Critical Approaches to Film

Representations of Race

This lesson is based around the article by Stam & Spence 1983

Twilight films 'foster

unhealthy attitudes

about relationships'

'She falls in love with

this guy and the second

he leaves her, her life is

over,‘ (Shailene

Woodley)

http://www.cracked.com/article_20082_6-insane-stereotypes-that-movies-cant-seem-to-get-

over.html

#6. Everyone in Africa Is Uncivilized or a Warlord

‘The opening of Casino Royale introduces us to Africa with the image of

a bunch of black guys betting on a fight between a mongoose and a

snake.’

Can be

found on

the website

This essay featured in Screen magazine in 1983

Stam & Spence (1983) Aims

• Looking at race in films

• Expanding on existing writings on race

• Moving away from purely looking at character

• Discussing ‘positive images’ of race – are these racist?

• Textual analysis

“Where they cut off your ear / If they don’t like your face / It’s

barbaric, but hey, it’s home.”

Where it’s flat and immense and the heat is

intense.”

Colonialism: • Refers to process by which European

powers (including US) reached position of economic, military, political and cultural domination in much of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

• Reached its peak between 1900 and end of WW1

• Europe had colonised roughly 85% of the earth!

• All began to break up after the disintegration of the European colonial empires after WW2

Third World: • refers to historical victims of this process. The

colonised, neo-colonised or de - colonised

nations of the world. Whose economic and

political structures have been shaped and

deformed within the colonial process.

Racism• Product of colonisation process.

• Victims of racism are those whose

identity was forged within the colonial

process:

• E.G. Blacks in US

• Asians & West Indians in Great Britain

• Arab workers in France

• All of these share an oppressive

situation and status of second class

citizens

Albert Memmi (1968)

• American Indians: Beasts and cannibals (when white Europeans slaughtering them and gaining their land)

• Blacks: lazy (because they were being exploited as slaves)

• Mexicans: caricatured as ‘greasers’ and ‘bandidos’ (US had seized half their territory)

Stereotypes like these come from the colonisers

Early uses of stereotypes in cinema

• Lazy Mexicans

• Shifty Arabs

• Savage Africans

• Exotic Asians

• Mexican ‘greasers’

• Slavery idealised and slaves degraded in

Birth of a Nation (1915)

• Safari films: present Africa as land of

lions in the jungle. Only tiny proportion

of African land mass could be called

jungle and lions live in grasslands.

‘Flawed way the Third World is depicted in

films in Hollywood’

Absence of oppressed groups

History of the oppressed not always shown in

movies

Language of colonised not always

accurate

• ‘often reduced to an incomprehensible jumble

of background murmurs’

Positive Images (KEY POINT!)

• ‘A cinema dominated by positive images, characterised by a bending over backwards not to be racist attitude, might ultimately betray a lack of confidence in the group portrayed, which usually itself has no illusions concerning its own perfection’

Parody of a stereotype, rather than the

stereotype itself?

A black slave is torn apart by dogs as a crowd of white overseers savours

the sight and a black bounty hunter watches passively behind shades. A

black father makes his little girl crack open a crab with her bare hands

then flex her tiny muscles like a pint-size N.F.L. line backer. A black pilot

snorts a line of cocaine after a night of debauchery and, just a few

minutes before lift off, knocks back several miniature bottles of alcohol.

A black woman tells President Lincoln that God will guide him as he

pushes legislation that will end slavery but not dent notions of white

supremacy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/movies/

awardsseason/black-characters-are-still-too-

good-too-bad-or-invisible.html?_r=0

Stereotypes

• Can be useful to determine

prejudice on screen

• Danger of over – focus on

characters

• Should take culture into

account; are stereotypes of

races same for all countries?

‘Codes & Counter Strategies’

• When analysing characters you

should also think about:

• composition of image

• framing

• scale

• on and off screen sound

• music

• questions of plot and character

The scale of the image of character

and duration are related to the respect

afforded a character and potential for

audience sympathy, understanding

and identification.

Which characters are afforded close-ups?

What cinematic strategies are used to gain a connection between

spectator and characters on screen?

Which are relegated to the background?

Does a character look and act or merely appear to be looked at and

acted upon?

With whom is the audience permitted intimacy?

If there is off screen commentary or dialogue, what is its relation to

the image?

A comprehensive methodology must pay attention to the mediations

which intervene between ‘reality’ and representation. Its emphasis

should be on narrative structure, genre conventions, and cinematic

style rather than on perfect correctness of representation or fidelity

to an original ‘real’ model or prototype. We must beware of mistakes

in which the criteria appropriate to one genre are applied to another.

Links

• http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/are

-these-disney-movies-racist

• http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/movies

/awardsseason/black-characters-are-still-too-

good-too-bad-or-

invisible.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0