Race Films
Number of pages:
5
ABSTRACT:
This is a 5 page paper discussing the film genre “race films”. In the 1920s emerged a new era of cinema known as the “race films” which were made by African Americans, starred African Americans in independent roles and were meant for African American audiences. This movement was meant as a rebuttal for the largely popular film “The Birth of a Nation” (1915) which glorified the Ku Klux Klan. The actors who starred in the race films were soon integrated into Hollywood films in the 1930s to 1950s but received largely supporting and stereotyped roles as mammies as seen in “Gone With the Wind”. The 1970s brought about another era of race films inspired by the civil rights movement and again a decade of films were released which were made, starred and intended for African Americans. The 1980s saw another era of supporting roles and black/white buddy movies for black actors until the most recent movement in black film making began in the late 1980s. Black directors such as Spike Lee showed the political and economic climate of the urban African American situation which resulted in another boom of race films. The genre had changed over the years however and in today’s cinema can be found a mixture of black/white buddy roles, stereotyped racial roles and movies depicting African American urban blight.
Bibliography lists 5 sources.
FILE NAME:
File: D0_TJTomsC1.rtf
Send Me This Paper
Back to Papers