The African Americans actors in the filmmarketing
During more than a century the Hollywood uses repetition as a mean of the influence on his audience, by showing in the film vile image of black people. Most of them draws blacks, by distorting every feature of what are the most of these men, women and children are. While gathering evidence for this essay, I was guided by the need to expose the systematic and intrusive injustice – the degrading and dehumanization of a whole nation in the filmmaking of the US. Up to now, Holywood retains the stereotype towards black actors because Hollywood is not yet ready to consider black actors as an equal to white people.
Firstly, the total dominance of the “white” thinking in Hollywood led to the fact that the black color of a hero on-screen became certain semiotic code that included the main racial stereotypes about African Americans. However, the tradition of portraying “blacks” in a negative light appeared in the American culture, long before the invention of cinema, in the colonial times in the history of the United States. It is generally accepted to allocate seven historically established in American culture images of black, four female (Mammy, Aunt Jemimah, Sapphire, and Jezebel) and three male (Sambo, Jim Crow, the Savage). All these images were originated in the South before the Civil War and were reflected in the American culture and folklore. Among the classic “black” female archetypes, the most famous and often exploited, of course, is the image of Mammy. It was a female version of a perfect servant - stressed asexual, hard-working, friendly dark-skinned slave girl, who was very loyal to her owners and who educated their children. Functions of Aunt Jemima were the normal duties of the cook. Much more repulsive were the archetypes of Jezebel and Sapphire because of promiscuity and the vulgarity of the first, and the contentiousness of the second. But if Sapphire was portrayed domineering, stubborn woman who constantly come into verbal altercation with her stupid husband, Jezebel was hypersexual black temptress, awakening in white men the basest carnal desires. Less appealing were male archetypes. Sambo represented the blunt, obedient and happy servant, contented with his situation while the image of jester Jim Crow, was more grotesque. The most popular was probably the Savage - a rough, primitive creation, who was more animal than human. While Sambo and Jim Crow represented the dream of the slave owners, who want to see their slaves as weak-willed, illiterate and cheerful, who were able only to serve and entertain, the Savage was an embodiment of all the fears of Southerners, because he was a bearer of natural chaos with the primitive instincts (Black-face.com). In the cinema, some of these images have appeared for the first time in one of the most racist films in American history, in D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation”. There was not any black actors, and all the roles were played by white actors. Virtually, all blacks in the film represented a heinous unscrupulous tyrants and villains or idiots, who gave their lives for their masters. It is not surprising that such a concept was close to many people, thus, the Griffith’s film has a great success. His influence was so big, that it unwittingly helped perpetuate the primitive, basic stereotypes of the “black.”
Since the birth and evolution of black cinema took place in conditions of severe discrimination of the Hollywood for a long time, African Americans were shown on the screen as it would like to see the conservative white and often racist audience. The personages were emphatically comical and devoid of any trace of individuality. Not surprisingly, that African Americans were outraged by this situation, and in the mid-tenth of the XX century appeared the direction of race film, serving as an alternative to the “white”. For the first time blacks appeared on the big screen not as the grotesque character types, but as a full-fledged characters, they suffer, like everyone else, from troubles in life and rejoiced personal success.
However, the prosperity of black cinema did not last for long, and soon as the Great Depression restored all to its origins. Nothing to do with reality these directions, of course, did not have, because most of them were parodies of popular Hollywood genres. During these years, African-American actors were extremely limited in their roles, playing mostly the role of villains, violent criminals, gang members, or taking part in comedies, in which they were portrayed as stupid and uneducated people.
Another factor contributing to the revival of “black film” is the undergoing significant changes, in recent years, the system of distribution of these pictures. Although, the phenomenon of black cinema has been around for a very long time, it has never been particularly popular because of its specificity, even in the US, without mentioning the other countries. But if early African American films are almost always financed by independent investors, now they are distributed by large studio companies (for example, The Weinstein Company), thus, it helps expand the audience and pretend to box-office success.
