Much like in the autobiography, Lee’s use of narrative over his film “Malcolm X” gives it a very intimate relationship with its audience. The experiences that we see Malcolm going through in the film are all the more meaningful and dramatic because they are being told to the audience from personal experience, as if the audience is hearing his story directly from Malcolm himself. Furthermore, to aid this narrative, many of the scenes in the movie are filmed such that the audience gets the feeling that it is experiencing these things themselves.
For example, when Malcolm, or “Red” as he was called during his years of living on the edge before his imprisonment, goes to jail, the ways in which the bars of the prison and the rooms themselves are shot puts the audience in Malcolm’s place. This is most true in his experience in solitary confinement: When Malcolm claims that he has forgotten his ID number, he is sent to solitary confinement. As he lays there in darkness, the screen goes black such that the audience, too, is in darkness. The only interactions – such as when someone comes to give him water, and also when the priest tries to convince him that God can save him – are the audience’s only interactions, only insights into what is going on around Malcolm.
Lee also uses flashbacks, just like the autobiography does. These flashbacks are mainly used to show the audience the terrifying racism that Malcolm’s father and family faced before he was born. However, overall, these flashbacks serve to depict racism as a whole for what it really is and was in the time these flashbacks occurred. Perhaps the most disturbing yet most effective flashback is the one in which the audience witnesses the murder of Malcolm’s father by the KKK, and then the government’s failure to prosecute his murderers, naming his death a suicide.
Ultimately, the audience learns of the injustice of racism and the violence it produced in the time of Malcolm’s father, an injustice that was so deeply rooted in American culture and society that the government would call what was obviously a murder, given the brutal beating inflicted on the body before death, a suicide. Furthermore, these flashbacks relate the terrible racism that still existed in Malcolm’s generation and his constant exposure to racial violence, drawing a connection between him and his father.
Finally, Lee’s use of historical footage is worth noting. While he does use footage taken of Malcolm himself, he continues to use Denzel Washington in Malcolm’s place in order to maintain the believability and credibility that his other cinematic techniques discussed above built up throughout the film. Namely at the end of the film, Lee uses historical footage alone as a sort of commemoration to Malcolm and a summation of his film and the experiences which he depicted using Denzel Washington.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Blackface in Bamboozled
In the film Bamboozled, the character Manray plays a character called Mantan in a show called Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show. This show, produced by Pierre Delacroix, an educated African American man, is essentially a revitalization of the historical blackface character, such as we saw in class in the film Check Doublecheck with Amos and Andy. The show, like any minstrel show, was intended to be laden with racism that was extremely degrading to blacks, labeling them as stupid, illiterate, and incompetent.
In its racism, Delacroix hoped television networks would reject it, and that it would open the public’s eyes to the fact that racism is still rampant today. However, his show becomes a big hit, and the two main characters of the show – Manray and Womack – go from street life to fame after the first episode. Delacroix’s attempt to make a satirical and critical representation of the racism he, along with many other African Americans, was still subjected to in modern day America was not perceived as a backhanded slap to the white audience, but rather as a brilliant new comedy.
Corrupted by his fame, Delacroix gladly buys into this misrepresentation and perpetuation of traditional, white, American racist views about African Americans. His show continues to air, featuring Mantan and Womack as illiterate, slow-in-the-head, dancing buffoons. Manray is oblivious to the historical degradation of blacks that he is contributing to by starring in such a show, and Delacroix denies that he is perpetuating racist ideology and racial hierarchies with his show. The only voice of reason in the film is Sloan, played by Jada Pinkett Smith. She is the only one who sees the history of blackface in early films in this so-called “New Millennium Minstrel Show” and its connotations for African Americans.
Blackface characters, such as Amos and Andy, the mammy, and the ‘faithful souls’ we saw in Birth of a Nation, created stereotypical roles that heavily influenced the type of roles available to African American actors today. Racist images of blacks as illiterate, as sexual predators, and as racially and biologically inferior to whites were maintained and exaggerated at the expense of the African American actors’ pride and dignity. While some African American actors rejected these roles, many allowed themselves to be type-casted, some even performing in blackface (like Manray/Mantan); many allowed themselves to perpetuate this misrepresentation of African Americans and their culture solely for the material benefits/wealth.
