Marketing the Color Black : Strategies for ‘Crossover’ Films Fail to Stifle Charges of Racism

After watching MGM/UA market and distribute his new movie, “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka,” writer-director Keenen Ivory Wayans isn’t convinced that Hollywood’s major film studios are equipped to handle black films.

Wayans is happy that the film, a spoof of ‘70s black exploitation pictures, has already turned a profit. But he voiced frustration with the studio marketing team’s apparent ghetto-izing of the film.

“I don’t mean to just single out MGM/UA, but I think a big problem with selling the film has come from

the studio people’s narrow-mindedness,” he said. “They had a choice of selling the picture as a comedy or as a black film--and they only ended up selling it as a black film. They refuse to believe this movie will go beyond black audiences, which I think is wrong.”

Today’s Hollywood runs on blockbuster economics, fueled by profits from packaged star vehicles. With studio production geared toward mega-hits--the average film now costs $16 million--it’s increasingly difficult to get backing for films with ethnic casts or themes. According to Hollywood insiders, one key reason is that ethnic films present studios with stiff marketing challenges.

“The studio world has a very narrow vision,” said Taylor Hackford, who produced “La Bamba.” “I speak Spanish so I know there’s a huge Spanish market in America, a market the movie business doesn’t understand at all. Fortunately, with ‘La Bamba’ I could go to (Columbia Pictures’ parent company) Coca-Cola who does understand that market. We organized Spanish market-oriented on-site promotions and contests--and we did tremendous business.”

With their marketing machinery geared toward blockbuster hits, many studios find it hard to adapt to pictures aimed at smaller, more specialized audiences. As Robert Townsend, co-star of MGM/UA’s “The Mighty Quinn,” puts it: “I think the studio is concerned because they don’t think it’s a ‘Beverly Hills Cop.’ ”

Warner Bros., which has made several recent films with largely black casts, has devised several ingenious marketing schemes. To promote “Lean on Me,” its film about a baseball bat-waving black high school principal, the studio reportedly paid heavyweight champ Mike Tyson $150,000 to tout the film in a TV commercial.

But for the most part, studios promote black product in ways that play down the films’ ethnicity. Warner’s newspaper ads for both “Lean on Me” and “The Color Purple,” the studio’s 1985 hit, show the films’ characters only in silhouette. (“A total coincidence,” said a Warner’s executive, who noted that the studio made heavy TV ad buys for both films, each prominently featuring the movies’ black characters.)

MGM/UA’s ads for the Los Angeles opening of “The Mighty Quinn” don’t even go that far. They simply display a thatch of palm trees, adorned with critics’ quotes that focus so much on the film’s tropical setting you’d think they were pulled from a Cuban restaurant review. (“A sunny Caribbean caper as seductive as a great umbrella drink”--Rita Kempley, The Washington Post.)

MGM/UA’s initial East Coast ads for “Quinn” did spotlight the film’s stars. And the studio’s ads for “Sucka” clearly portray its black characters. But if the studio had viewed the film as a mainstream comedy, Wayans contends, it would have opened in a “wide,” nationwide release pattern. Instead, MGM/UA chose to open the film last December in only four cities, each chosen for its large black population.

“The only reason we got into a wider release was by doing incredibly well in those secondary markets,” Wayans said. “MGM was very apprehensive about starting out in a major market like New York or L.A. because they were afraid of spending a lot of money there and failing. Only after we were a hit was MGM willing to spend the money to open us, first in New York--and only after we did well there did we get to open in Los Angeles.”

MGM’s release pattern didn’t go unnoticed by film critics. In a rave review of the movie, the L.A. Weekly’s black film critic Elvis Mitchell wrote: “MGM/UA has released ‘Sucka’ in just a few markets at a time, as if they were afraid of it. Essentially, they’re dropping the film off on one porch, banging on the door and running away before anybody answers, leaving the picture to fend for itself.”

