It’s Time to Start Rejecting Demeaning Images in Films

Lost in the hubbub over Jesse Jackson’s Academy Awards protest was this important point: African Americans don’t need Hollywood and the academy to validate their experience and accomplishments. They can validate it themselves by supporting films that honestly depict African Americans, sacrificing, struggling and ultimately triumphing over adversity. The starting point should have been the film “Once Upon a Time. . . . When We Were Colored.”

It is a morality tale set in the segregated world of Mississippi circa 1946 to 1962. Blacks face poverty, oppression, racist violence, economic destitution and fear. They show love, care and devotion. They are not gangstas, pushers, pimps, whores or spectacles of dysfunctionality. They nurture, protect and bond together. This is not fantasy, syrupy nostalgia or romantic idealism. Millions of African Americans share that experience.

It is also a cautionary tale. It warns that blacks have strayed far from their heroic tradition and that racial pride and courage are in mortal danger of becoming lost commodities.

“Once Upon a Time” has a predominantly black cast, black technicians, a black director and was financed by Black Entertainment Television on a no-strings budget of $2.5 million. It is a positive film that bucked the odds of being made. According to a recent Times interview with Tim Reid, every movie studio said no to it, as did the Sundance Film Festival and the respected television shows “American Playhouse” and “Hallmark Hall of Fame.” They claimed that this wasn’t the black community they knew. Translated: There’s no crime, dope, guns, freaky sex, human wrecks or cartoon caricatures in it.

Far too many blacks also said no to it. “Once Upon a Time” did not generate the mass enthusiasm among blacks that “Waiting to Exhale” and “Boyz N the Hood” did. Sadly, these films reinforced many of the same stereotypes that blacks complain about.

Many blacks are certainly aware that Hollywood has a maddening love affair with these ancient stereotypes, particularly in those movies set in “the ‘hood.” Present-day blaxploitation films pump out the stereotypes, are cheaply made and are very successful at the box office. Hollywood knows that blacks mob the theaters to see these films. They buy an estimated one out of four movie tickets, according to a recent Times story. Many blacks justify bankrolling Hollywood’s discrimination by repeating the following myths:

* These films reflect the reality of the “ ‘hood.”

They don’t. The vast majority of adult black males are not in prison, on probation or parole. Nearly six out of 10 young blacks reside in two-parent households. Teen pregnancy rates have dropped among black girls. Three out of four black women have never received welfare payments. Seven out of 10 blacks are employed.

* Blacks like to see themselves on the screen.

For three decades blacks have played cops, robbers, dope pushers, pimps, whores, presidents, corporate heads, aliens, astronauts, devils, zombies and every role in between. By now they should be mature enough to discriminate and demand films that portray them with more dignity than degradation.

* These films employ black actors and actresses.

So did “Emperor Jones,” “Gone With the Wind,” “Green Pastures,” “Cabin in the Sky,” “Song of the South,” “Tarzan,” “Jungle Jim,” “King Solomon’s Mines” and the pack of 1970s blaxploitation films. Hollywood never had a problem creating plentiful roles for toms, mulattoes, mammies and clowns. Despite the big bucks in black gangsta-decadence films, Hollywood isn’t stampeding to bring out more black films. In 1995, it produced--according to USA Today--10.

Pioneer black filmmaker Oscar Michaux and Haile Gerima proved that there’s a better way to create cinema opportunities for blacks. In the 1930s, Michaux made independent films with a poverty budget that employed hundreds of blacks. Gerima did not wait for or beg Hollywood to bankroll “Sankofa.” He proved that a commercially successful independent black film can create jobs and opportunities for dozens of blacks in the 1990s.

These films put dollars in black pockets.

Terry McMillan reportedly sold the rights to “Waiting to Exhale” for less than $1 million. The film has grossed almost $70 million. Alice Walker thought she beat Hollywood’s “creative accounting” methods when she signed for 3% of the gross revenues above the break-even point for Steven Spielberg’s screen adaptation of “The Color Purple.” The movie was a huge hit, but Walker, by her own account, got only “a fraction” of what she thought the movie should have earned her.

Blacks claim they are tired of being demeaned and denied job and promotion opportunities by Hollywood. But as long as African Americans pay Hollywood big bucks to shape and define their image, they will always be colored.