Bamboozled, then, is a commentary on the ways in which African Americans were, and continue to be, misrepresented by the media. Furthermore, considering Manray’s murder by the Mau Maus at the end of the film, it is a commentary on how African American actors who allowed themselves to be placed into these stereotypical roles were judged and rejected by their own culture/people. Sloan’s role is the mediary that allows the film’s audience to see both of these negative aspects of blackface – historically and in the remnants of the stereotypes that continue to humiliate African Americans today.
In its racism, Delacroix hoped television networks would reject it, and that it would open the public’s eyes to the fact that racism is still rampant today. However, his show becomes a big hit, and the two main characters of the show – Manray and Womack – go from street life to fame after the first episode. Delacroix’s attempt to make a satirical and critical representation of the racism he, along with many other African Americans, was still subjected to in modern day America was not perceived as a backhanded slap to the white audience, but rather as a brilliant new comedy.
Corrupted by his fame, Delacroix gladly buys into this misrepresentation and perpetuation of traditional, white, American racist views about African Americans. His show continues to air, featuring Mantan and Womack as illiterate, slow-in-the-head, dancing buffoons. Manray is oblivious to the historical degradation of blacks that he is contributing to by starring in such a show, and Delacroix denies that he is perpetuating racist ideology and racial hierarchies with his show. The only voice of reason in the film is Sloan, played by Jada Pinkett Smith. She is the only one who sees the history of blackface in early films in this so-called “New Millennium Minstrel Show” and its connotations for African Americans.
Blackface characters, such as Amos and Andy, the mammy, and the ‘faithful souls’ we saw in Birth of a Nation, created stereotypical roles that heavily influenced the type of roles available to African American actors today. Racist images of blacks as illiterate, as sexual predators, and as racially and biologically inferior to whites were maintained and exaggerated at the expense of the African American actors’ pride and dignity. While some African American actors rejected these roles, many allowed themselves to be type-casted, some even performing in blackface (like Manray/Mantan); many allowed themselves to perpetuate this misrepresentation of African Americans and their culture solely for the material benefits/wealth.
Bamboozled, then, is a commentary on the ways in which African Americans were, and continue to be, misrepresented by the media. Furthermore, considering Manray’s murder by the Mau Maus at the end of the film, it is a commentary on how African American actors who allowed themselves to be placed into these stereotypical roles were judged and rejected by their own culture/people. Sloan’s role is the mediary that allows the film’s audience to see both of these negative aspects of blackface – historically and in the remnants of the stereotypes that continue to humiliate African Americans today.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Glory and Birth of a Nation
The film Glory does an outstanding job of depicting the hardships that soldiers go through in war, and legitimizes the black experience during the Civil War by, through fictitious characters, giving depth and complexity to black characters in the film. By legitimizing the black experience and confronting the dehumanizing attacks that blacks had to face due to the color of their skin, the film provides direct commentary on films such as Birth of a Nation.
As we read for class in Galtthar’s text, “’Glory,’ the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, and Black Soldiers in the Civil War,” there were some flaws in historical representation – such as the whipping of Trip, which would never have happened since whipping had already become illegal in August of 1861 (Glatthar, 483). However, despite this, it does a wonderful job of illuminating the discrimination that blacks were still subject to even as slavery was ending. They were considered unfit to fight because they were not “real” men, making it much harder not only for them to be put into action, but also for them to reach the ranks and or respect of their white peers. The entire plot of the film is centered on countering the racial bias against blacks, and proving that black soldiers fought just as valiantly as white soldiers.
Glory can also be understood as a commentary to Birth of a Nation. Unlike Birth of a Nation, the black characters in the film are actually black, not in blackface – a small but vital difference in that Glory’s producer went into the film giving black and white actors equal footing rather than considering them only as part of the background or undeserving of actual roles as the producer of Birth of a Nation obviously did. Casting aside, the actual plots of the films are almost in direct opposition: Birth of a Nation depicts African Americans as either being “faithful souls” – ex-slaves loyal to their oppressor – or savage, bestial beings who need to be controlled. This image is synonymous to the one that the film Glory is trying to deconstruct. By the time of the Civil War, despite the fact that slavery was coming to an end, many white Americans still believed in the negative view of blacks that Birth of a Nation portrayed. But what Glory does is to depict its African American characters with such humanity that this view is thrown out the window.
