Lesson 13: Race in Film
Professor Aaron Baker
Previous Lecture
• Hollywood and Gender Equality
• Film Representations of Women and
Men
• Gender in Gas, Food, Lodging (1990)
2
This Lecture
• Critical Study of
Whiteness
• Hollywood Portrayal of
Race
• African American Cinema
• Do the Right Thing (1989)
3
Part I: Critical Study of
Whiteness
Richard Dyer on Analysis of
Race
•
•
•
Much Analysis of
Cultural Representation
of Race--E.g. in Movies
How Disadvantages
Black, Brown, Yellow,
Red People
But Not Enough
Attention to How White
People Represented
The Human Race
• How are Whites
usually
represented?
• As Having No
Race—just
People
• The Standard of
Humanness
How do Whites Justify Position?
•
While Whites
“systematically
privileged in Western
society” (Dyer,White
p.9)
This racial status quo
justified by pointing to
individual
achievement:
•
–
“I earned what I have”
Dyer:
“A white person is taught to believe that all
that she or he does, good or ill, all that we
achieve, is to be accounted for in terms of
our individuality. It is intolerable to realize
that we may get a job or a nice house, or
a helpful response at school or in
hospitals, because of our skin colour, not
because of the unique, achieving
individual we must believe ourselves to
be.” p.9
Dangers of Studying Whiteness
• Excuse to privilege culture of
Whites
• What has always been
studied most
• Not enough if Whites feel
guilty about unearned
advantage
• Such guilt makes them
feel moral, but what
is being done to change it?
Make society fair?
Christianity Multi-Racial
Dyer: “Not arguing that
Christianity is of its essence
white. . . . developed
initially within Judaism, . . .
one of its foundational
thinkers was the North
African Augustine, . . . now
most alive in Africa, South
America, and the black
churches of Europe and
North America.” p.16
Yet Christianity Helped Define
White Superiority
• Became a world religion from
basis in Europe via Crusades
• Christian Iconography White
• Embodiment:
-Christian idea all people have
physical bodies
-But White Christians
historically assume they have
spirit--an intangible advantage
Spirit = Soul?
Dyer:
“It is not the case that non-white peoples
were always assumed not to have souls.
Indeed many whites . . . have considered
that blacks were more spiritual and had . .
. more soul. It is not [the same] spirituality
or soul that is held to distinguish whites, . .
. get up and go, aspiration, . . . intellectual
comprehension.” p.23
White Spirit =
•
•
•
•
•
Intelligence
Drive, Ambition (Get Up And Go)
Dedication
Control Over Sexual Desire
Work or Sex?
Eldridge Cleaver
Dyer:
“The ideal white man
was one who knew
how to use his head,
who knew how to
manage and control
things and get things
Done.” p.30
American Gangster (2006)
Initially, Frank Lucas
(Denzel Washington)
demonstrates:
– Ambition, discipline
– Has business values—
hard work, ambition,
integrity, good product
Downfall
As story progresses:
– Reveals himself as
impulsive, violent
– Desire for Latina
Wife
– Stereotype of Non
Whites as Overly
Sexual
Russell Crowe
• Starts off undisciplined:
affairs, drinks
• Demonstrates
enterprise, discipline
• Brings Frank Lucas
down
• Restores law and order
Whiteness = Law and Order
• American Gangster
winds up endorsing
assumption:
American ambition,
work, discipline,
justice depend on
White masculinity
Part II: African Americans
on Film
Birth of a Nation (1915)
• Establishes pattern of
Blacks as faithful
supporters or vicious
opponents of Whites
• Idea of African American
equality shown as absurd
• Klan = Social Order
• Please pause to see clip.
Race Films 1912-1948
• African American
Filmmakers
• Black Themes
• Hollywood Genres
(Family Melodrama)
• Low Budgets
• White Financing
• Black Audiences
Paul Robeson in Oscar Micheaux’s
Body and Soul (1925)
Late 1940s-60s: The Civil
Rights Years
• Blacks Role in World War II
• Hollywood Makes Films
About African Americans:
-Pinky (1949) – Passing
-Home of the Brave (1949)-Racism in Military
-Guess Who’s Coming to
Dinner (1967)– Interracial
Marriage
1970s Blaxsploitation
• Shaft (1971)
• Black Self
Representation
• Reach Mainstream
Audience
• Racial
Stereotypes:
Crime, Violence,
Sexuality
Black Independents
• Melvin Van Peoples
Watermelon Man (1970),
Sweet Sweetback (1971)
• Film School Graduates:
Charles Burnett and Julie
Dash
• Precursors to Spike Lee,
John Singleton, Gina
Prince-Bythewood
Reject Hollywood
• Mark Reid:
“This new generation of
West Coast filmmakers
. . . rejected the
imposed conditions of
mainstream American
cinema because it
limited their artistic and
political vision of black
life and experience.”
p.10
To Sleep With Anger (1990)
•
•
•
•
Middle Class LA Family
Frank (Danny Glover)
Blues Man, Disrupts Their Lives
Clip: Religion, Family, Work vs. the Blues
Life of Drinking, Sex and Violence
• Please pause the lecture to view the clip.
Julie Dash
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Daughters of the Dust (1991)
Sea Islands, Georgia (1900)
Cultural Autonomy
Wisdom of Elders
Eli/ Wife’s Rape
Unborn Daughter
Please pause to see clip.
Eli’s Choice: Violent Revenge?
• Eli/ Wife’s Rape
• Anti-Lynching Law/
Capoeira
• Unborn Daughter
• Walks Backward
• Gifts Ancestors
“Those Who Chose to
Survive”
• Child, Indigo Dye
NYU Professor, Manthia
Diawara:
“Most Black filmmakers since Oscar
Micheaux have turned first to the
independent sector.”
Part III: Do the Right Thing
Spike Lee
• First African
American Director to
Reach Crossover
Audience
• Thematic Emphases:
-Racial Relations in
America
-African American
Identity
Form in Do the Right Thing
• Realism and
Stylization
• Handheld Camera,
Available Light
• Direct Address
• Distanciation/Bertolt
Brecht
• Wide Angle
Compositions
Allusion
• Authorship
• Knowledge of
Medium, Taste
• Films made from
social reality and
other films
Robert Mitchum in Night
of the Hunter (1955)
Kellner on Do the Right Thing:
• Cultural Style and Racial
Politics
• Racial identity defined by
style, cultural choices:
-Jackie Robinson shirt
-Air Jordans
-Rap Music/Public Enemy,
“Fight the Power”
-Sal’s Photos of Italian
Americans
His Highness
• Lee’s Nike Commercials for Air Jordan
Sneakers
• Helped Elevate Michael Jordan to Cultural
Hero
• Representatives of African American Style,
Culture, Achievement
Dr. King and Malcom X
• Civil Rights Via
Civil Disobedience
• Appeal to Moral
Conscience of
Whites
• African American Self
Determination
• Right of Self Defense
• “By Any Means
Necessary”
Dr. King and Malcom X Invoked
King:
• Mookie and Da Mayor
interact positively with
Whites
• Buggin Out calls for a
a boycott of Pizzeria
Malcom X:
Radio Raheem Resists
Sal’s, Pino’s, Police
Intimidation
Public Enemy, “Fight
the Power”
Sal’s Pizzeria
• Rights of
Ownership
• Rights of
Consumers
• Lack of Respect for
Cultural Difference
• Photos of Italian
Americans vs.
Raheem’s Music
Discussion Questions
• Does Mookie do
the right thing?
• Does the can
through the
window protect Sal
and Sons?
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End of Lecture 13
Next Lecture: Mexican Film
40