MGM/UA’s top brass disputes these charges, maintaining that the studio should not be blamed for conceiving a marketing campaign that helped the film turn a profit.

“We believed in this film,” said David Forbes, president of MGM/UA Distribution. “All along we felt that if we took our time and figured out how to handle it, we could have considerable success. Because it was a comedy, we thought we could cross it over once we established it in the marketplace with its core audience.”

According to Forbes, studio screening research revealed that “Sucka” played “very well” to black audiences but only “moderately” with non-black audiences.

“We actually tested the picture with three different groups--black, mixed and white,” explained Tamara Rawitt, one of the film’s producers. “The all-black audiences loved the film--and the mixed audiences embraced it too. I wouldn’t say the all-white audiences didn’t like the film--they simply were initially inhibited. I think they were very cautious about laughing, perhaps because they were afraid of being perceived of offending blacks.”

Convinced that its core audience was predominantly black, MGM opened the film in four cities with large black populations: Washington, Detroit and Chicago--where it was a hit--and Atlanta, where it fared poorly. In January, MGM opened the film in even more urban markets--including New York--that also offered a substantial black audience base. Despite more solid box-office numbers, the studio waited until February to open the film in Los Angeles.

“We spent a substantial amount of money on the film--we did TV and radio ads,” Forbes said. “But the second wave of openings convinced us that the picture did not cross over easily, so we tried to build as much momentum as possible before going to the West Coast, which does not have as large a black population base.”

MGM/UA has followed a similar release pattern with “The Mighty Quinn,” a murder mystery set in Jamaica that opened in Los Angeles last month, but only after proving itself in the East with critics and at the box office. Since the picture stars Denzel Washington and Robert Townsend, race has once again become a focal point of the debate.

“I think MGM’s perception was clearly that whites weren’t interested in seeing a film with a lot of black characters,” said “Mighty Quinn” producer Dale Pollock. “Obviously that’s what their research told them. But research can be extremely misleading. It doesn’t tell you about the characters, the music or the look of the film, which are things that can all draw a much broader audience.

“It’s unfortunate that just because you have prominent black actors in a film that it automatically gets classified as a black film. The fact that white critics everywhere have responded so well to the film tells me that the picture has a clear potential to cross over to white audiences.”

However, since MGM opened the film regionally and not nationally, the movie was not been reviewed by many influential national publications, in particular Time and Newsweek. According to MGM/UA’s Forbes, the film’s racial makeup made it difficult to release the picture on a national level.

“It was clear to us that with two leading characters being black it would be hard for us to make this a broad-based picture,” he said. “Our previews also told us it was much easier to attract a black audience than a non-black one--though once we got them into the theaters, they all enjoyed the film.”

In fact, when MGM recruited screening audiences, it found that one of every four blacks was eager to see the movie, but only one of every 12 whites was interested in attending. “What they really tell you is that with a limited amount of information, the picture basically appeals to a black audience,” Forbes said. “It doesn’t automatically attract white moviegoers. So if you’re planning to cross-over the film, you’re in for a struggle.”

Other marketing experts disagree, pointing to the music industry, where black pop stars attract huge multiracial audiences. “A lot of these theories about white audiences are just self-fulfilling prophecies,” said Jeff Dowd, a veteran Hollywood marketing strategist. “What studio executives don’t seem to understand is that the biggest segment of their audience--the youth crowd--is the most open of all to black subject matter. White kids in urban areas have no problem with black topics. They’re surrounded by black culture, whether it’s rap music, street fashions or basketball.”

Right or wrong, Hollywood’s bottom-line marketing strategies have discouraged many film makers. “There’s an institutional racism in the movie business that really makes people think twice about developing films about blacks, Latinos, Jews, Catholics or any minority group,” Pollock said. “You could say that all these distribution and marketing problems are simply due to economics. But anytime you encourage movie makers to avoid what’s different--to stick to only what people are comfortable with--then you’re talking about racism in its broadest sense.”