Perhaps most important are Thomas, Trip, and the Sergeant Major to the deconstruction of the image of African Americans as bestial, incompetent, and in need of control. In Birth of a Nation, we see the black characters as violent, power-hungry, and savage beings who are sexual predators, dangers to white women. The scene in Glory in which Colonel Montgomery’s African American troop is juxtaposed to Colonel Shaw’s is key in combating these assumptions. While Montgomery’s men seem to fulfill this dehumanized prescription for African Americans when they sack a town, burning it to the ground and beating innocent women, Shaw’s men are disgusted by the scene, obviously ashamed that people of their color would perpetuate white, American fears and assumptions about blacks. Furthermore, it is made quite clear that Shaw’s men would never commit such crimes as Montgomery’s men. Ultimately, the image of the savage black man is made to be completely out of place and looked down upon not only by whites but, more importantly, by other African Americans themselves. By doing so, the film allows African Americans to legitimize their own experience and re-humanize their characters in film rather than adhering to prescribed roles such as “the Mammy” or the “faithful souls.”
As we read for class in Galtthar’s text, “’Glory,’ the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, and Black Soldiers in the Civil War,” there were some flaws in historical representation – such as the whipping of Trip, which would never have happened since whipping had already become illegal in August of 1861 (Glatthar, 483). However, despite this, it does a wonderful job of illuminating the discrimination that blacks were still subject to even as slavery was ending. They were considered unfit to fight because they were not “real” men, making it much harder not only for them to be put into action, but also for them to reach the ranks and or respect of their white peers. The entire plot of the film is centered on countering the racial bias against blacks, and proving that black soldiers fought just as valiantly as white soldiers.
Glory can also be understood as a commentary to Birth of a Nation. Unlike Birth of a Nation, the black characters in the film are actually black, not in blackface – a small but vital difference in that Glory’s producer went into the film giving black and white actors equal footing rather than considering them only as part of the background or undeserving of actual roles as the producer of Birth of a Nation obviously did. Casting aside, the actual plots of the films are almost in direct opposition: Birth of a Nation depicts African Americans as either being “faithful souls” – ex-slaves loyal to their oppressor – or savage, bestial beings who need to be controlled. This image is synonymous to the one that the film Glory is trying to deconstruct. By the time of the Civil War, despite the fact that slavery was coming to an end, many white Americans still believed in the negative view of blacks that Birth of a Nation portrayed. But what Glory does is to depict its African American characters with such humanity that this view is thrown out the window.
Perhaps most important are Thomas, Trip, and the Sergeant Major to the deconstruction of the image of African Americans as bestial, incompetent, and in need of control. In Birth of a Nation, we see the black characters as violent, power-hungry, and savage beings who are sexual predators, dangers to white women. The scene in Glory in which Colonel Montgomery’s African American troop is juxtaposed to Colonel Shaw’s is key in combating these assumptions. While Montgomery’s men seem to fulfill this dehumanized prescription for African Americans when they sack a town, burning it to the ground and beating innocent women, Shaw’s men are disgusted by the scene, obviously ashamed that people of their color would perpetuate white, American fears and assumptions about blacks. Furthermore, it is made quite clear that Shaw’s men would never commit such crimes as Montgomery’s men. Ultimately, the image of the savage black man is made to be completely out of place and looked down upon not only by whites but, more importantly, by other African Americans themselves. By doing so, the film allows African Americans to legitimize their own experience and re-humanize their characters in film rather than adhering to prescribed roles such as “the Mammy” or the “faithful souls.”
Thursday, May 20, 2010
"Birth of a Nation" and "Check Doublecheck"
In both “Birth of a Nation” and “Check Doublecheck,” white actors in blackface confirm white stereotypes against blacks. In “Birth of a Nation,” these stereotypes play themselves out as ‘the faithful souls’ – the mammy and the loyal ex-slave, the black man as a sexual predator, the black woman as a sexual deviant, and black people in general as being savage-like. In “Check Doublecheck,” the characters Amos and Andy are like an earlier, black version of dumb and dumber. They are dumb as doorknobs and serve as only comedic relief in the film.
