During the times of racial segregation, Black filmmakers were separated from white Hollywood atmosphere. This atmosphere created negative portrayals of minoritized groups because of the exclusion of Black filmmakers and directors for more accurate and multidimensional characters. In order to achieve inclusion and proper representations, Black filmmakers created media specifically for Black audiences. Their attempt to eliminate the stereotypical  images and caricatures of black people has influenced filmmakers today. According to The Conversation “the film industry has yet to achieve parity, especially for people of color, whose representation is 11 percent lower than their share of the general population.” Thus racial groups are not seen as being valued similarly if the media depicts one dimensional, and inaccurate characters. There’s a long history of black filmmakers using the artistic medium of film to challenge the negative representations of black characters in the media.This strategy is imperative to eliminating racial prejudice and bias. In this essay, I will discuss six Black filmmakers who, over the past century, have created and incorporated multifaceted and humanizing Black characters in their movies as a way to challenge Black stereotypes in film.

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The mirroring stage occurs when an infant first see itself and has a sense of identity or self. Jacques Lacan, a classic psychoanalytic theorist argued that this was important for the formation of identity. Identities are imagined and reinforced during this process. The collective reality is defined through media, and if people do not see themselves represented as good then they are deviating from the stereotype if they are good and an expectation if they aren’t. This is why representation is important in the media and why there should be more diverse and inclusivity. We should push away from biased and continual negative portrayals of underrepresented groups.

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The first African American filmmaker, Oscar Micheaux, was born in Southern Illinois to former slaves in 1884. He began writing stories when he was a young man and would later create his own publishing company to sell his books. With the motion picture industry progressing Micheaux could bring his stories to life with film, and in 1919 he was the first African American to do so with his own movie production company. Oscar Micheaux was famous for his production of race films and known for the foundation of African American filmmaking in the early 20th century. His films were powerful statements on the black experience in America, and his film Within Our Gates was in opposition to the depiction of black people in “The Birth of a Nation.” All his films tackled issues that dealt with problems that the black community faced during his time and helped pave the way for future black directors.

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More contemporary black filmmakers take many different approaches to the existing narratives of black characters. Born in Atlanta as Shelton Jackson Lee in 1957, Spike Lee as a child moved to Brooklyn where most of his films took place. Lee took a more controversial route, in 1989 the film Do The Right Thing discussed racial tension, urban crime, and violence after white police officers kill an African American man. Jungle Fever was released in 1991 and is about the interracial relationship between a married black man and his Italian secretary. The response to the affair addresses the stereotypical expectations that the community imposed. The film challenges the sexual stereotypes of the Black man, and also the stereotypes of interracial relationships. Later in 1992 Malcolm X premiered and created the cultural phenomenon called “Malcolm-mania.”

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Then Spike Lee created the documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, which was very informative on the impact of politics and race after the failure of the levees during Hurricane Katrina. Lee has also worked outside the realm of film, making music videos, sports programs, and authoring many books. Spike Lee is successful and effective in making controversial and thought provoking films much like filmmakers after him.

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The late director John Singleton once said that watching Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It “was so powerful to me, as a young black teen who grew up seeing movies with not a lot of people that looked like me.” Singleton’s Oscar nominated film Boyz N the Hood examines the lives of three black teenagers in South Central Los Angeles. These teenagers dealt with the trials and tribulations of gang violence in their neighborhood, and tried navigating the death and devastation that is constantly surrounding them. John was only 22 when he started directing Boyz N the Hood and he was learning to do so as the film was progressing. He also directed Poetic Justice, Shaft, and Michael Jackson’s Remember The TIme music video. Much of his work was life changing for the black community.

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The work of Jordan Peele has been working to create an underlying statement around the social issues in regards to black people in America. Get Out, a horror film unlike any other, brought to movie theatres in 2017 the very frightening reality of racism. The main character who is a black man with a white girlfriend goes to meet with her parents in this strange town. This film explores W.E.B. Dubois’ double consciousness that black people face. The film also addresses the objectification of black bodies, whether that be trendy or sexual. Peele’s other work is Us, has many symbolic meanings hidden in the plot. Even the topic can be a reference to us plural or US as in the United States, a hidden allegorical message like many other references. Us contains doubles of every person in the movie, and connects to the Hands Across America campaign. The doppelgangers in the red jumpsuits say that they are Americans, and the meaning of this was confusing to a lot of viewers. When asked in a Q&A interview at SXSW, Peele said “We’re in a time where we fear the other, whether it’s the mysterious invader that we think is going to come and kill us and take our jobs, or the faction we don’t live near, who voted a different way than us. We’re all about pointing the finger. And I wanted to suggest that maybe the monster we really need to look at has our face, maybe the evil, is us.” The family cast is black and along with their doubles they are multidimensional and very far from the stereotypes of black people.

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Another filmmaker that is making very necessary and important pieces of film is Ava Duvernay. From Selma, to 13th, to When They See Us, Duvernay provides the audience with knowledgeable and informative pieces of history. 13th tells the story of racial inequality in America and its evolution to mass incarceration. This documentary is powerful and includes many credible speakers in relevant field. Michelle Alexander was one of many interviewed about the mass incarceration problem and the racist “War on Drugs.” When They See Us is a Netflix docuseries that explores the case of the Central Park Five and the creation of the term superpredator in regards to “deviant” or “criminal” juveniles. These films and others that she filmed like it have been unpacking the dominant narrative and biased black history of America. The misrepresentations of people of color in the media as criminals and other caricatures tarnish their identity thus projecting themselves into harmful models that exist.

 

 Media perpetuates black stereotypes and negative portrayals that promote racial prejudice. Media also creates an influential narrative by continuously presenting its audience with possibly its only interaction with a certain group. It is imperative that the representations are not always one dimensional, biased, and stereotypical caricatures. Multidimensionality and eliminating biases that restrain us from the appreciation of difference is important to representations in the media. Film has been used by black filmmakers to combat the stereotypical and derogatory context in which black characters have been placed in by white mainstream media.