Black Hollywood
Abstract
Racism in the United States has been going since the 17th century. African American were one of the ethnic group who were included in slavery. Nowadays racism is not present anymore but it is there implicitly. Lately in media we are always used to see a white people leading role in boxing movies, shows… After the Obama era we noticed that more African American are trying to get involved in the media and tv.
Black Hollywood.
This paper will discuss about how racism is in Hollywood movies which is portrayed in the cover of the Time magazine in February 8, 2018. The cover of the Time magazine discuss the fact that an African American actor is leading the role of a marvel movie called “Black Panther”. It will also talk about how the power of the implicit message behind this cover page.
The author of this article is Jamil Smith, is an African American. The topic of this cover page is the power of black and African American people in movies. The actor portrayed in this cover photo is Chadwick Boseman and the director is Ryan Coogler and they are all African American. The headlines “ A HERO RISES” influence the meaning of the image which is the headshot of the Chadwick Boseman in black and white. The cover page is informational to emphasis more on the power of the image. As we can see that the background is white which shows the actor more because of his colored skin. it is a shot from a camera angle positioned low on the vertical axis, below the eye line, looking up. that makes the subject look strong and powerful. The color of the image is the black and white to emphasize more on the fact that he is an African American actor, and the background is white which gives it more focus on the fact that he is African American. These are the element that shows that the context of image is implied. The subject portrayed in the cover is the main character of the movie the black panther played by Chadwick Boseman. he was born in 1977 in USA, he is 41 years old.
In the article “The Revolutionary power of black panther” by Jamil Smith, he mentions “Black Panther is poised to prove to Hollywood that African-American narratives have the power to generate profits from all audiences. And, more important, that making movies about black lives is part of showing that they matter.” which is a proof that this image is the perfect image to portray the idea of black people in Hollywood. The implication of using this image is to show the conflict of racism. The meaning of this image may differ in each society. In my case it may give me a different interpretation because of my surrounding that is not going through the same obstacle that African American are going through. There are several underlying message embedded in this graphic. The main one is racism and stereotypes. We can analyze that by looking of how the color of the cover is all black and white, and the headline wants stop this racism war against black people mainly in Hollywood. The subject emotions in the image give the impression of anger to show that this article support the idea of stopping racism.
To conclude images have a strong messages, the more simple it is the more the message is strong. In our case the cover photo of the time magizine that portrays the actor of the Black Panther. to my opinion the image can tell everything about the article before reading it. Most importantly we have to look at all the elements such as lighting, camera angle, color, and how the headline is related to the image.
Reference
Smith, J. (2018, February 08). Super Powered. Retrieved February 10, 2018, from http://time.com/magazine/us/5139093/ february-19th-2018-vol-191-no-6-u-s/
Smith, J. (2018, January 18). The Revolutionary Power Of Black Panther. Retrieved February 10, 2018, from http://time.com/black-panther/