As I stated before, the black characters in the film “Birth of a Nation” are depicted as bestial beings who need containment and control not only for the good of the white man but for themselves. One example of the black man as a sexual predator occurs when a former slave chases a white woman through the forest, resulting in her committing suicide rather than falling prey to his lust. Similarly, towards the end of the film, the mulatto character Lynch tries to force Elsie Stoneman to be his wife.
The film as a whole can be understood as a legitimization of the Ku Klux Klan, turning the viewer’s sympathy to the white characters and undermining the decades of suffering that black slaves went through. It is not excusable to be as violent and degrading as the whites were to the blacks during slavery or as the blacks are to the whites in this film. However, the film takes the stance that the violent domination of blacks during slavery was legitimized because the blacks needed to be controlled whereas the violence that occurs against the whites is depicted as evil. It is one this premise that the KKK is allowed to form without the viewer’s total objection. Because the film only shows a backlash of ex-slaves against supposedly innocent white men, women, and children, it is the white man whom the viewer sympathizes with. In fact, by the end of the film, the victory of the KKK over the ‘out-of-control’ blacks is supposed to be a win for the viewer as well – seeing good prevail over evil.
In “Check Doublecheck,” the characters Amos and Andy reiterate the degrading stereotypes of black males as less civilized and less civilized or even incapable of intellectual discussion or computation. In the beginning of the film, for example, when Amos tries to calculate what ten percent of twelve is – something most of us can do in our heads – he simply repeats the phrase “ten goes into twelve” over and over without ever reaching an answer. To further illuminate and humiliate Amos’ and blacks’ stupidity, a third party exclaims that ten percent of twelve is eight after reciting a number of operations to reach the number eight that make absolutely no sense at all.
It is important to note that the characters Amos and Andy are also in blackface because it allows white actors to more effectively convince the viewers that the stereotypes these actors are performing are real, legitimate representations of blacks. Viewers watching this film, therefore, would assume that blacks are in fact less intellectually capable (and therefore easily taken advantage of) to the point that their behavior becomes comedic and almost painful to watch. Similarly, again due to the use of blackface, it also becomes more easy to believe for viewers watching “Birth of a Nation” that blacks are indeed sexual deviants, less civilized, and in need of white control and domination.
As I stated before, the black characters in the film “Birth of a Nation” are depicted as bestial beings who need containment and control not only for the good of the white man but for themselves. One example of the black man as a sexual predator occurs when a former slave chases a white woman through the forest, resulting in her committing suicide rather than falling prey to his lust. Similarly, towards the end of the film, the mulatto character Lynch tries to force Elsie Stoneman to be his wife.
The film as a whole can be understood as a legitimization of the Ku Klux Klan, turning the viewer’s sympathy to the white characters and undermining the decades of suffering that black slaves went through. It is not excusable to be as violent and degrading as the whites were to the blacks during slavery or as the blacks are to the whites in this film. However, the film takes the stance that the violent domination of blacks during slavery was legitimized because the blacks needed to be controlled whereas the violence that occurs against the whites is depicted as evil. It is one this premise that the KKK is allowed to form without the viewer’s total objection. Because the film only shows a backlash of ex-slaves against supposedly innocent white men, women, and children, it is the white man whom the viewer sympathizes with. In fact, by the end of the film, the victory of the KKK over the ‘out-of-control’ blacks is supposed to be a win for the viewer as well – seeing good prevail over evil.
In “Check Doublecheck,” the characters Amos and Andy reiterate the degrading stereotypes of black males as less civilized and less civilized or even incapable of intellectual discussion or computation. In the beginning of the film, for example, when Amos tries to calculate what ten percent of twelve is – something most of us can do in our heads – he simply repeats the phrase “ten goes into twelve” over and over without ever reaching an answer. To further illuminate and humiliate Amos’ and blacks’ stupidity, a third party exclaims that ten percent of twelve is eight after reciting a number of operations to reach the number eight that make absolutely no sense at all.
It is important to note that the characters Amos and Andy are also in blackface because it allows white actors to more effectively convince the viewers that the stereotypes these actors are performing are real, legitimate representations of blacks. Viewers watching this film, therefore, would assume that blacks are in fact less intellectually capable (and therefore easily taken advantage of) to the point that their behavior becomes comedic and almost painful to watch. Similarly, again due to the use of blackface, it also becomes more easy to believe for viewers watching “Birth of a Nation” that blacks are indeed sexual deviants, less civilized, and in need of white control and domination.
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