Being Black In ‘Hollywood’ And The Complaints – Where Does It Ever Go?

Nobody has cried more, or is dying more, to become an equal part of Hollywood than us, black people. It is so big an issue; or rather a problem, or need, that has so crippled a huge aspect of the cultural and humanistic representations of the peoples of African descent in America and the world as a whole. So why Hollywood?

Even the new wave of African and Caribbean filmmakers seem helplessly lured into Hollywood. It is as if we are constantly striving to become a part of the white man’s industry from every corner of the earth. But why? For the money? For the fame? For what?

In am cocksure that it is not because we want to get in there and perpetuate the way and manner in which Hollywood has pictured colored peoples from time immemorial? So it begs the question. Are we trying to make Hollywood paint us differently – portray the peoples of African descent in a more positive light – or are we trying to get in there, kick them out and establish a new order in the representations of peoples of African descent? Either way, I am seriously baffled. I don’t get it.

Every now and then, when Hollywood comes out with a movie that has anything to do with black people, we cry wuo-wuo! I am one of those critics that recently lambasted The Help, and rightly so. Only, I don’t suggest a wave of black filmmakers storm Hollywood and remake The Help. I don’t suggest Hollywood coming out with a movie on the true representation of the 1960s and Jim Crow in Mississippi. No!

We hear so much about the statistics of the box office. Black people accounting for about 20 percent (conservative estimates) of the movie going populace but, in the face of it, for example, last year, only a mere 2 percent (high estimation) of movies that came out of Hollywood were considered black; a clear discrepancy, or rather a severe discrimination called racism or what? But is it?

Now, let’s spare ourselves the epistemological discussions on what is a ‘black’ film and what is a ‘white’ film, since it is only a waste of precious time and those sort of discussions are entirely devoid of any realistic articulation of the epidemic that has befallen the state of black cinema. Those dysfunctional and meaningless discussions can rear their ugly heads in the sociology departments in those Ivory Towers in Europe and America, but not in the real world of hard knocks!

So lets keep it real. Since Paul Robeson and Fredi Washington, one can attest to the fact that anything that the industry called Hollywood has spat out in terms of black movies has been at least controversial within the framework of race relations in America. To a good extent, those films have widely fallen short of any realistic representations of people of color. And Africa! By doing this harm to who we are as African Americans, and where we came from, in West Africa, Hollywood makes us suffer what I call the ‘Double Jeopardy’ in our consciousness of the black self.

Who we are and what we shall yet be suffer from these sick and calculated misrepresentations of us! And we know that. So where do we go from there? In fact, better yet, where have we, as a people, gone from there?

If Tyler Perry can make money and can continue to break the box office from his comfortable Atlanta studios with his so called coonery and buffoonery, and if black folk truly account for about 20 percent of the box office revenue, then why the f-ck are we complaining? What are we complaining about?

Let’s build our own!

As a case in point, the whole reason why Hollywood paints black people and Africa the way they do is not only a result of some romantic obsession with the mystery surrounding ‘blackness’ or the black body? No! It’s more than that. The point of it all, in my humble understanding, is that Hollywood, from the last time I checked, is theirs, it is their tool; it’s where they – white people – project their often anti-black knowledge of self, i.e., ‘whiteness’.

To challenge it, is to dislodge whiteness from its centrality and authority in their peculiar perceptions of the world and from the comfort of their homes. To dislodge it is to put blackness equal with whiteness; to reinstate blackness to its rightful place. Now tell me, why would they allow that to happen?

But blackness, like Adam, doesn’t need reinstating! It was created first not to be lord over whiteness; nor to rule over it; and certainly not to be trodden down by it. But would Adam take back his rib because Eve decides to go bazookas on each and every character assassination of Adam? I don’t think so, even if that were possible. So, if my dear gender folks would care to spare me some of the shortfalls I realize I am committing here, since I am only using a biblical analogy, then we can accept that the two, Adam and Eve, Black and White, respectively, remain two-in-one, inextricably tied to each other, but still individually responsible.

So while we critics attack Hollywood’s coonery and buffoonery on the representations of people of African descent, filmmakers dedicated to correcting this image or yet interested in portraying a realistic picture of black folks on the big screen need to wake up!

We account for 20 f–king percent of the box office man! What else do you need? You – out there – need to revive the black film industry. Asap! You need to stand individualized; and equal the influence that Hollywood has had in this country. And the way forward is not to get in there with them. In there, you can only really get the scraps from the table.

I hate to burst that bubble. Because even though most of what Hollywood is doing is probably not done deliberately and maliciously; goodwill is not unheard of in white people’s engagement with others; white power nonetheless reproduces itself in all Hollywood films regardless of intention, power differences and goodwill, perhaps, and overwhelmingly because it is not seen as whiteness, but as normal. This is the foundation of that very institution and the industry called Hollywood that perpetuates it.

So forget it, if you think you can change it. You are not changing that today or tomorrow. Sorry! I really hate saying that. But for real, better get out there like Mr. Tyler Perry has done and make us some real black movies man. And stop complaining! Shizzle!