“Hollywood: The Power of the White Gaze”
“we sit in pain as our white colleagues critique and define black culture from a space of authority, without the conscious knowledge of their micro-aggression, or our own hurt. Why do we allow this to continue? Because we long for acceptance? And yet that search for approval from whites in our field comes at a price — a price of submission to the humiliating forces of the matrix, false reality, or fantasy of our own exceptionalism.
In a world where many are now aware of implicit bias, it’s time to deal with those inherent preconceptions at home. We’ve dedicated our lives and art to looking at ourselves and our extended community, but for us, the most difficult thing to do is point the finger at our fellow filmmakers, our colleagues, and our white friends who create a large percentage of black-themed films coming out today. Often, their unconscious perspectives precariously reinforce a point-of-view that perpetuate stereotypes of black and brown people that in turn encourage a national and international pattern of perception. We have to work on changing that gaze with a conversation that begins locally, with our white friends about our complicated black and brown lives”
mmmm. I’m really concerned with the question of how much identity is formed in conversation with popular culture. How we ask ‘what is it like to be me — and how do I show this to other people? How do I know which moments are a success and which are failures, and where those moments are leading me?’ and we are answered by depictions of people like us in popular media… or, sometimes, we aren’t.
Related: Perceptions of black men and portrayal of athletes; Strong black woman stereotype
