Task 6- Introduction & First Paragraph

"An investigation into the way black characters are represented more positively in contemporary films such as Snakes on a Plane and The Pursuit of Happyness. How does this contrast with dominant more negative representations of past eras."

Introduction

"Understanding of stereotypes is that they are ideological concepts; they select personality traits, mental, sexual or personal, that have particular ideological significance"[1]. To fully understand stereotypes and representations, we have to look into a specific racial group and why these stereotypes have been created. This essay will look into the in depth representation and stereotypes held against black characters and why and how these representations and stereotypes have changed.


First Paragraph

When looking back in the first half of the century black people were often depicted as dumb, evil, lazy, poor, animalistic, uncivilised, un-Christian people. The early British colonist brought theses initial thoughts with them to the US and white colonists commonly believe that black people were inferior to white people. These thoughts helped justify black slavery and the institution of many laws that continually condoned inhumane treatment and perpetuated to keep black people in a lower socioeconomic position. This is as to why they were represented like this within film for example Roots (1968), was about slavery, abuse and abduction. It revolved around a man's journey through slavery to freedom, and the character is represented as weaker than the white man.

"Blacks are natural causes of tension within films"[2], this creates a significant importance as to why black characters were given such a cruel part within films as it was enough for them to create tension and suspense. The rise in slavery films increased in the 60s up to the 90s, and the way black characters were portrayed within films then were to reminisce and have homage to the true events that occurred in 18 century. However in recent films in the 90s, Amistad (1997) is about how a man gets abducted in his own village and sold as a slave, within this film the black man is always shown as inferior to the white man as the camera angles suggest this.

"Then there is a 'native figure' who is dignified but ultimately becomes barbarism and savagery. This native figure is not unlike the black ghetto gangsters in films like New Jack City (1991)" [3]. This can be seen in films like Amistad as the character is treated as a savage and doesn't fit to the norms of society. However this soon moves on as the African-Americans understand their rights and create their own motion pictures, thus moving off the slavery era. However the rise of black performers, changed the way they were portrayed as they moved from a obvious to a subtle representation, as the comedy era came along.

When looking at the genre of some films that African-American have been represented in, comedy comes up very often. "Success has also come for more recent generation of comic black performers such as Martin Lawrence, Christ Tucker and Chris Rock. To what extent might the success of these performers, in the format of comedian comedy, be explained by the degree to which their antics conform to racist stereotypes such as that of the 'coons'?". [4]. The wave of comedy era, changed the way black actors were portrayed, as this changed them from being represented as slaves, maid/servants, uncivilised to more a subtle negative representation as they were now used for amusements in films like White Chicks (2004) or Down to Earth (2001), which specifically focuses on the change of colour of the actors as both films use black characters and changed (reincarnation) they skin colour to white.

This connotes that institutions (i.e. Paramount Pictures) still portray black actors as inferior to white people as they changed their image, which doesn't allow the audience to identify with the black actors. Whoopi Goldberg is one of relatively few women to have established a persona as a disruptive comedian-comic in Hollywood in recent decades, and it is no accident that she should also be a black, African-American performer. She is portrayed as loud, crazy, unruly (Ghost, 1990) goes against the dominant stereotypes of 'acceptable' female behaviour and is something of a rarity in film, even in the realm of comedy.


[1] Jewkes, Yvonne, 2004, Media Studies Readers, London,
[2] Laughey, Dan (2009): Media Studies Theories and Approaches, Harpenden, Kamera Books
[3] Laughey, Dan (2009): Media Studies Theories and Approaches, Harpenden, Kamera Books
[4] King, Geoff, (2002): Film Comedy, London, Wallflower