Early Cinema's Representation of Blackness
It is considered impossible to talk about the history of early American cinema without also talking about the coinciding history of the representation of Black people and the history of race in film. Cinema has been used as a tool to reinforce the social construction of race in America. These three items show how film and media were used to portray negative stereotypes of Black people in film and how this impacts how people view race. The film D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915) is often credited as one of the first full-length feature films and was very popular at the time of its release. But that is overshadowed by the fact that the film is racist for its depictions of Black people in the film. The film is set in the South during the time of the civil war where it depicts the freedom of formerly enslaved African Americans who want the right to vote or have a political office, as a violent and dangerous issue towards White Americans. Black men are portrayed as rapists and murderers who are unfit for freedom. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in the film saves the South from the Reconstruction era. In real life The Birth of a Nation's popularity led to the revitalized popularity of the hate group the KKK and was so popular that it was screened at the White House.
The second item for this exhibit The Jazz Singer (1927) shows the popular racist depiction of Black people in early cinema with the lead character spending a large portion of the film in blackface. Blackface was used as a way to entertain White audiences by making a caricature of African Americans and satirizing African American culture. “A not-so-subtle way to remind everyone, white and Black, who had the power to mock and satirize and who didn’t The fact that Jolson’s use of blackface is never once mentioned in the movie is evidence enough that the politics of racial inequality were so deeply rooted in the culture that no one (at least no white person) thought twice about it” (Sharman, 2020).
Film scholars have identified five categories of the lazy simpleton, the tragic mulatto, hyper-masculine and dangerous Black men, and the Uncle Tom and Mammy roles who were used to uphold white superiority as they portrayed slaves as devoted to their masters and were happy to be living on a plantation. Birth of a Nation used the hyper-masculine stereotype of Black men and the final item for this exhibit Gone with the Wind (1939) is the most well-known portrayal of the Mammy character.
These films have been used as items because they are examples of how Black representation in early cinema was used to validate the cultural construction of race to white audiences. “Because it reaffirmed the contemporary, hegemonic idea of race in America. It presented the subjugation of Black people to white people as the “natural order of things” by showing audiences the danger of upending that order” (Sharman, 2020). Through these depictions of violent and dangerous stereotypes that showed portrayals of the belief that Black people were inferior to White people this reinforced the acceptance of racial inferiority and superiority in America. And that America was better off keeping Black people in subordinate positions and seen as a subservient race.
Works Cited
Sharman, R. (2020, May 18). African Americans in Cinema. Moving Pictures. Retrieved April 25, 2023, from https://uark.pressbooks.pub/movingpictures/chapter/african-americans-in-cinema/