Tragically Hip: Hollywood and African-American Cinema
(Race in Contemporary American Cinema, part 2)

In this second installment of a continuing Cineaste series, two African-Americans discuss their experiences in Hollywood and the challenges which they and other African-Americans face in the film industry. Our next issue will feature an article by Peter Feng on specific Asian-American images (e.g., Korean, Chinese, Indian, etc.) in contemporary American cinema and an article by Marta Carlson on the difficulties faced in casting Native Americans in a variety of feature film roles.

We are presently living through a bizarre period in American film history. In Hollywoodian terms, we have a script in which the Robber Barons meet the Great Depression. In this Dickens-like worst/best of times, the anomalies are stark. Major movie stars can command over $10 million per picture while homelessness is an urban epidemic. Executive salaries soar to all-time highs at a time when more and more Americans are 'downsized' or put into permanent part time employment. Many films now cost over $40 million to make, but are able to recover only a fraction of their cost at the box office. Television screens grow in size while multiplex theater screens shrink. More films than ever before are being made by African-Americans, but the stereotypes have never been more malignant. The operational reality of this bizarre industry is that it has become a 'relationship business' rather than a 'business business.' In the latter, the principal object is to generate attractive, reasonably priced products. The challenge is, 'How do I get as many people as possible to buy one of my widgets?,' and a successful executive is one who, in fact, sells a lot of widgets. In a 'relationship business,' however, the profit motive is only part of the industrial dynamic. Status in the eyes of one's competitors, being recognized as a player, is crucial. Because that imperative is of little concern to shareholders or corporate overlords, studio managers must cloak their reality in a value system in which 'good' executives are those who associate with and can provide access to the most attractive clients. They are thought to create the most glamorous projects and to surround their efforts with 'celebrity.'

The Wall Street feeding frenzy of the 1980s provided substantial capital and a boomtime atmosphere to the 'players,' even when films and entire film corporations were not profitable. The hard times of the 1990s have been more demanding in regard to the bottom line, but identifying ineffective business practices has been easier than rectifying them. Enter the African-American filmmaker.

If Hollywood were truly a 'business business,' African-American filmmakers would be in an enviable position. Since the early 1990s there has been a steady wave of low budget black films which have turned a solid profit due to a very strong response in the African-American community and a larger crossover audience than anticipated. Any rational business manager would now identify this sector as a prime candidate for expansion. If the films have done so well with limited production and marketing costs, might they not generate substantially larger profits with full scale support?

The 'relationship business' cannot so respond. Instead, it is engulfed in a miasma of self-serving and self-fulfilling myths based on the unspoken assumption that African-American films can never be vehicles of prestige, glamour, or celebrity. The relationship players have convinced themselves that black films can do only a limited domestic business under any circumstance and have virtually no foreign box office potential. They assume that the only dependable African-American audience is teenagers. They also assume that films that exploit black urban violence are all the black teenage audience and the limited crossover audience want to see about black life. Any significant increases in production and marketing costs are projected as a wasted expense that cannot greatly increase the audience for African-American films.

Underlining this stance is that the executives who now control the film industry grew up in those decades when there were few, if any, black images on the screen and those that did exist were produced by film-makers with limited knowledge of the black community. Executives do not like to deal with ideological issues. And they do not want their moment of power questioned or unnecessarily shared. They want to keep on making films that they are comfortable with. The last thing they want to worry about is negative imagery contained in films that, if they had their druthers, they would prefer not be involved with in the first place.

Feeding this complacency are legions of desperate and Machiavellian African-American film producers, directors, and writers who would transform The Birth of a Nation into a black musical if that would provide them with gainful studio employment. They not only perpetuate negative stereotypes in their films, but they also season them with a sprinkling of African-merican authenticity. This situation would be bad enough if economic exploitation of the community was the only consequence. But it isn't. These films validate the pathologies they depict. The constant projection of the black community as a kind of urban Wild Kingdom, the glamorization of tragic situations, and the celebration of inner city drug dealers and gangsters has a programming effect on black youth. The power of music in film is a particularly seductive and propagandistic force which in the recent crop of African-American films has rarely been used in a positive social manner. In short, the racial stereotyping of African- Americans that has gone on for decade after decade, and which has had such a dangerous incremental effect on American consciousness, continues today abetted by an African-American imprimatur.

What flows from this combination of factors is a policy of market exploitation rather than market development. Any number of films may open to 1,500 screens in one week, only to totally disappear from view in less than a month. This restricted body of film products strip mines the market and gradually erodes the genre's long-term viability, particularly with the more fickle non-African-American audiences and foreign audiences. Yet another problem is that when African-American actors begin to emerge as stars, their projects are usually designed to be 'more' than a black film. Any success that follows is therefore seen not as a reflection of the viability of African-American filmmaking but of the wider celebrity game. Which leads us to the question of what, finally, is a genuine African- American film, even when made in Hollywood.

Minimally, of course, an African-American film is one written, directed, or produced by an African-American. More critical is that it present an African-American view of the world on a particular subject, whether or not the film directly focuses on African-American life. Like any work of art, a film is an extension of the creative vision of the filmmaker and that filmmaker's culture. Filmmakers in Hollywood frequently come to believe that they are above the need to be concerned about the masses of economically distressed Americans. This elitist indifference can affect African-Americans as well. The lure of rugged individualism and unbridled creative freedom is seductive. But freedom for African- Americans--fought for, prayed for, and died for by many generations--is still being contested. The cinema may not appear to be the most advantageous battlefield for this struggle, but films affect consciousness in uncountable and unforseeable ways. The images created by African- American filmmakers, particularly those working in Hollywood, are defining the black community for the present and possibly future generations. Negative images are clearly a legitimate part of the marketplace of ideas, and dreadful problems ought not to be ignored, but negative and pathological scenarios are not the only goods on the African-American shelf. If African-American filmmakers cannot deliver those other goods, who can?

The African-American community as a whole must also shoulder more responsibility. For too long the community has seen the cinema as simply entertainment, not understanding that films are always informing, shaping, and programming. Our substantial radio and press resources, rightly sensitive to any slight from the dominant culture, usually are uncritically accepting of any film with a black imprimatur. In this sense they play directly into the target market strategy employed by the studios. Community groups must also seriously undertake the tasks of evaluating which films are worthy of support and which are not. The standards and tactics of the 1960s are good starting points. A few well- organized boycotts would be noticed.

But attacking offensive films is not enough. Much more is to be gained by vigorously supporting filmmakers who buck the system in Hollywood or work as independents. A considerable weapon we have not used, for example, is the millions of dollars spent in video rental stores. Imaginative campaigns could turn those video outlets into a community referendum in terms that count: dollars. We must be aware that we have considerable box office muscle to flex. Using that power wisely would not go unnoticed in Hollywood. Even in this bizarre relationship business there comes a fateful day when the bottom line cannot be ignored and, on that day, black will be truly beautiful even for the most racist of eyes.