About Media Depiction
Gay's essays in the Race & Entertainment section of Bad Feminist clearly show her frustration at the stereotyped depictions and limited narratives utilized in many US feature films, past and present, that project false, limited, and highly problematic (mis)interpretations of African American lives and realities. She critiques some of these films as sheer "science fiction," and others for their depictions of gratuitous violence against Black women in particular.
Gay explains the negative impact such films have on her as follows:
"Watching historical movies about the black experience (or white interpretations of the black experience) have become nearly impossible for the same reason I hope I never read another slave narrative. It's too much. It's too painful. Too frustrating and infuriating. The history is too recent and too close.
I watch movies like Rosewood or The Help and realize that if I had been born to different parents, at a different time, I too could have been picking cotton or raising a white woman's babies for less than minimum wage or enduring any number of intolerable circumstances far beyond my control.
More than that, though, I am troubled by how little has changed. I am troubled by how complacently we are willing to consume these often revisionist stories of this country's complex and painful racial history. History is important, but sometimes the past renders me hopeless and helpless."
-Roxane Gay, The Solace of Preparing Fried Foods...,
in Bad Feminist, p. 246, Harper Collins 2014 ed.
#BadFeministSyllabus:
Media Depiction: Definition & Readings
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media depiction
noun
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1."Media depictions or representations are the ways in which the media portrays particular groups, communities, experiences, ideas, or topics from a particular ideological or value perspective." 1
"Representation, in itself, refers to the construction in any medium of aspects of "reality" such as people, places, objects, events, cultural identities and other abstract concepts. Such representations may be in speech or writing as well as still or moving pictures." 2
Sources: Te Keti Ipurangi (1), and Media Representation, by David Chandler (2)
Readings & Films
A brief selection of many books analyzing media depiction of African Americans and blackness...
African Americans on Television by ISBN: 9780275995140Publication Date: 2013"A comprehensive look at the history of African Americans on television that discusses major trends in black TV and examines the broader social implications of the relationship between race and popular culture as well as race and representation."
Blackface: Reflections on African Americans and the Movies by Call Number: PN1995.9 N4 G46 2002ISBN: 0815411944Publication Date: 2002"In a year that has seen African-American actors receive more top honors than ever, Blackface revisits the efforts of black filmmakers and the portrayal of African-Americans in cinema. As a film critic for the Village Voice, Nelson George has analyzed films and reported on the careers of black directors and actors; as the screenplay writer for Strictly Business and the co-author and executive producer for CB4, George experienced Hollywood from the inside, meeting with studio execs and creating movies that didn't turn out as he hoped. George shares a candid and personal perspective on 30 years of African-American cinema in Blackface--both the films he saw and the films he made. Blackface includes essays on 2002's honorary Academy Award winner Sidney Poitier, the Black Filmmaker Foundation, Spike Lee, and George's CB4 partner Chris Rock. George also discusses the impact of African-American independent films since the 60s, the blaxploitation craze, and the influence of white money on black artists. New to this edition are pieces on the Hughes brothers, Richard Pryor, and African-American cinema at the beginning of the 21st century, as well as George's own encounters with Hollywood."
Black Male Frames, by ISBN: 9780815633822Publication Date: 2015"Black Male Frames charts the development and shifting popularity of two stereotypes of black masculinity in popular American film: "the shaman" or "the scoundrel." Starting with colonial times, Williams identifies the origins of these roles in an America where black men were forced either to defy or to defer to their white masters. These figures recur in the stories America tells about its black men, from the fictional Jim Crow and Zip Coon to historical figures such as Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois. Williams argues that these two extremes persist today in modern Hollywood, where actors such as Sam Lucas, Paul Robeson, Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, and Morgan Freeman, among others, must cope with and work around such limited options. Williams situates these actors' performances of one or the other stereotype within each man's personal history and within the country's historical moment, ultimately to argue that these men are rewarded for their portrayal of the stereotypes most needed to put America's ongoing racial anxieties at ease. Reinvigorating the discussion that began with Donald Bogle's seminal work, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks, Black Male Frames illuminates the ways in which individuals and the media respond to the changing racial politics in America."