Last year, talks of the renaissance of the black cinema came up with a bang. The reason, without doubt, was the most visible and discussed “black film”, a recent drama “12 Years a Slave” (2013) which won the prize of the American Film Academy. The American history has always been closely and inextricably linked to the issue of slavery, thus, the number of films about this period is extremely small. The reason is quite simple: nobody wants to recall once again the events of the sesquicentennial ago. For some, it is a deep disgrace, and other horrific memories of the history of their people. Therefore, it is symbolic that the film was not directed by an African American, but by the representative of an entirely different culture - black Briton Steve McQueen. The autobiography of Solomon Northup, which by the will of circumstances was left in bondage for twelve years in the South, was written in 1853. Its author was a free man, a family man and a talented violinist, he had not a bit of servility. That monstrous and terrible life changes overnight have stripped him, so he lost not only his rights, but his personality and even name. While being once one of those, whom he had initially despised for lack of will and lack of education, Solomon changed, by dedicating his life after the release from slavery to struggle for the rights of black people. Even the final happy ending is difficult to consider as such: the liberation from slavery did not make the protagonist happy, because he could not save the others.
Over the past few years, African American cinema has made a huge step forward. But we can not talk about the “new black wave”, because the position of the black actors in Hollywood is still deplorable. Blacks rarely appear on the screen, and if they are, then they are prepared for the stereotypical role of the gangster from a black quarter.
Secondly, the Hollywood studios it still accepted to invite for all roles white actors - even if the script’s character bears the features of a different race. And, despite numerous protests and apparent inconsistency of the spirit of the times, this tradition does not go away in the past. The usage of white actors imaged in the movie the characters of other races, is often ironic, it is as old as the film industry itself. Most notable in this regard is the discrimination of African Americans and Asian Americans. Racism undoubtedly plays a role in the use of white actors to embody the characters on the silver screen with a different skin color. It is also quite common the view that white actors easier collect the box-office. Therefore, a producer who seeks to maximize profits, always prefers white actor to that of a different race. However, many people in the film industry are convinced of the insolvency of the argument that films with a non-white actors are sold bad abroad and have no resonance in the international public. The myth that black is bad to import would be funny if it was not so damaging his perpetuation. Will Smith, Denzel Washington, David Oylovo the work of these and other black actors is highly asked-for and it is famous in the film markets around the world. Human rights activists, observing the work of the media, as a rule, do not want the white actors to be employed in roles that involve another race human. The film industry is still predominantly white business, and racial minorities are underrepresented at all stages of filmmaking, both in front of the camera and behind it. Azis Ansari wrote in his article On Acting, Race and Hollywood that the situation drastically have not changed, there were some signs that a change in this direction had already begun on television and it will continue as a long-standing trend in Hollywood. He thought, that things were moving in the right direction, but whatever progress toward diversity he was making, the percentage of minorities playing lead roles was still painfully low (Ansari).
In addition, recently the foreign media noticed Dylan Marron’s videos in which he compiles replica of black actors from Hollywood movies, proving that in total they occupy no more than a minute at a time, in fact that a film can last for several hours. Dylan’s project “Every single word spoken by a person of color in the movie”, concerns that in small roles, blacks usually work on the less prestigious professions: waiter, pizza seller, cleaner and their replicas are limited to a few seconds. In an interview with BuzzFeed Marron said that he sees a problem in the fact that sponsors are afraid of losing the income because of the unfamiliar black actors. He was also outraged by the cast of the film adaptation of the novel by John Green’s “Fault in Our Stars”, consisting mainly of white actors. In “The Kingdom of the full moon”, Dylan found in total 10 seconds, when in the shot the black actor speaks. In the film “Her” and “500 Days of Summer” the fragments are longer, but not much: 30 and 40 seconds. Dylan made a total of 11 reviews of films, and due to the wide coverage and support of the press, his project is rapidly gaining momentum (Everysinglewordspoken.tumblr.com).
Thus, we can conclude, that the Holywood can not and does not yet want to consider the black actors as equal competitors to the white-skinned actors. In spite of the emergence of black cinema, and all the work that has been done to date, blacks have a little number of leading roles in the movies, and they often play the role that discriminates the ordinary black citizen.
Works cited
Ansari, Aziz. “Aziz Ansari On Acting, Race And Hollywood”. Nytimes.com. N.p., 2015. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Black-face.com,. “Blackface! - The History Of Racist Blackface Stereotypes”. N.p., 2016. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Everysinglewordspoken.tumblr.com,. “EVERY SINGLE WORD”. N.p., 2016. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
