Chapter 14
Film and the Politics of Race: The Minority Report
The purpose of this chapter is to explore racially conscious films for their political
content and the intentions of their makers. Focused selectively on the evolution of films
by and about African Americans, Chapter 14 addresses race relations between whites
and blacks as they have proved to be the most enduring conflict in American society—as
well as the one most often depicted in popular movies. These films include both those
aiming to reflect race relations and those offering more pointed political messages about
race relations. This chapter looks at an apparent progression in the representation of
black characters and black cultural experiences. Rigid demeaning stereotype in early,
explicitly racist films like The Birth of a Nation slowly, painfully transitions to more
fully realized characters on a par with white-identified characters. Focus in this chapter
falls on films and events from the latter part of the twentieth and beginning of the
twenty-first century, an era that represents the most complex and widely viewed part of
the cinematic landscape relative to the politics of race.
Objectives for Chapter 14:
1. Describe the problem posed by racist depictions like those in The Birth of a Nation
and restrictions posed by the Production Code.
2. Describe the development of what became known as “race movies” and the work of
African-American filmmakers to challenge stereotyping with movies made for, by,
and about blacks themselves.
3. Identify Oscar Micheaux as a preeminent black filmmaker from the early period.
4. Describe and analyze briefly Micheaux’s film, Within Our Gates, especially as it
contrasts with the racism of The Birth of a Nation.
5. Describe the development of the representation of black characters in films from the
more racially aware period of the 1960s–1970s.
6. Introduce the significance of Sidney Poitier’s role in opening Hollywood to different
representations of black characters.
7. Introduce and explore the 1970s trend in race-based filmmaking, “Blaxploitation.”
8. Describe the drop-off in racially motivated films in the Reagan era of the 1980s.
9. Introduce the significance of black director Spike Lee and explore some of his major
works, especially Bamboozled.
10. Chart the increase in black-identified directors in the 1990s, noting however that
racially distinctive mainstream cinema in the 1990s for the most part was treading
water.
11. Note the brief return of Blaxploitation themed films in the 1990s as well as the
advent of black–white buddy films like 48 Hours.
12. Describe the development of melodramas and mild comedies featuring all black
casts with broad appeal: Soul Food, Waiting to Exhale, among others.
13. Chart the reemergence of paranoid thrillers with black-identified characters in roles
previously played by actors like Robert Redford and Warren Beatty in the 1970s:
Enemy of the State, Bait, among others.
14. Identify and describe the “L.A. Rebellion” period and style of filmmaking and
filmmakers associated with it, like Charles Burnett and Haile Gerima and Julie
Dash. Trace the legacy of the “L.A. Rebellion” among black directors emerging in its
wake, including Kasi Lemmons.
15. Describe and explore the box office breakthrough black-themed films at the start of
the 21st century, including Precious, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, and 42, and concluding
with the watershed year for black-themed films, 2013, including the Oscar-winning
12 Years a Slave and the timely and haunting Fruitvale Station about the murder of
an unarmed black man by transit police.
Discussion Questions for Chapter 14:
1. How were blacks portrayed in early film and why?
2. What role did the Production Code play in the representation of blacks in early and
classical era film?
3. What were race films and who made them and why?
4. Does Do The Right Thing still resonate today or are any political aspects to it dated?
5. What is the nature of the disagreement between Quentin Tarantino and Spike Lee
and with whom do you side? Should just anyone be entitled to tell the stories of the
slavery-era South or stories about African Americans more generally? What
credibility and relationship to the topic must a filmmaker have to make the film
politically and socially legitimate?
6. What was the L.A. Rebellion and in what way are those films relevant today?
7. How does Enemy of the State compare and contrast with Three Days of the Condor
or The Parallax View? How do racial politics affect the 21st century evocation of
political paranoia?
8. What historical information do you glean from viewing Daughters of the Dust? Is
there a political point of view available in its narrative style?
9. Is 42 able to make a broader political claim for the significance of Jackie Robinson’s
baseball career?
10. Is it politically significant to make films in which race does not seem to matter and is
not overtly and apparently not even implicitly addressed, as might be said of
Baggage Claim (2013) or No Good Deed (2014)?
Assignments:
1. Research the promotion of The Birth of a Nation and Within Our Gates. How do
these films’ promotional materials address their anticipated audiences? How do
they make clear their subject matter and attempt to attract audiences to this topic?
2. Write a short essay in response to question #4 above before seeing D’Jango
Unchained. After watching Tarantino’s film, respond to your earlier essay. How
does the film itself change or nuance your opinion on this topic?
3. Ask students to do a free-write on the topic of glamour. Discuss what they decided
glamour is and looks like. Now ask them to write a list of expectations they have
when they learn they will watch a film set in the 1950s South. Screen Eve’s Bayou
and discuss the director’s vision of glamour in it and how the film fulfills or works
against student expectations.
4. Ask students to take a side in the debate over Precious. Do they agree that “Black
pathology sells” and that Precious is “an over-the-top political fantasy that works
only because it demeans blacks, women and poor people,” as White writes? Or can
they locate Daniels’ intentions in a way that would soften White’s condemnation?
Has Daniels depicted or demeaned, humanized or stereotyped, his characters?