I should have known a long time ago by my taste in movies that I would somehow end up as a history major. I have always loved historical fiction and since I was young I would especially absorb any and every movie I could get my hands on about African Americans during the times of overt struggle-- classic movies that claimed to capture the essence of the black experience in America like Roots, Amistad, the Color Purple, etc. But I had a special interest in movies that concentrated on Jim Crow era or classics about the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s.
However, there was something about watching movies that concentrated on this period that never really fulfilled me. There was always a sense of something missing when I watched movies like Mississippi Burning, but I could never figure out what it was. There was an especially bad taste left in my mouth after reading the novel and then watching the film interpretation of the movie The Help, and I just couldn't put my finger on why I disliked them both so much. So I did some research. I searched the race blogs for an answer to my confusion and I found the best one on one of my favorite blogs racialicious. The article talks about how most times when Hollywood makes a Civil Rights Era movie, it has been from the prospective of a white protagonist and they are usually the savior of the blacks of the time, as it plays out in The Help.
It wasn't until I read this, along with many other very harsh critiques of the movie (see here and here) that I realized how very few movies there are about that time period that lined up with my understanding of the period-- from the stories I had heard, the lessons I'd gotten from African Americans who lived during that time, academic readings I had done on my own. And it was because of the difference of perspective: mine coming from a history that tells me African Americans rose and lead this movement and as one of the articles state whites were "the help"; and the Hollywood's perspective that blacks would have accomplished nothing if some white savior wasn't there to move things along.
It's extremely telling that even when I asked the world of facebook to name featured films not from this perspective, we could only come up with Malcolm X and Do the Right Thing.
Watching George Lucas talk about his film Red Tails gave a lot of insight into why Hollywood is this way. Quite honestly it seems to just be because they don't believe a white audience will want to see an all black cast. It's not something that appeals to them. They want feel good movies that show all whites were not bad, that they did the right thing. They want a protagonist they can put themselves into and say "that would have been me, that's what I would have done". No one wants to look their harsh history in the face. And I personally find it extremely sad, that instead of trying to learn from it, we continue to try and change history or all together sweep it under the rug.
No comments:
Post a Comment