HOLLYWOOD AND ‘BLACK FILM’

• Conveniently vicious circle: risk = no/limited product = risk remains

• Pre-WWII, NAACP strong and succeeded in lobbying government

• Limited number of all-black films; very limited roles• Ground lost in post-WWII period: end of ‘debt’ to

black servicemen; end of entertainment cycle; new cycle of racism

• ‘black film’ in the post-WWII period?

THE GREEN MILE

“(A) virtual primer on white mythologies of blackness at the end of the twentieth century” (Gabbard, 2004: 144).

• Dependent on biblical/melodramatic notions of good and evil

• And entirely consistent with neo-liberal, US family values, argues Gabbard

• The character of Coffey is also a contemporary incarnation of Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom

• The scene in which Coffey miraculously cures the dying Melinda Moores, argues Gabbard, is a classic example of Hollywood’s ability and tendency to “arouse and contain” (p.146) white racial anxieties

• (the phrase is Modleski’s – p.77 of Feminism Without Women, 1991)

“Michael Clarke Duncan tongue-kisses cancer out of a white woman and cures her. And in the end Tom Hanks offers to set him free, but guess what? He refuses to leave Death Row. He’d rather die with Hanks looking on. Get the fuck outta here! That’s that old grateful slave shit.” (Spike Lee, in Gabbard, 2004: 173; from an interview in Cineaste 26(2) ).

THE FAMILY MAN

• An updating of It’s a Wonderful Life, but with a contemporary, paradigmatic choice of a black man as the angel

• Also, given the greater diversity of ‘life choices’ for contemporary audiences, it’s arguable that this film – with its emphasis on middle-class family life as a ‘natural’ goal – is even more conservative than Capra’s

• At no point in the film is it made clear why Cash (Don Cheadle) should be so determined to guide Jack (Nicolas Cage) toward respectable family life

• As a fantasy/marginal angel-cypher, Cash moves through versions of black typing, but is given no connections with black culture, black people, or anything really except Jack

• And his first incarnation/type, is another version of ‘arousal and containment’ of white anxieties

• The black angels films are part of a deeply rooted, white American fantasy

• An updating of Natty Bumpo and Chingachgook, Huck Finn and Nigger Jim, Ishmael and Queequeg, the Lone Ranger and Tonto

“(T)he pure, asexual love between a white man and a colored man living outside the laws of American culture is a common fantasy…reflect(ing) a dream among whites that they can be redeemed by winning the love and devotion of a single powerful, dark-skinned man. All those centuries of hatred and oppression can be wiped clean by this one pure act of love. If only it were so.” (Gabbard, 2004: 174).

NICOLA EVANS IN SCREEN 43(3), 2002

• 1990s see the rise of ‘mixed race’ family melodrama• Is this a new refuge for, source of re-affirmation for,

white men?• In A Family Thing, the answer is largely yes• Six Degrees of Separation and Smoke may be more

complex• both highlight white ways of imagining ‘race’• Both criticise or marginalise middle-class norms of

family life

• Both continue Walker’s interest in trying to narrate differently, in a less ‘European’ way

• Both try to make the family more outward-looking, rather than a private, safe haven

MONSTER’S BALL

• Berry first black woman to win a lead actress Oscar• Third African-American to win Oscar for lead part• Sixth African-American to win Oscar• No major studio distributor• Initial interest, but none agreed to son (Tyrell) dying• No studio shooting• Shot over 25 days• Forster uses long takes and medium and long shots

like many recent family melodramas

• Arguably a timeless story• But also about a dysfunctional Southern community

trapped in time (e.g. passing on of execution job, father to son, apparently still occurs)

• Multiple suicides• Violent, incapable fathers• Traumatised sons• Very few women in the film• Berry’s suffering so multiple it borders on parody• But generally praised for its powerful scenes and fragile

ending

‘ALL-BLACK’ FILM

Family melodrama, Woman’s Film, Female friendship film, Rite of passage film• Thin on the ground but evident:• The Color Purple; Just Another Girl on the IRT; Mi

Vida Loca; Real Women Have Curves; Eve’s Bayou; Precious

• IRT – brave, uneven; pushes its self-help message and black politics far (too far for some), and in so doing relies a bit on stereo-typing

• Mi Vida Loca – arguably more impressive than IRT, though does fall into the same traps

• but benefits from multiple voice-over and perspective

• And greater and more imaginative uses of female solidarity, and soundtrack

‘ALL-BLACK’ FILM AND FAMILY: THE COLOR PURPLE (1985)

• Spielberg’s task always impossible• Did work closely with Walker• Film and director heavily criticised for:• Depiction of black men• That men and Christianity were restored and

reintegrated• Women’s love and sexuality played down• White community too ‘absent in its presence’• Choice of Margaret Avery

BUT BLACK WOMEN VIEWERS TENDED TO LIKE THE COLOR PURPLE

• Because of dearth of presence, representation of black women in popular culture

• Because it addressed a taboo in the black community: abusive black men

• Because it connected with a strong tradition of oral and non-realist storytelling

• Because it provides, like EB, a counter-image of black people

• Because, arguably, for these viewers, it shows that women need women in a way they don’t need men

• Because woman’s perspective is privileged throughout (?)

• Because if it’s a profoundly American film, then not only women, but African-American women are used to reconstitute the national spirit

EVE’S BAYOU

• Arguably it’s all about in-between-ness, ‘liminality’ (swamp/land; past/present;adult/child; truth/memory)

• It’s Eve’s story; a rite of passage; and a woman’s film• It’s also an open film to the extent it looks across

characters’ perspectives• It effectively links seer-mystic idea to narrative incongruity• And highlights the malleable nature of vision and historical

memory• It’s highly Oedipal, but also a significant, post-Freudian

twist on the fantasy or complex

• It’s clearly a family melodrama regarding the way it uses sumptuous shots/wealth as an artifice of happiness; the imploding family scene; the (Mildred Pierce-esque) mother-daughter scene

• A ‘black film’? Its middle class status can be read in different ways

• It does try to engage with black culture and history• And raises the possibility of reading a familiar feature

(perhaps stereotype) positively (i.e. the black magic/mysticism)

PRECIOUS (2009)

• How could you argue that in various ways Precious is ‘black family melodrama’?

• Or could you also or instead argue it’s something else?

• Neo black family melodrama? Or something else entirely?

• What arguably are the film’s strengths?• And what may be its weaknesses or questionable

features?