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Racism in Hollywood: Off and On the Screen

The Academy Awards are one of the biggest award shows for all those in the film industry. They celebrate the film industry in a different way, honoring all the people who are not just the directors, producers, and the actors, but everybody whose name gets mentioned for fifty seconds in the credits whose contribution in the movie are long forgotten two seconds later. I must admit, it truly is a spectacular award show in more than one way, that is, if you’re white. Kind of makes you wonder why you’ve never seen many people of color getting awards. If I were to add up the total number of people of color that have won Best Actor and Best Actress, then that total comes out to be less than fifty. After eighty-nine years of the Academy Awards, there is less than fifty people of color who were nominees and winners. Surely there has been a bunch of other people of color in film, you see them, they exist, but they are simply just not recognized.

I am a huge fan of films. Had I not been so busy with work and school I’d practically live at the movie theater (thanks Netflix for making it easier to not get out of bed). But if I were to compile a list of my favorite movies (and trust me it’s a lot) then I would say that most, if not all, of the films I’d mention would have white protagonists, white side characters, and a white director. And then those exact movies are praised and talked about by critics on how spectacular and dreamy they are, and then those exact movies go up the ranks of winning many awards, and up to the Academy Awards where said white directors, protagonists, and deuteragonist are then given the award of a life time. But what about the African-Americans? The people from the Asian continent? What about all those who have been born in South-America? I’ve seen them in spectacular movies tackling issues that are not spoken of very often, but where are their awards?

To dissect this prominent issue, I’m going to start at the beginning of film; early 20th century black and white films. Back in the day, film was a form of escapism used to distract citizens from the grim atmosphere of the war. Soon after the first World War ended and in came the beginning of the dazzling roaring twenties, films have become a favorite past-time. Of course, it was a great time for beautiful actresses like Mary Pickford and Louise Brooks, but it wasn’t a great time for people of color, specifically blacks, when Birth of a Nation come out.  

Possibly the epitome of racism in film, the movie has KKK members becoming heroes and white men in blackface playing the role of the “brute, rapist black guy.” In John and Catherine Silk’s novel, Racism and Anti-racism in American Popular Culture: Portrayals of African-Americans in Fiction and Film, they explore the detrimental effects Birth of a Nation had on the advancement of colored people stating that there was an “enormous reservoir of common history and experience [of blacks] which could have been drawn upon” such as “resistance and rebellion under slavery, active and positive roles in the Civil War…and the sheer struggle to survive and preserve institutions like family life” (John, pg.125). But instead director D.W Griffith choose to explore this “idea” of what blacks were like, placing emphasis on “violent and sexually aggressive black stereotypes,” writers Catherine and John Silk address, and that the film’s popularity and influence have meant that such “stereotypes were [going to be] strengthened enormously in American popular culture” (John, pg.125). And they certainly were not wrong about that, Birth of a Nation gave way for stereotypes to become reality by how it portrays blacks in a way that is just not true

And where did this lead, you might ask?

Just take a look at films over the years since then. For example, start with the most famous portrayals of a stereotype; Mr. Yunioshi in Blake Edwards Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Actor Mickey Rooney meant no harm towards Japanese people, but the ideology that Japanese people are buck teeth and “hardo tu understanda,” stuck out like a sore thumb in this movie. The movie would’ve been smashing had Rooney not spotted yellowface and practically offended all Japanese-Americans, but he isn’t the only actor, and Edwards is not the only director, to take that risk.

Edward Zwick directed the movie The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise, about a drunken white man with no purpose in life who happens to end up in Japan just in time to restore the samurai tradition in some clan. That’s a giant “Screw you!” to the Japanese who tradition must be ultimately saved by a white man, because apparently white men are master problem solvers.

But let us not forget about all those cowboy movies, and I will not specify any because in the end they have some type of stereotype hidden in the dialogues (just got to dig for the treasure), that portray indigenous people and Mexicans as brutes, as savages, as always wanting to kidnap the white love interest of the white main character, and uncivilized. And the cowboys are the one that converts them from their primitive way to the way of the “American,” which is, in fact, to be white.

And what’s an analysis without mentioning a black stereotype? Because movies like Outrageous Fortune directed by Arthur Hiller have two white girls fearing they might be raped or murdered simply because they are in the presence of black people. That right there is pure icing on the cake, folks.

Nadia Latif, a writer for The Guardian, wrote in her article about cultural diversity in American film that movies set in the “bustling metropolises of London, New York and Los Angeles [are] not seeing the reality of those cities represented. Instead of thriving diverse communities, we are treated to the same pallid visions of cities where everyone looks exactly the same, but never like us. What distresses us even more is the idea that only people of the same ethnic group can be friends, let alone love interests.” (Latif, Nadia. “How to Fix Hollywood’s Race Problem.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 18 Jan. 2016. www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/18/hollywoods-race-problem-film-industry-actors-of-colour). Latif’s point in her article is to point out the main reason why stereotypes and the lack of lead colored actors/actresses are still happening, and her simple answer is: satisfaction of the general audience. And by that; appealing to the majority audience of white Americans, which means seeing people of different ethnic groups be friends or lovers is a giant no-no. Harry Benshoff and Sean Friffin explains in their novel, America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality at the Movies, that Hollywood must be “understood not just as a set of formal and stylistic structures, but also an industry that produces certain types of fictional films for profit.” In Hollywood, they believe the only pictures that will ever sell are the ones that have non-colored people in it, because nobody apparently will ever go see a movie with colored folks in it. The capitalistic move that Hollywood is taking is more for the business and less for the individual, furthering people of color (and women) away from actual power. Yet there has been prove that a white-based movie are winners, for moves like Fate of the Furious, one with a diverse cast, had raked in $1.163 billion. Take that racist Hollywood, you don’t need an all-white cast to have a box office hit.

There was a hashtag that raved social media during the 2017 Oscars; #OscarsSoWhite. The hashtag referred to the lineup of homogeneity of American films and the actors/actresses’ nominations. This year (and last year) was a strong year for people of color to finally be appreciated for the work they’ve done without having to play the role of some stereotype. The 2017 Oscars had, as Manohla Dargis and A.O Scott explain in their article arguing the normative status of whites getting roles in films, shown existence of movies the prove “progress in an industry that remains overwhelmingly white.” Their arrival had come during a time of mass debates on “incarceration, police violence, diversity, and arguments about what “race” means” (Dargis and SCOTT. “Hollywood, Separate and Unequal.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Sept. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/movies/hollywood-separate-and-unequal).

All in all, the most frustrating part about this whole ordeal is that a multitude of cultures and people from varying racial/ethnic groups are never represented correctly. All we get are offensive depictions that feed false information to the public mind. Had people of color been represented in media/film in a way that doesn’t treat them as inferior, then citizens of the United States wouldn’t find it so difficult to differentiate fantasy and reality.