The Political Economy of Black Film
(Race in Contemporary American Cinema: Part 4)

For most of the last three decades, African-American filmmakers have waged a struggle to become part of the Hollywood system. The economic and political realities of that battle are relevant to African-American filmmakers today who are debating whether Hollywood remains the best, or indeed the exclusive, means to reach a mass audience. The breakthrough period for black cinema came in the late 1960s, when the industry had severe economic problems stemming from a mature television industry and the continuing complications of the 1948 Paramount Consent Decree in which a U.S. government suit forced the major Hollywood studios to divest their interests in both film production and exhibition. Social pressures arose from liberal concern within the film industry to respond in some visible manner to the massive civil rights movement, then at its height. The most obvious result of these factors was that in 1969 Gordon Parks became the first black director of a Hollywood film, The Learning Tree. The following year, Melvin Van Peebles's Sweet Sweetback's Baad-asssss Song opened the 'blaxploitation' era.

From 1969 through the mid-1970s, white-owned distribution companies released an average of fifteen films per year featuring blacks as strong, sexually charged characters frequently at war with traditional American society. Although aimed at black audiences, many of these films were written, produced, and directed by whites. Their low production costs and high profit ratios helped distributors prosper, but blockbusters like The Godfather and The Exorcist, released in the same period, demonstrated that African-Americans on screen were not needed to bring African-Americans into movie theaters. Neither of these films featured black characters, yet one-third of the domestic box office was from black communities. Since black dollars flowed as easily or, in fact, more easily to such blockbusters than to black exploitation films, black-oriented films were soon virtually abandoned. Between 1975 and 1985 the theatrical release of films by African-Americans, or films featuring African-Americans in significant roles, averaged fewer than two a year. Distributors were content to focus on big-budget films with special effects and bankable stars.

A new structural era began in 1986 with the release of Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It. Although blockbusters had brought the industry out of its financial troubles, the tremendous costs of such productions had reduced the total number of films being produced annually. Theater owners in a new era of multiplexes were desperate for product. Film production had gone down from nearly 500 films a year to about 250 at a time when individual theaters contained four, six, or even a dozen screens. Exhibitors formed the Exhibitors Production and Distribution Cooperative (EXPRODICO) with the intention to pool their money to produce their own films, but individual theater owners would not invest jointly. Many opted instead to go it alone and invest only in films they controlled. EXPRODICO thus failed and was dissolved by the 1980s. It was replaced by the Theater Owners' Film Cooperative (TOFCO) which also proved unsuccessful.

Having discovered they were not good at being producers, exhibitors turned to a new breed of small, independent distributors who were cultivating the emerging generation of film-school-trained directors, which included a number of black filmmakers. Island Pictures released She's Gotta Have It, and Samuel Goldwyn followed suit by releasing Robert Townsend's Hollywood Shuffle. From that time until very recently, small, independent, white-owned distribution companies have released the majority of films by African-American directors. IRS, for example, released One False Move, Miramax released Just Another Girl on the IRT, Kino International released Daughters of the Dust, Troma released Del by Temptation, while New Line Cinema released House Party (and two sequels), Deep Cover, and Hangin' with the Homeboys, among others.

The profit on some of these releases was so great, however, that these small distributors began to garner a significant market share. If allowed to continue unopposed, they could become serious competition to the majors. In 1988 Columbia struck back by releasing School Daze, and Universal signed a long-term agreement with Spike Lee. Paramount negotiated a deal with Eddie Murphy, the actor, which brought into being Eddie Murphy, the producer/ director. By 1991 the Black Filmmaker Foundation was able to make T-shirts announcing the 'Black Film Renaissance' and listing each year's crop of African-American films. In 1994, Columbia made history by releasing Darnell Martin's I Like It Like That, the first film by an African-American woman funded and distributed by one of the majors.

This so-called renaissance - which resulted, in large measure, from the fact that multiplexes were not getting enough films to fill their screens - has now begun to wilt. What happens when the major studios begin to make 500 films a year again? What happens when blockbusters begin to feature black characters? Will the studios seek out new waves of black filmmakers or will they just accommodate themselves to blacks already on the inside? In any event, the circumstances that allowed a Spike Lee to emerge are disappearing, and, with them, the chance for other black filmmakers to follow in his footsteps. As always, the industry structure may be more important to most careers than artistic talent or lack thereof.

