For this journal entry I am going to focus on Chapter Four: African Americans and American Films from the book America on Film by Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin. In this chapter Benshoff and Griffin point out many stereotypical roles that African Americans were only allowed to play. Here are a few of them--the mammy;an overweight black woman who took care of the white master's children, the Uncle Tom; black house slave who faithfully served his white master, the coon; foolish, jiving simpleton who did everything to avoid work (79). These are just some of the roles that African Americans had to choose from in early films.
As time has progressed many things have changed and African Americans can now have lead roles in films, interracial counterparts and even win Academy Awards and Oscars for not just supporting roles but the lead role. Yet there are still movies being made today which place African Americans back in those stereotypical roles. I'm sure there is a list of movies I could research but the one that I just recented watch is Secret Life of Bees.
http://www.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK//video/screenplay/vi1690829593/
While I had watched this movie prior to this chapter I thought the movie was pretty good and basically about a troubled girl that needs answers about her mother. After reading and discussing the chapter in class is when I started to really dig into this movie.
The story line of this movie is that it is set in South Carolina in 1964, there is a troubled, young girl named Lily Owens (Dakota Fanning) who wants to find out about her mother, who is dead and if she ever really did love her. Her father T. Ray is a drunk and abuses Lily from time to time, verbally and physically. They have a nanny Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson) who watches and takes care of Lily. Rosaleen is the first mammy character that is presented in movie, although I disagree with Bensoff and Griffin's discription that the Mammy has to be overweight. Rosaleen takes good care of Lily and as the movie plays out the two walk into town where Lily is questioned for being with a negro woman. Rosaleen is called the "n" word quite a few times and is jumped and beaten by three older gentlemen for her actions that she took to try to show them she was not a dumb negro. There's many scenes one could pick out to clarify this point but this one in particular shows Hollywoods version of a "race movie." It has all the ideologies that racism is bad but it is a part of our history but it was not that critical to the the movie. It was more of a moment where you feel completely horrified but then realize oh well those things did happen back in 1964 and move on with the show.Which takes us to when Lily and Rosaleen run away and go to the Boatwright's house. Here August (Queen Latifah) is the more influencial mammy character who takes in the troubled, white girl and Rosaleen to help them. She also looks after her two sisters, hosts the women's church, and runs her own company: those may be things out of the norm for a early film mammy. Now August's sister, June (Alicia Keys) is a black power activist, angry, trusts no white person and is skeptical of this young white girl. June shows subtle hints of blaxploitation. She takes every chance she can get to cut down whites. For example in one scene about a famous white actor bringing a black woman to a movie there was protests and riots happening, June's comment is "Funny how white people hate black people so much when black women raise all their children." She has a valid point there. I just do not understand the problem but then I was not raised during that time period. The movie plays out and so I do not ruin the ending I will just say that Hollywood stuck with what works and left Lily Owens a peaceful and happy ending.
This movie shows a star studded cast, different mammy characters, a character that was somewhat blaxploitated, and is a "race movie" My question about this movie is it hurting the progression of African American actors or were those things necessary because of the setting being 1964 and the race issues at that time?
