmont, which leads the KKK to take action and according to the movie become the savior of white During this essay, I will focus on the themes of racial inequality, racism, and the archetypical portrayal of black people in the movie, which are significant, especially during the era when the film was released. Black face in Hollywood was very common, especially during the time the film Birth of a Nation was released.
African American writing regularly addresses racial personality—from books on going to expositions on Black Power—from journalists as differed as W.E.B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison. Be that as it may, these authors are once in a while studying on how they build a racial personality for themselves and their characters. Dark writings can possibly uncover the variables that make racial personality and clear up how the procedure of consideration and prohibition work inside the African American group. Building up a strategy for deciphering how racial character is tended to in African American writings is critical in comprehension the implicit rejection in the dark group. The answers (or inquiries) that rise up out of this study
Over past decades, Hollywood movies have brought out the representations of racial inequality through out various themes of racism and stereotypical ways. One frequent type of racial inequality is that there is a culture or race that is belittled, under-privilege and inferior while the other is superior and high in order. In “The Offensive Movie Cliché That Won’t Die” by Matt Zoller Seitz, He identifies the term “magical negro” as: “a saintly African American character who acts as a mentor to a questing white hero, who seems to be disconnected from the community that he adores so much, and who often seems to have an uncanny ability to say and do exactly what needs to be said or done in order to keep the story chugging along in the hero’s favor” (408) and in Mitu Sengupta “ Race Relations Light Years from the Earth” the author examines the movie Avatar as a racist film, and focuses on how it resembles the “white messiah” stereotype. The term “white messiah” is known as a white individual who hold superior power, according to David Brooks of the New York Times, “a stereotype that white people are rationalistic and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic, and that nonwhites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades” (Sengupta 213). Both articles dwell and explain the two terms and how it portrays the themes of racism and stereotypes through two elements, known as author’s purpose and main idea. These elements effectively convey the theme because it prevents our thoughts from being scattered by a broad spectrum of ideas and instead, it tells you exactly what is going to be discussed throughout the article.
... 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.
African-Americans aged 12 and up are the most victimized group in America. 41.7 over 1,000 of them are victims of violent crimes, compared with whites (36.3 over 1,000). This does not include murder. Back then during the era of the Jim Crow laws, it was even worse. However, during that time period when there were many oppressed blacks, there were many whites who courageously defied against the acts of racism, and proved that the color of your skin should not matter. This essay will compare and contrast two Caucasian characters by the names of Hiram Hillburn (The Mississippi Trial, 1955) and Celia Foote (The Help), who also went against the acts of prejudice.
In this narrative essay, Brent Staples provides a personal account of his experiences as a black man in modern society. “Black Men and Public Space” acts as a journey for the readers to follow as Staples discovers the many societal biases against him, simply because of his skin color. The essay begins when Staples was twenty-two years old, walking the streets of Chicago late in the evening, and a woman responds to his presence with fear. Being a larger black man, he learned that he would be stereotyped by others around him as a “mugger, rapist, or worse” (135).
Being one of the few black students to attend Tisch School of the Arts, the aspiring filmmaker’s first year at New York University was a particularly difficult one. Lee’s experiences, race, and upbringing have all led him to create controversial films to provide audiences with an insight into racial issues. Spike Lee’s first student production, The Answer, was a short ten minute film which told of a young black screenwriter who rewrote D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. The film was not well accepted among the faculty at New York University, stating Lee had not yet mastered “film grammar.” Lee went on to believe the faculty took offense to his criticisms towards the respected director’s stereotypical portrayals of black characters (1).
The first social issue portrayed through the film is racial inequality. The audience witnesses the inequality in the film when justice is not properly served to the police officer who executed Oscar Grant. As shown through the film, the ind...
Through the film “In the Heat of the Night” racial tensions are high, but one character, the Chief of Police, Gillespie overcomes racial discrimination to solve a murder. The attitudes that he portrays in the film help us understand the challenges in changing attitudes of Southern white town towards the African Americans living there.
As a fan of cinema, I was excited to do this project on what I had remembered as a touching portrait of racism in our modern society. Writer/Director Paul Haggis deliberately depicts his characters in Crash within the context of many typical ethnic stereotypes that exist in our world today -- a "gangbanger" Latino with a shaved head and tattoos, an upper-class white woman who is discomforted by the sight of two young Black kids, and so on -- and causes them to rethink their own prejudices during their "crash moment" when they realize the racism that exists within themselves. This movie does provoke a dialogue on race that, according to author and journalist Jeff Chang, "has been anathema to Hollywood after 9/11. " During the first viewing of this movie, the emotionally charged themes of prejudice and racism are easy to get caught up in. (125) Privilege is inclined to white males through every facet of our everyday lives that inconspicuously creates racism through classism.