Representations of the Black Male in Film
Representations of the Black Male in Film
A systematic exclusion of black people from the production, distribution, and exhibition of film exists in Hollywood. This "system" is white America's continuing subversion of a whole race that has existed since the first slave was dragged from African soil and put to work on an American plantation. In these "politically correct" times the system is not an overt racist activity. Rather, it is more of a hidden political agenda that does not appear to exist when looked for. But the system operates in all aspects of commercial American cinema and, thus, defines how blacks are portrayed on the screen which, in turn, defines how black audiences define themselves. Hollywood has traditionally portrayed the black male negatively, providing inappropriate role models for young black males. Although the influence of independent filmmakers is changing the way commercial films depict black men, real change will only come when audiences demand it. This essay looks at why and how the "system" excludes black people, and examines several films to show how the image of the black male is changing.
American media representations of black men not only serve the interests of the dominant white class and help maintain existing institutions, but they also keep black people from positions of power and stature in American society. Historically, black males have been characterized only in terms of society's own political agenda and its own economic gain. D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915), for example, was a blatantly racist attack on blacks, portraying black men as a sexual threat to the purity of white women and a biological threat to the purity of the white race. Films such as Hallelujah (1929) sentimentalized the plantation myth to keep black people in "their place." The film capitalized upon the loss of the supportive extended family of the rural Southern communities after black migration to large cities such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles (Jones 23). The scenes of the sharecroppers on Zeke's farm smiling, laughing, and singing as they pick cotton are blatantly reminiscent of the popularized myth of happy slaves on the plantation. Things were better back then, these scenes suggest; life was good. When Zeke goes into town to sell the year's crop, he falls prey to the evils of city life--gambling, loose women, and drinking-- which results in the death of his brother. The message is...