Blacks and White TV by Call Number: PN1992.8.A34 M3 1992ISBN: 083041326XPublication Date: 1992"The second edition of this powerful analysis of African-Americans in the television insudtry since 1948 is completely updated. The increased visibility of blacks in television, the success of the Cosby Show and other sitcoms featuring black actors, and the impact of cable TV on programming are described in detail. Professor MacDonald traces the stereotyping, tokenism, and unfair treatment of blacks from the early days of the indsutry, but expresses his hope and belief that a new video order is materializing that will finally fulfill the bright promise of television."
Racism in American Popular Media by Call Number: P94.5 M552 U625 2015ISBN: 9781440829765Publication Date: 2015-03-24This book examines how the media--including advertising, motion pictures, cartoons, and popular fiction--has used racist images and stereotypes as marketing tools that malign and debase African Americans, Latinos, American Indians, and Asian Americans in the United States. * Addresses the current and important subject of how the powerful and pervasive messages in the media communicate and reinforce common racial stereotypes about people of color to vast audiences--especially children * Examines popular depictions of people of color going back to the 1880s and details how those depictions have changed * Explores "fun" subject matter that student readers find interesting--pop culture and how it shapes our daily experiences--with an analytical, critical edge
Revolution Televised by Call Number: PN1992.8 A34 A28 2004ISBN: 9780816696451Publication Date: 2004"In Revolution Televised, Christine Acham offers a complex reading of African American television history, finding within programs like Sanford and Son and Good Times opposition to dominant white constructions of African American identity. Revolution Televised deftly illustrates how black television artists operated within the constraints of the television industry to resist and ultimately shape the mass mediaOCOs portrayal of African American life."
Slow Fade to Black by Call Number: PN1995.9 N4 C7ISBN: 1280439084Publication Date: 1993"...The definitive history of African-American accomplishment in film--both before and behind the camera--from the earliest movies through World War II."
What Movies Teach about Race by ISBN: 1498531814Publication Date: 2016"... reveals the way that media frames in entertainment content persuade audiences to see themselves and others through a prescriptive lens that favors whiteness. These media representations threaten democracy as conglomeration and convergence concentrate the media's global influence in the hands of a few corporations. By linking film's political economy with the movie content in the most influential films, this critical discourse study uncovers the socially-shared cognitive structures that the movie industry passes down from one generation to another. Roslyn M. Satchel encourages media literacy and proposes an entertainment media cascading network activation theory that uncovers racialized rhetoric in media content that cyclically begins in historic ideologies, influences elite discourse, embeds in media systems, produces media frames and representations, shapes public opinion, and then is recycled and perpetuated generationally."
The following are mentioned and/or elaborate on themes mentioned in Gay's essays:
- Cinethetic Racism: White Redemption and Black Stereotypes in "Magical Negro" Films; Matthew W. Hughey. Social Problems, Vol. 56, No. 3 (August 2009), pp. 543-577Ground-breaking article referenced by Gay that names and analyses the "Magical Negro" trope.
- 7 Things You Should Know about Medgar EversMedgar Evers lived his entire life in Mississippi, outside of his WWII military service. In 1954, he began almost a decade of working on prominent civil rights and desegregation causes. He was murdered in June 1963 in his own front yard in Jackson, Mississippi - a brazen crime that shocked and outraged the nation. Hours earlier, President Kennedy had given a televised speech on civil rights. Medgar Evers was a recognized national figure, and certainly very well-known and beloved among the Black and civil rights communities in his home state of Mississippi. His funeral and subsequent burial at Arlington National Cemetery were attended by thousands of mourners. Indeed, MLK, Ralph Abernathy, and numerous civil rights leaders walked in solidarity in the funeral procession.
The movie 'The Help' also takes place in 1963 Jackson, Mississippi. Few words, and no real context or meaningful insights are offered in the movie regarding his death and the profound impact this outrageous crime had. Is this an example of what Gay means when she says the author and filmmaker didn't even try to get it right? - Black Theology, Black Power, and the Black ExperienceA thorough summary of the development of a Black Christian theology and conceptions of Black Jesus, from the times of slavery to the present. Gay pointedly mentions that, in 'The Help,' Viola Davis has a picture of white Jesus on display in her home. Although Gay goes no further, the observation begs the question: Why not Black Jesus? Is this another instance of the filmmakers not even trying to get it right?
