THINKING ABOUT HOW AND WHY HOLLYWOOD RESISTS STORIES ABOUT RACE AND POWER: A RESPONSE

I just read a piece at Zocalo Public Square by Ellen Scott of CUNY-Queens College, Institutional Exposès, part of the symposium: Why Cant Hollywood Tell American Stories

Hollywood tells many stories about race, but those that lay bare invisible power relations — the struggles of not individuals, but of a larger segment of society against institutional constraints — are most rare. These stories are difficult both because such institutional forces are hard to name and personify and because Hollywood, an institution itself, has a vested interest in muting these images.

How might we, for example, tell a cinematic story that makes palpable the power and impetus behind the “Black Lives Matter” campaign not only through personal stories, but through the story of networks — both digital and human? Such stories are even more difficult to sell than they are to tell. The other challenge is to find funding for films whose politics conflict with the whitewashed stories Hollywood has traditionally enshrined as “the” American narrative.

And it occurred to me that Scott is articulating something very important that isn’t brought up enough in discussions of race, gender and representation.

What is important here is how Scott IDs how Hollywood, as an American institution is set up to structurally and systematically resist efforts to tell non-white male stories. And makes the really good point about the difficulty of selling & marketing these stories.

Hegemony. And how Hollywood and movies are an institution invested in the American social order and structure in order to maintain and legitimize it.

These stories are difficult both because such institutional forces are hard to name and personify and because Hollywood, an institution itself, has a vested interest in muting these images.

Changing individuals isn’t going to be enough, need to restructure the system and, because the logic of Hollywood cinema is predicated and designed to replicate & reinforce the white male point of view, it too should be challenged and changed.This makes me think of a couple of recent movies: In Hidden Figures I don’t agree that the Kevin Costner character, or even John Glenn were “white saviors” because unlike another Costner film, Dances With Wolves, their stories are not central to the narrative, and we don’t see the story through their point of view, which I think is key. I do think that creating Costner’s character as a composite was done to have one for white audiences to relate to and doubt the film would have gotten the green light without it. On the other hand, the Glenn elements apparently actually happened and were important to include both as a contrast to other white behavior and because it corrects the historical record. I do think Hidden Figures did become a hit for much more than that: great writing, acting and, yes a pretty conventional narrative structure.

When it comes to I Am Not Your Negro, this piece helps me to make sense of why, though it’s an excellent and necessary film I felt a bit let down by it. I’ve been reading Baldwin’s work since I was little and his poems were included in collections of Black lit my parents bought me to read, and his novels & essays were on the bookshelf at home, and there was little new to me about Malcolm, Martin & Medgar in the film so I think I’m not the target audience. However, that’s not what bothered me, instead I found myself frustrated with the fact that Peck adhered to the standard documentary film conventions and didn’t take more risks with the form itself to tell this story, and see through Baldwin’s eyes. For example in the Witness section I really wanted the camera to show us how Baldwin “witnessed”.