The history of black American cinema
When people where making films as it was still in the 1920 and 30 when film production began racial discrimination and segregation still majorly existed. As a result of this black people who were wanting to make films, act, produce or write films they were forced to make their own films and for black people. They made around five hundred films.
There is a lot of history of black American cinema. Firstly, positively the key early black American independent filmmakers were Oscar Micheaux, he founded the Micheaux Film and book company. His first work was a feature film ‘the homesteader’ which was made in 1919. This was followed up by ‘Within our gates’ 1920 and many more. Micheaux went on to produce and direct. He was in the minority as he owned him our production company. And him not being a white man meant he had a less of an advantage as he is in a minority and segregation and racism were very strong. Nevertheless there was black directors, producers and screenwriters to be able to put there work out there in this era.
Along with most actors being portrayed by white people. This led to the history of black face. Black face was when white people would use shoe polish, greasepaint or burnt cork to darken their skin black lips would also include people painting on enlarged lips and other exaggerated features. Black face peaked in popularity in an era that was demanding for civil rights for black people in the united states. Even though blackface is extremely racist it has still persisted in recent decades being used for humour in comedy skits
representation of blackness in cinema
Movies play a huge part of the worlds view on groups and are the main source of stereotypes and idea of the world that are far from the truth.
It seems to be that when a black person is represented in a movie they are usually represented as one of the three stereotypes: thug life, segregation, or a tale of very poor to very rich. Richard Dyer’s White: essays on race and cultures he states that research has repeatedly shown that in western represented white people to have the central and higher roles in movies and overwhelming the white race as the standard and ordinary. The number of movies that have leading roles of white people only even to this day is unacceptable.
Netflix's strong black lead is a case study in how effective it is not only hiring but giving people of colour the tools to create. It is also a remainder that hiring people of colour isn’t enough they need to give them proper opportunities to further their ambitions.
#oscarssowhite began on January the 15th 2015 because the academy awarded all twenty acting nominations to white actors for the first two consecutive years this led April Reign to create this hashtag it is a social justice campaign. It started by the fact that nighty two percent of top film directors were male, and eighty six percent of top films featured white actors as the lead roles.
Due to this, in 2016, a lot of celebrities including: Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith, Spike Lee, Ava DuVernay and many more boycotted the 2016 Oscars. As Jada Pinkett Smith stated in a video, she uploaded to Facebook, ‘Is it time that people of colour recognize how much power, influence, that we have amassed that we no longer need to ask to be invited anywhere.’ ‘Begging for acknowledgement, or even asking diminishes dignity and diminishes power. And we are a dignified people, and we are powerful. So, let's let the academy do them, with all grace and love. And let’s do us, differently.’ Her and other that boycotted this Oscars were stronger and dignified to not let the unfairly of the Oscars demean their hard work with their racism.
However, in the same year of 2016 the host of the Oscars was Chris Rock. Despite the people and celebrities wanting him to not go through with him hosting, he did and brought acknowledgement to the favour of white people in these awards. Bringing humour to the racism of the Oscars by saying ‘if they nominated hosts, I wouldn’t even get this job.’
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