The History of Black People in Media
The History
Representation of black people in different aspects of media has been the topic of much debate. This topic caught my interest because it’s something that’s closely related to my major, filmmaking, and what I wish to pursue as a career. I’m also interested in it because it’s racially related to me as well and it’s interesting to see how far America has come in terms of representation and racism. By studying this it will benefit me immensely to learn about what roles my people have played in filmmaking history and allow me to make more conscientious choices when supporting a certain type of movie. It’s important to start near the beginning of American film’s conception in order to closely examine the history that ranges from overt racism like blackface to more controversial aspects such as whitewashing.
The Racist American Classic
In fact, the critically acclaimed classic Gone With The Wind is known to have been extremely racist. It produced the first black woman to ever win an Oscar for best supporting female actress. Hattie McDaniel played the stereotypical role of a mammy in the film and became the first black actress to receive such a prestigious award for it. The movie, Gone With The Wind, “which won a then-record eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture of 1939, and still ranks as the all-time North American box-office champ with $1.6 billion worth of tickets sold here when adjusted for inflation” according to an article by Lou Lumenick for the New York Post. Lumenick then goes on to point out, “The more subtle racism of “Gone with the Wind’’ is in some ways more insidious, going to great lengths to enshrine the myth that the Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery — an institution the film unabashedly romanticizes”. Meaning that this racist movie is not only one of the most revered of all time, but is also the very first movie to honor a black supporting actress for playing a racist, stereotypical role. Being one of the first major types of representation of black people in film, it is extremely important to consider Gone With The Wind and the role it’s played in our society.
Modern Controversies
There are also modern-day films that still perpetuate different forms of underlying racism. One recent example of a controversial movie is Precious. As Felicia R. Lee points out in her article, To Blacks, Precious Is ‘Demeaned’ or ‘Angelic’, black people are questioning the impact this kind of representation has on the black community and how other communities view us. She writes, “The roots of that suspicion, he said, can be found in a long history of negative images in popular culture that helped keep black people in their place by reinforcing the notion of their inferiority”. Meaning that with the long history of media perpetuating negative images of black people, the film Precious could be seen as more harmful than informative. In another article, What Does the Academy Value in a Black Performance?, the author Brandon K. Thorpe, gives readers surprising demographics. Of the few black people ever nominated for awards in the Oscars, most played impoverished or violent characters. The article states, “…the camera tends to linger on the parts of their lives most likely to interest white Americans struggling to reckon with their country’s racist past. We learn all about Miss Daisy — her son, her childhood, her politics. But we hear only a sentence or two about the family of her driver (Morgan Freeman)”. This piece indicates that even when a movie is inclusive of black people, it always seems to still revolve around the white characters.
Whitewashing
Similar arguments can be made about the recent film Stonewall. Whitewashing has become a common practice in Hollywood films and often times recieves very negative backlash. As Solvej Chou points out in their New York Times article, “[The trailer] was immediately met with a severe backlash from an array of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender voices. Critics say it misrepresented and “whitewashed” who was actually at the Stonewall that night and left out characters based on real-life Latina and black trans protesters like Marsha P. Johnson, Miss Major Griffin-Gracie and Sylvia Rivera, then 17”. So, the film did not include key people in the event it was supposed to be reenacting but instead was centered around a fictional white male. The impact of whitewashing an actual historical event can be crucial because people with no prior knowledge of said event could be lead to regard everything in the film as truth.
Representation Matters
Representation of all different types of people should be, if not a standard, then a goal for all outlets of media. Taking a look at the 1960’s, the premiere of the show Star Trek features what Dr. Martin Luther King called, “not a black role or a female role” but instead, “the first nonstereotypical role on television”. The character, Commander Nyota Uhura, was played by black actress Nichelle Nichols. The influence this had on the black community was tremendous. In the words of Whoopi Goldberg, one of the few black women to win an Oscar, “Well, when I was nine years old, Star Trek came on, I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, ‘Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there’s a black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!’ I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be”. Meaning, without a positive portrayal of black people presented to them, some young black women could’ve been lead to believe that it was not possible for them to be much else besides a maid. So the different effects of the negative and positive representation of black people throughout history should definitely be called into question. The different images filmmakers choose to represent as black people is interesting. Its implications do certainly have an effect and many communities and should be examined.
