As a black man, when Bell Hook started talking about the negative images of race exploited on forms of representation (movies) it hit a personal note for me. the image of a black villain in the movie Smoke is frustrating to look at because I could see myself, as a child, questioning if that is what I should aspire to be. If it’s not, why is it constantly being thrown in my face? What’s going on in our society to be so ignorant? Hook mentioned talking with the director, asking him why he chose to have a black man as a villain. In short, the director’s response was he felt a black thief would present a clear “good-guy-bad-guy quality”: black vs. white.
Hook had mentioned the movie Smoke was recently released. That was back in the mid 90’s. In the past ten years movies like Hotel Rwanda, Miracle at St. Anne, Precious, The Pursuit of Happyness, and Waiting for Superman have shown honest interpretations of race. I recall an interview with Dave Chappelle explaining to Oprah Winfrey how people he was working with were pressuring him to wear a dress and convey a humorous, but negative, stereotype of black men cross dressing. Chappelle tuned down the idea, because he didn’t want to wear the dress. The media continues to perpetuate negative racial stereotypes in place of honest interpretations. However, I believe that as people of color become more empowered and influential the stereotypes become challenged and overshadowed by original and honest interpretations.
Yes, the whole "Black man in a dress" is such a staple of American comedy films. It is good to hear chapelle resist that stereotype, but sadly we have people like Tyler Perry reviving it with his Madea movies. However, I was glad to see he also made the film For Colored Girls, which I am eager to see when it comes out on DVD. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteExcellent use of the Dave Chappelle interview. I watched it myself and had forgotten about that until you mentioned it which upsets me even further. I am white and a male. So many of the issues brought forth in this course already infuriate me to the core. When you ask the question: "What's going on in our society to be so ignorant?" I wish I knew the answer. Hook tried to show that global literacy is necessary for original and honest interpretations of blacks and women. I do not believe that is the key to utopia. It's only the foundation which all our human minds seem to be capable of now... the bare minimum.
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