[QUESTION OF THE DAY] Is A Black Hollywood Needed?
In my last blog entry I discussed where I thought blacks were in television (if you haven’t read it, check it out here). Essentially my opinion is that it isn’t looking so good. There are no television networks owned by black people, and shows that prominently feature people of color are too far and in between. Today I would like to shift my focus to cinema and see if maybe we’re doing better there.
The short answer; no, not really, but let’s add a little more depth to that.
I am thinking of dubbing 2014 “The Year of Whitewashed History”, although if we’re being honest, that’s pretty much every year. We’ve already had one biblical epic this year (Noah) where director Darren Aronofsky thought that white English, Australian, and American actors were the best choices to represent early human civilization (because when I think of ancient Mesopotamia, I think of Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly). When asked what happened to casting people of color, co-screenwriter Ari Handel said:
“From the beginning, we were concerned about casting, the issue of race. What we realized is that this story is functioning at the level of myth, and as a mythical story, the race of the individuals doesn’t matter. They’re supposed to be stand-ins for all people … You either try to put everything in there, which just calls attention to it, or you just say, ‘Let’s make that not a factor, because we’re trying to deal with everyman.'”
In other words he’s saying that the reason they didn’t cast any other races in the movie is because it would have called attention to the fact that there were other races in the movie. This would have been bad for some reason. I think I would rather he have just said that they didn’t care to. And not to be outdone, director Ridley Scott plans to inflict upon us his own biblical epic, Exodus: Gods and Kings, where ancient Israelites and Egyptians will be played by – wait for it – white English, Australian, and American actors. Unlike Aronofsky, Scott did cast black actors. They’re all slaves and poor people with likely five lines in between them, but they are there. Oh and lest I forget, in 2016 we’ll be getting another epic set in ancient Egypt titled Gods of Egypt. That movie will see Egyptian gods played by actors like Scottish Gerard Butler and Danish Nicolas Coster-Waldau.
There is actually a #BoycottExodusMovie movement making its rounds about Twitter, where people are making their frustration with this longstanding Hollywood tradition known. While I support this cause I can’t bring myself to the boiling point so many others have reached. Sure it’s infuriating to see how Hollywood continues to take the Africans out of African history, at least when it comes to Egypt, but this has been going on for so long that sadly I’m used to it.
On the surface it looks as though people of color have been making great strides in the industry. Just recently 12 Years a Slave made history by becoming the first film by a black director to win the coveted Academy Award for Best Film. Actress Lupita Nyong’o is quickly becoming the new “It girl” after netting the award for Best Supporting Actress in that film. We even have Michael B. Jordan cast as the Human Torch in the new Fantastic Four reboot, the first time since Blade Trinity (which was 10 years ago) that a black actor gets a lead role in a superhero film. These are great accomplishments to be sure, but dive a little deeper and you’ll still find a whole lot of work needs to be done.
You see while I am truly glad for Steve McQueen and the entire cast for 12 Years a Slave, the reality is that it is mainly in films and roles of this type that black actors are being recognized for their talents. There are very few roles written for people of color in Hollywood that don’t require us to be black first and people second. We can win as many Oscars as the Academy can give us and it wouldn’t change a thing. Ask Halle Berry how winning Best Actress back in 2002 has been working out for her career. Ask Octavia Spencer. Hollywood is good at celebrating black people for representing the struggle of our history, but the industry lacks any interest in showing the progress made through that struggle.
And speaking of struggling, even in historical pieces that’s all people of color seemed to be allowed to do. Let’s look back at the aforementioned Exodus: Gods and Kings. The story is set in Africa (Egypt to be precise). What setting is more tied to black history than that? And yet in spite of this, the roles that should have gone to actors of color went to white people instead. Egypt; former home of one of mankind’s most powerful civilizations and the only part of Africa where the ethnicity of its people is still under dispute. I wonder why. Is it too problematic for Hollywood to show people of color as more than just slaves and the impoverished?