- Blood and Tears, not the Magnolias: 12 Years a Slave Holds Nothing Back in Terms of SufferingBy Manohla Dargis, in New York Times, Oct. 17, 2013. Gay critiques the gratuitous violence depicted in this film, particularly the violence against Lupita Nyong'o's character. In Dargis's view, the depicted violence and suffering of slavery is not gratuitious but instead may make this film "...the one that finally makes it impossible for American cinema to continue to sell the ugly lies it’s been hawking for more than a century."
- Gone with the Wind and Hollywood's Racial PoliticsBy Leonard J. Leff, Atlantic Monthly, Dec, 1999, Vol. 284 No. 6. "Documents from the studio's archives reveal behind-the-scenes debates over how African-Americans should be depicted in the movie -- and how the movie's black actors should be treated in real life."
- 'The Help": Softening Segregation for a Feel-Good FlickBy Alyssa Rosenberg, in The Atlantic Monthly, Aug. 20, 2011. "Even more than in the book, the film downplays the ugliness of Jim Crow and fixates on the goodness of its white protagonist."
- Orange Is The New Black Stars: I Couldn't Watch. I Had to Turn AwayCharlie Brinkhurst-Cuff interviews three leading stars of OITNB -- Danielle Brooks (Taystee), Uzo Aduba (Crazy Eyes), and Laverne Cox (Sophia) -- and discusses the growing activism of the characters and narrative.
- Oscar's First Black Winner Accepted Her Honor in a Segregated "No Blacks" Hotel in L.A.Seth Abramovitch, The Hollywood Reporter, Feb. 19, 2015. A look back at Hattie McDaniel's life, career, and ground-breaking Oscar win for her role in Gone with the Wind.
- Rooting for Everybody Black: Handicapping the Black Oscar NomineesJeremy Harriot, The Root, March 3, 2018. Biting analysis of the current state of Hollywood, the Academy Awards, Black actors and film.
- When Police Shoot and Kill Unarmed Men, Titania KumehFrom Mother Jones, July 14, 2010. Traces the trajectory of a number of infamous police shootings of unarmed Black men, from Amadou Ahmed Diallo in 1999, to Oscar Grant in 2009, and through 2010.
The following are mentioned in Gay's essays:
12 Years a Slave by Call Number: E444 N87 2017 (Ironically shelved in the so-called "Leisure Collection")ISBN: 9780393264241Publication Date: 2016"The Norton Critical Edition also includes: The illustrations printed in the original book. Contemporary sources (1853--62), among them newspaper accounts of Northup's kidnapping and ordeal and commentary by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Thomas W. MacMahon, plus much more."
DVD Available, dir. by Steve McQueen: DVD 006 778, Media Collection
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Fruitvale Station, dir. by Ryan Coogler (2013)
True story of Oscar Grant, murdered in 2009 by Bay Area police. DVD Available: DVD 006 691, Media Collection |
True story of Oscar Grant,.
Gone with the Wind (film), by Call Number: PN1997 G59 T39x 2015ISBN: 9781844578719Publication Date: 2015British Film Institute's analysis of the film, including racial politics, representations of slavery, and how the film has "... been engaged with and challenged since the mini-series Roots (1977) to 12 Years a Slave (2014)."
Original novel by Margaret Mitchell: PS3525 I972 G6 1936 ; DVD Available: DVD 000 873, Media Collection
The Help by Call Number: PS3619 T636 H45 2009ISBN: 9780399155345Publication Date: 2009DVD Available: DVD 005 576, Media Collection
Orange Is the New Black by Call Number: HV9474 F66 K47 2010ISBN: 9780385523387Publication Date: 2010"With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187-424 --one of the millions of people who disappear "down the rabbit hole" of the American penal system. From her first strip search to her final release, Kerman learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance. Heartbreaking, hilarious, and at times enraging, Kerman's story offers a rare look into the lives of women in prison--why it is we lock so many away and what happens to them when they're there."
DVDs Available: DVD 006 877, Media Collection (Parks Library has Seasons 1-3 of this Netflix series; this call number is for Season 1.)
The Rosewood Massacre by ISBN: 9780813052250Publication Date: 2018This book explores how digital technologies are revealing fresh information regarding the tragic history of "Rosewood, Florida, and demonstrates how racial violence in the past relates to social inequality in the present."
The film Rosewood, dir. by John Singleton in 1997, is a "... dramatization of the 1923 horrific racist lynch mob attack on an African American Florida community." Starring Jon Voight, Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, et al. More at IMDB
DVD Available: DVD 008 032, Media Collection