The independent distributors who handled most of the black films from 1986 on have now been transformed. Many, such as Island Pictures and New Line Cinema, either no longer exist or are no longer independent. Island's former president, Russell Schwartz, now runs Gramercy, a boutique distributor owned by Universal and Polygram Records. New Line was bought by Turner Broadcasting, Miramax by Disney, and Columbia by Sony, which also owns theaters. This vertical integration of the control of distribution, production, and exhibition by the same company was against the law from 1948 until the Reagan years, when the growth of cable TV and homevideo seemed to produce the competition within the film industry intended by the Paramount Consent Decree. As this consolidation intensifies, it becomes increasingly difficult for small, independent distributors to remain financially competitive. Exhibition is increasingly situated in suburban malls rather than inner cities where blacks are concentrated. In 1992, Box Office magazine reported that of some 23,000 theater screens in the United States, United Artists owned 2,357, Cineplex Odeon owned 1,618, and American Multi-Cinema owned 1,589. As recently as last year, African-Americans owned only seven theaters throughout the entire United States.

Film companies today are able to exhibit even in our homes through their own television networks. Fox led the way in 1986 and now Paramount and Warner Bros. have introduced new television networks. With this level of major studio domination of all consumer markets, who needs black producers with an independent point of view? In fact, the pattern of white director/black cast is making a comeback. White Men Can't lump, Who's the Man?, and Fresh are only a few recent examples. There's even the reappearance of benevolent colonialism in a white-directed film like The Air Up There, in which a white male scouts basketball players in Africa.

Of course, many blockbusters flop, and the majors may want to continue to insure against such losses with inexpensive but usually very profitable African-American productions. The profit ratios for such films are spectacular. For every dollar invested in Boyz N the Hood, for example, the first year's box office take was eight dollars - an eight for one return. The Hudlin brothers' House Party cost $2.5 million to make but grossed $26 million. That's a profit ratio of better than ten to one! Little wonder, then, that New Line has financed two sequels.

The significance of these returns can be measured by comparing them to Jurassic Park, the all-time blockbuster to date. In its first year, the Spielberg special-effects vehicle returned five dollars for each dollar invested - quite good, but not near the ratio of successful black films. While excellent profit ratios bode well for black filmmakers, there are still problems. Black filmmakers who don't care if their films 'crossover' to white audiences - such as Julie Dash, director of Daughters of the Dust -are often less interested in making dollars than in promoting black culture and politics. Such filmmakers are seen as ideologues rather than moneymakers and thus don't quite 'fit' into a Hollywood cultural environment that focuses on "glamorous projects" and "celebrity," as former Columbia Pictures VP Dennis Greene explained recently in Cineaste.(*) If production executives can attract large audiences by employing well-known white executives and directors, why not simply avoid the potential headache of ideological black control behind the camera? Given these realities, a filmmaker who keeps his or her mind focused on theatrical release is almost doomed to failure. The future, as in the dawn of the sound era, lies in new technologies, areas where African- Americans can carve out positions at an early developmental stage of a new industrial structure.

There is plenty of room for African-Americans in the expanding cable, direct-to-video, and CD-ROM/interactive disc arenas. Electronics and telecommunications are already creating profound structural changes in the ways Hollywood does business. Movies may soon be transmitted to theaters by cable and satellite. Already pay-per-view cable and satellite television bring recent theatrical releases into the home at half the cost of a theater ticket in New York City. The advent of high-definition television is expected to narrow the image quality between theater and home screens. Cable channels are producing feature films solely for television broadcast, bypassing theatrical exhibition altogether.

The Hudlin brothers are among those African-American producers who have begun to exploit these new possibilities. Their Cosmic Slop, on HBO, featured three different black directors and three different black writers. Tomorrow's Spike Lees and Julie Dashes, in fact, are more likely to emerge from such new technological pathways than from traditional industrial structures rapidly becoming outdated.

* Dennis Greene, "Tragically Hip: Hollywood and African-American Cinema," Cineaste, Vol. XX, No. 4 (1994), pp.28-29.