By Mary Milliken
This year is shaping up to be a big one in film for African American, black and civil rights themes, offering audiences different lenses through which to consider the complex question of racial equality, both historically and in the present day.
Race in America has been a hot topic of debate this summer and Hollywood, as if on cue, has muscled its way into the conversation.
In 2011, Hollywood had The Help, a story of the civil rights struggle among maids in 1960s Mississippi, and in 2012, director Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained produced a novel take on slavery. Both were nominated for best picture Oscars and did well at the box office.
In 2013, there are half a dozen films to choose from, several from black directors. They include civil rights drama Lee Daniels’ The Butler, which has led the box office for the past two weekends, and Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, the true story of free man who is enslaved, which premieres in October.
Already this year, audiences and critics alike have embraced 42 about Jackie Robinson, the first black to play Major League Baseball after 50 years of segregation, and Fruitvale Station, the real-life story of Oscar Grant, a young unarmed black man killed by white police in Oakland four years ago.
The slate also includes two biopics on South African anti-apartheid leaders: Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, due for release in November, and Winnie Mandela, his former wife, in out in September.
Their release comes against the backdrop of the biggest discussion on race in the United States in years: the trial in the killing of unarmed African American teenager Trayvon Martin and President Barack Obama’s explanation in highly personal terms of what it means to be a young black man in America have been the summer highlights.
Recently, country celebrated the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
There’s no easy explanation as to why Hollywood has upped its treatment of race in film and it’s too early to say that black film is thriving, according to Todd Boyd, a professor who specialises in race and popular culture at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts.
The directors are finding backing from prominent blacks within the industry. They include media mogul Oprah Winfrey, who helped Daniels pull together The Butler and stars alongside Forest Whitaker as the wife of the White House butler who serves under seven US presidents. It is her first film role in 15 years.
Whitaker, in turn, is also the producer of Fruitvale Station from first-time director Ryan Coogler, a 27-year-old African American from Oakland. The privately held Weinstein Company is distributing The Butler, Fruitvale and Mandela and is expected to make a big promotional push for the films in the upcoming awards season.
Winfrey, for one, said she doesn’t think this year’s films will play a role in the debate on race, but they will “allow people to see the broad spectrum and tapestry of humanity that is the African American experience.”
“You know how you break down the bars of racism? You let people see, ‘Oh, you think and feel the same way I think and feel.’”
Hollywood, in Boyd’s view, still needs to do more to bring more diversity to the film industry and to tackle the tougher subject matter of racism.
“If you hear any skepticism coming from me, it is connected to something like 42,” Boyd said. “People have long celebrated the breaking of the colour line, they just don’t want to talk about the colour line. They want to talk about breaking it.”Reuters
