Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film

Culture and the Moving Image

by Ed Guerrero

From D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation to Spike Lee's Malcolm X , Ed Guerrero argues, the commercial film industry reflects white domination of American society. Written with the energy and conviction generated by the new black film wave, Framing Blackness traces an ongoing epic―African Americans protesting screen images of blacks as criminals, servants, comics, athletes, and sidekicks. These images persist despite blacks' irrepressible demands for emancipated images and a role in the industry. Although starkly racist portrayals of blacks in early films have gradually been replaced by more appealing characterizations, the legacy of the plantation genre lives on in Blaxpoitation films, the fantastic racialized imagery in science fiction and horror films, and the resubordination of blacks in Reagan-era films. Probing the contradictions of such images, Guerrero recalls the controversies surrounding role choices by stars like Sidney Poitier, Eddie Murphy, Whoopie Goldberg, and Richard Pryor. Throughout his study, Guerrero is attentive to the ways African Americans resist Hollywood's one-dimensional images and superficial selling of black culture as the latest fad. Organizing political demonstrations and boycotts, writing, and creating their own film images are among the forms of active resistance documented. The final chapter awakens readers to the artistic and commercial breakthrough of black independent filmmakers who are using movies to channel their rage at social injustice. Guerrero points out their diverse approaches to depicting African American life and hails innovative tactics for financing their work. Framing Blackness is the most up-to-date critical study of how African Americans are acquiring power once the province of Hollywood the power of framing blackness.

In the series Culture and the Moving Image , edited by Robert Sklar.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, History, Race, African American

255 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1993

Reviews

[Markus]

I don't watch enough movies to know how good this is

[Melissa S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. It kind of reads like a college paper so be prepared for that but the content is very interesting. I'd like to see an updated version with analysis of recent films from the 2000's and on.

[Addy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for a project for school, but I'm so glad that I did because this book is great for those researching the industry. Yes, it demonstrates how Hollywood uses the same stereotypes created by whites in order to keep the status quo, comfortable, and get a large profit but it also give statistics on Hollywood and their bag of tricks to keep African-Americans oppressed and not able to tell their stories.

You'll often hear African-Americans say that Hollywood doesn't create black centered movies because African-Americans do no support the film. This is not true, in fact Hollywood has known since around the 1950's that Blacks make a sizable amount of the movie-going audience and yet they still don't cater to them. That's because Hollywood is only interested in wooing the white consumers (even as white decline in population) and maintaining the status quo with stereotypes, plots, and allegories in movies and discrimination in craft union and guilds where African-Americans are severely underrepresented.

The flaws I can see in this book is that I believe some of the analysis are a bit of a stretch (see Alice Walker's The Color Purple). The other flaw is that he mostly only critiques the images of Black men. He acknowledges that black women have a difficult time getting roles and creating content, but I honestly think that he could have tried to keep a balance because there are plenty of films where black women were given dehumanizing, oppressive, one-dimensional roles too. The last flaw is that he only critiques films of the black image in the white gaze, done by white directors until really the end of the book with the last chapter. I would have loved for him to talk about Oscar Micheaux and how we saw each other.

[Curtis J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who wants or needs to study Black cinema, or Black cultural history of the arts, needs to have Framing Blackness in their library. Dr. Guererro's unframing (pun intended) of Black film media is superbly laid out.

[Yvonne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well-written, thoughtful book. The subject matter was interesting. It does read a bit like a textbook. But it is still worth the read.

[Serge · Rating 3 out of 5]

This sweeping critique of nearly a century of film is uneven but still worthwhile. Guerrero tackles Birth of a Nation, Mandingo, and Color Purple (among several dozen titles) all in the same breath. Consequently some lines of analysis are more persuasive than others. Guerrero decries the cult of pure white womanhood in several Hollywood classics. He makes a convincing case for the psychic residue of slavery in a host of films which disguise well their racial anxieties in their "social construction and representation of race, otherness and non-whiteness" (Gremlins?Planet of the Apes? Star Wars?). He lingers for one too many chapters on the double -consciousness of Sidney Poitier. His treatment of the Blaxploitation era (1970-1973) is mixed. The 1980s cinema of "recuperation and reassurance" that Guerrero denigrates was my introduction to commercial films (e.g. biracial buddy films like 48hrs and Trading Places) and I think that he is selective in his choice of titles to review. Overall, I agree with him that "whatever its orientation, black cinematic expression, as much as black culture, has nearly always been proscribed, marginalized, exploited and often ignored."

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot from this book about not only how blacks were/are depicted in the film industry, but also the struggles they face as directors and producers of movies. There is definitely some insight into the production and advertising machinations of Hollywood. Once you learn about the stereotypes of portraying blackness on the screen, it's much easier to pick up those cues with a new eye, even in those movies that you have nostalgia for that has nothing to do with racial stereotypes (I'm thinking of the 80s films)

While this was an eye-opening work overall, I think the author found just a couple of instances where he looked a little too hard to find allegories or portrayals (e.g. the 1930 version of "The Fly" and the transformation scene). Also, I would have liked to seen more sources on some of the production discussions (e.g. were there board meetings? Were these recollections of folks involved in the conversations?).

But overall, it was a great book. It ends in the 1990s, and I would like to see an update and his take on more modern films.

[Izzi Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written analysis of how the stories of black people have been exploited and influenced by the lingering white supremacy in Hollywood. At times it was a bit repetitive and I felt like one or two of his examples were a bit of a stretch but overall a solid argument. It was published in the 90s so I would like to read an updated version.

[NCHS Library]

From Follett: Examines the continually shifting representation of African-American people at five cultural-political moments that, taken together, range over the historical continuum of Hollywood's production of commercial narrative films, from 1915 to the 1990s

[Corinne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will effect the way you watch movies and TV from now on. There are racist/stereotypical images in so many films that I never picked up on until I read this book. I read it for a college course "African-Americans in Popular Culture" it is a good read for students and non-students alike.

[Dennis Greene · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-researched book, particularly important for its section on Birtth of a Nation.