I can’t imagine that there would be any actor of color that isn’t aware of the problems in the industry, and many have voiced their concerns. Samuel L. Jackson has always been vocal about his issues with the relationship between race and Hollywood. On the topic of 12 Years a Slave he’s said that while it’s good that the movie was made and stirs conversation, lesser acknowledged films like Fruitvale Station were “braver” for daring to discuss the current state of racism in America.
“It explains things like the shooting of Trayvon Martin, the problems with stop and search, and is just more poignant. America is much more willing to acknowledge what happened in the past: ‘We freed the slaves! It’s all good!’ But to say: ‘We are still unnecessarily killing black men’ – let’s have a conversation about that.”
Actress Viola Davis, who was nominated for Best Actress for her performance in the 2011 film The Help, has spoken many times on not just being black, but also being a black woman in Hollywood. In an interview with Oprah she discussed how the roles written for women of color are disproportionately lower than those written for white women.
“We’re in crisis mode as black actresses. It’s not only in the sheer number of roles that are offered and that are out there, but the quality of the roles. The quality — and therein lies the problem. We’re in deprivation mode because me, Alfre and Phylicia, we’re in the same category. Whereas if you take a Caucasian actress, you have the one who are the teens, in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s — they’re all different. There are roles for each of them. But you only have two or three categories for black actresses.”
I couldn’t agree with Davis more. Roles for white actors are varied, while roles for blacks are more often than not relegated to “the struggle.” We can’t be kings, we can’t be queens, we can’t even be the average Joe/Jane. Is Chadwick Boseman’s career going to be defined by him playing famous deceased black celebrities? First Jackie Robinson and now James Brown. It sure would be nice to see him do something else, maybe a genre piece like Her. Let’s be honest, Joaquin Phoenix’s character didn’t have to be white. I’m not saying I had a problem with that movie or its cast, but I am saying that we need more roles like that for black actors.
But decisions like that aren’t made by the actors, they’re made by the filmmakers and the studios. Unfortunately even there the presence of people of color is limited. Just as I pointed out in my last post about there being no black owners of television networks, likewise there are no blacks as heads of major Hollywood studios. A study published by the Los Angeles Times in 2012 found that of the 5,765 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, only 2% were black.
Lee Daniels, director of 2009’s Precious and last year’s The Butler has said that he’s had an increasingly hard time getting his films made. He was told by studios when looking for distribution for Precious that “no one wanted to see that film.” And studio execs always know what they’re talking about, even though the movie made six times its budget back worldwide. While working on The Butler he said that he was pretty much “back to square one.”
And yes, all of this is frustrating. Even still I can’t get too worked up about it. What upsets me more than any of the items I mentioned is the fact that despite all of this, people of color are still waiting for Hollywood to change. Big budget studios have made it abundantly clear that they have no interest in putting blacks in the spotlight as anything other than historical footnotes and/or minstrel shows. I believe that if we want our stories told the way we want them to be told, then we have to be the ones doing the telling.
Back in 2011 actor Anthony Mackie said in an interview that black people need to start making our own movies. “I think right now [blacks] are being kind of lazy on our game,” he said. He added “There are enough brothers with distribution deals and production deals where we should be making our own movies.”
The man has a point. Every year during the Oscars the conversation about where blacks are in film pops up, and every year it sounds exactly the same. The same problems are brought up, the same limitations, the same stereotypes. Honestly it’s getting old. Instead of wondering when Hollywood will give us more opportunities why don’t we bypass it altogether and create them ourselves? There is enough money floating around in the black cinematic community that we could produce and distribute our own films. They would have to start small of course, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Not every movie needs to be a $30+ million dollar extravaganza. With the right advertising a small project has an even greater chance of becoming a success.
Look at Paranormal Activity. The first film in the series was made on a budget of $15,000, and thanks to smart marketing (which was almost completely viral) the movie ended its worldwide run with $193 million.
Smaller independent projects are not a bad thing, and if some of the big named people of color in Hollywood come together as one and unite their resources, then we can see those small works become big ones. The big budget studios can ignore our skin color and our history, but the one thing they’ve never been able to ignore is our money. Let’s make that fact work for us. Otherwise we’ll be doomed to have the same conversation every year come awards season.