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Cultural Context #2

H I S T O R Y O F B L A C K A M E R I C A N C I N E M A


Oscar Michaeux is often labelled as the father of black filmmakers, but William D. Foster began producing films nearly a decade earlier. In 1910, Foster formed the Foster Photoplay Company, the first independent African American film company. In 1912, Foster directed and produced The Railroad Porter. The Film paid tribute to the keystone comic chases, whilst attempting to adress the perrasive degotory stereotype of black people in films.


This was 3 years before D.W.Griffith's The Birth of a Nation in 1915, a plantation fantasy credited with establishing negative stereotypes of black people in films that still exist to this day. In response to this film, brothers Noble Johnson & George Perry founded the Lincoln Motion Picture Company in 1916, producing films such as The Birth of a Race in 1918 and Trooper of Troop K in 1917. The Johnson's films featured black hereos, families and soldiers, concepts that were foreign to most popular movies at that time.


Oscar Michaeux soon followed with the film The Homesteader in 1919. He directed over 40 films, such as Within Our Gate (1920) and and God's Step Children (1938). Micheaux's films caused controversy as some black film critics criticized his work for its portrayal of black people, which sometimes included the same stereotypes found in mainstream, popular films back at that time.

In the early years of film, black characters were routinely played by white people in blackface. D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation in 1915 used white people in blackface to represent all of its major black characters, but reaction against the film's racism largely put an end to this practice in major film roles. From then, white people in blackface would appear almost exclusively in broad comedies. After the end of the 1930s, blackface makeup was largely eliminated even from live film comedy in the US when public views regarding race began to change and blackface became increasingly associated with racism.


During the African American Civil Right movement, producer Barbara Bryant noted: “There were more blacks being included in white films, and there was a promise and a hope that this was going to be a bigger reality as integration progressed.” The rapid technological and cultural change around race relations began to reflect itself even in Hollywood films made during the sixties in films, many of which Sidney Poitier starred in, such as Lillies of the Field in 1963 for which he won an Oscar.

 

R E P R E S E N T A T I O N S O F B L A C K N E S S I N C I N E M A H I S T O R Y

The portrayals of African Americans in movies and television shows in America reinforce negative stereotypes. In most Hollywood films until the civil rights era, black men were loyal chattel or aggressive thugs, black women were overweight, caring housekeepers, and mixed-race women were tragic. An example of this is from D. W. Griffith's film Birth of a Nation in 1915, which depicted black men as intellectually rude.


Professor Narissra M. Punyanunt-Carter, from the department of Communications Studies at Texas Tech, found many facts in her research paper. After reviewing numerous television shows, she found that African Americans in films and in television programs were generally depicted in service or blue-collar occupations, such as a house cleaner or a postal worker. She also found that African American television portrayals typically showed the following stereotypic personality characteristics: inferior, stupid, comical, and dishonest

In the 1980s and 1990s, films such as Malcolm X (1992) by Spike Lee and Boyz in the Hood (1991) by John Singleton. as well as the popular television sitcom The Cosby Show (1984–1992), brought to national attention the complex levels of black history.

Most recently, black cinema has seen the rise of mainstream black film-makers and actors such as Denzel Washington, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Halle Berry. This is highly positive as before there weren't many black directors and actors in manstream movies, and if there were black actors, they would usually be portrayed with hurtful stereotypes.


The movie Black Panther (2018) features a groundbreaking portrayal of black people. In the movie. They are seen as superheroes and people capable of creating a strong and extensive civilization without being under a white person. The main villain in the movie is also black which shows that black people can have diverse roles. White male characters have previously dominated the lead roles in superhero movies and even when black people are featured, they are usually either the villain or a supportive role. However, Black Panther offers a different perspective.


The standard in superhero movies is a white male. This means that white males can look up to these people in the superhero movies. Wheras black people are usually casted as the villan, which can destroy black people's identity. The film serves as a source of positive influence for young people who are black by showing them that they too can play powerful roles in their various communities.

Here is Chadwick Boseman's 2019 SAG Speech. During his speech, he talks about black repersentation in films and what it means to be "young, gifted and black".

 

# O S C A R S S O W H I T E C A M P A I G N

On Jan. 15, 2015, the academy awarded all 20 acting nominations to white actors for the first of two consecutive years, inspiring April Reign to create the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite. That year, only two people of colour were nominated in major categories. None of the lead or supporting actor and actress categories saw people of colour nominated. The hashtag is used to call out the lack of diversity within the industry, especially people of colour but also women and the LGBTQIA+ community.

#OscarsSoWhite began as the setup for jokes about the overwhelming whiteness of people nominated in the Oscars, but soon spread as a way to raise awareness about the need for greater diversity.


Since 2015, the hashtag has resurfaced every awards season. The years 2016 and 2020 were particularly active years for the hashtag due to a popular perception that the nominations favor white people, more specifically, white CIS straight males. On social media, people use #OscarsSoWhite to talk about performances by actors of colour that they feel deserved nomination.


Although Reign created a tweet with the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag in January 2015 following the announcement of the 87th Oscar nominations, her tweet did not catch major attention until the next year. This was due to major industry players rallying behind the outcry on social media. On Martin Luther King, Jr. day in 2016, director Spike Lee posted on his Instagram that he would boycott the Oscars following the second year in a year of people of colour being erased from the nominations. Other celebrities such as Lupita Nyong'o, Gina Rodriguez and Reese Witherspoon called for greater representation in front of and behind the camera.


Up to the year 2016, throughout the Academy Awards' 88-year history, only 14 black actors have won acting Oscars, only five Latino actors have won prizes and just three actors of Asian descent. In 2017, a University of Southern California study of top-grossing films found that just 4% of their directors were women, while 5% were black, and 3% were Asian. During the last 10 years, none of these figures had risen. The study also found that American cinema remains deeply centered on white masculine heroes. In a content analysis of major films, men were almost three times as likely as women to work in the first lead role.

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