Race in Film – Bitch Flicks

Racebending and the Academy Awards: Get Ready to Cringe

The very sad moral of the story is that Hollywood never “has to” cast a person of color. White supremacy in Hollywood finds a way.

The Academy Awards’ gross under-recognition of performances by people of color, both in terms of nominations and wins, is pretty much universally acknowledged. Check this thorough list from Your Media Has Problems on tumblr if you had any doubts.

One of the interesting dimensions covered in that piece is that the majority of people of color nominated for Oscars played roles that “had” to be portrayed by a person of that race. This is a sad reflection on the limited roles available for actors of color.

Linda Hunt as Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously — Linda Hunt as Billy Kwan in *The Year of Living Dangerously*

But what’s even sadder is the fact that Hollywood has a long history of squeezing that limitation even further by casting white people as PoC characters. From Racebending.com‘s crucial “What is racebending?” primer:

The term “racebending” refers to situations where a media content creator (movie studio, publisher, etc.) has changed the race or ethnicity of a character. This is a longstanding Hollywood practice that has been historically used to discriminate against people of color. In the past, practices like blackface and yellowface were strategies used by Hollywood to deny jobs to actors of color… Because characters of color were played by white actors, people of color were hardly represented at all–and rarely in lead roles. While white actors were freely given jobs playing characters of color in make-up, actors of color struggled to find work.

(The term “racebending” is also used refer to the usually positive and exciting practice of casting a person of color in a role previously/traditionally played by a white person, but this article focuses on the sadly much more common dark side of racebending.)

I decided to take a look back at the acting nominations in the Academy Awards’ 86-year history to see how many examples of racebending were honored with nominations or awards. The results are unsurprising, yet still incredibly disappointing.

There are a few distinct forms of the bad kind of racebending. The most obvious and arguably most egregious is “black/brown/yellow/red-face,” where a white actor plays a person of color by wearing makeup.

Hugh Griffith's Oscar-winning brownface performance in Ben-Hur — Hugh Griffith’s Oscar-winning brownface performance in *Ben-Hur*

Then there is the strange Hollywood treatment of all “vaguely ethnic” actors as interchangeably castable in any PoC role. In the past, this meant actors we’d now code white playing characters of color, e.g. George Chakiris as Bernardo in West Side Story, but this lives on today with “brown is brown!” casting, e.g. Maori actor Cliff Curtis‘s globe-spanning character roster. There’s some overlap between this and the first category.

Greek American George Chakiris as Puerto Rican Bernardo in West Side Story — Greek American George Chakiris as Puerto Rican Bernardo in *West Side Story*

And then there is whitewashing, the insidious form racebending that erases the race or ethnicity of a character (often a real-life figure) to cast a white person in the role.

Jennifer Connelly's Oscar-winning portrayal of a whitewashed Alicia Nash in A Beautiful Mind — Jennifer Connelly’s Oscar-winning portrayal of a whitewashed Alicia Nash in *A Beautiful Mind*

Each of these types of racebending are represented in Academy Award-nominated and -winning performances. My list below is most likely incomplete. Lists on Wikipedia and TV Tropes and articles by Michelle I. on Racebending and Tanya Ghahremani on Complex.com got me started. I then attempted to thoroughly review the complete lists of winners and nominees to find other instances. I am sure I missed some, particularly in the whitewashing category. If you can think of other examples, please share in the comments!

There are also “gray area” examples such as half Indian Brit Ben Kingsley playing Gandhi in heavy brown makeup, Siberian Russian Yul Brynner playing the King of Siam, and Robert Downey Jr.’s role as Kirk Lazarus as Lincoln Osiris in Tropic Thunder, which was meant to parody this entire phenomenon, but, you know, was still a white actor in blackface receiving an Oscar nomination in 2008. I’ve left these examples in the list but with asterisks.

Oscar-winning race-bent performances with a white actor in makeup to play a PoC:

Luise Rainer's Oscar-winning yellowface performance in The Good Earth — Luise Rainer’s Oscar-winning yellowface performance in *The Good Earth*

1937 Best Actress: Luise Rainer as O-Lan in The Good Earth
1959 Best Supporting Actor: Hugh Griffith as Sheikh Ilderim in Ben-Hur
1982 Best Supporting Actress: Linda Hunt as Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously
*1982 Best Actor: Ben Kingsley (light-skinned half-Indian in makeup) as Mohandas Gandhi in Ghandi

Oscar-nominated race-bent performances with a white actor in makeup to play a PoC:

Marlon Brando in Viva Zapata! — Marlon Brando in *Viva Zapata!*

1937 Best Supporting Actor: H.B. Warner as Chang in Lost Horizon
1944 Best Supporting Actress: Aline MacMahon as Ling Tan’s Wife in Dragon Seed
1952 Best Actor: Marlon Brando as Emiliano Zapata in Viva Zapata!
1955 Best Actress: Jennifer Jones as Han Suyin in Love is a Many Splendored Thing
1959 Best Supporting Actress: Susan Kohner as Sarah Jane Johnson in Imitation of Life
1965 Best Actor: Laurence Olivier as Othello in Othello
*2008 Best Supporting Actor: Robert Downey, Jr. as Kirk Lazarus as Lincoln Osiris (a white character in blackface, meant to parody this phenomenon, still offensive to many cultural commentators)

Oscar-winning race-bent performances with an “interchangeably ethnic” actor playing a PoC not of his race or ethnicity:

Yul Brynner in The King and I — Yul Brynner in ‘The King and I’

*1956 Best Actor: Yul Brynner (Russian of Buryat/Mongolian descent) as King Mongkut (Thai) in The King and I
1961 Best Supporting Actor: George Chakiris (Greek American) as Bernardo (Puerto Rican) in West Side Story

Oscar-nominated race-bent performances with an “interchangeably ethnic” actor playing a PoC not of his race or ethnicity:

Jeff Chandler as Cochise in Broken Arrow — Jeff Chandler as Cochise in *Broken Arrow*

1936 Best Supporting Actor: Akim Tamiroff (Armenian) as General Yang (Chinese) in The General Died at Dawn (also in yellowface makeup)
1950 Best Supporting Actor: Jeff Chandler (American Jewish) as Cochise (Apache) in Broken Arrow (also in redface makeup)
1962 Best Supporting Actor: Telly Savalas (Greek American) as Feto Gomez in Birdman of Alcatraz
2003 Best Actor: Ben Kingsley (Half-Indian Brit) as Massoud Amir Behrani (Iranian) in House of Sand and Fog

Oscar-winning race-bent performances with a white actor playing whitewashed PoC:

Whitest Dude Alive runner-up William Hurt as South American prisoner Luis Molina in Kiss of the Spider Woman — Whitest Dude Alive runner-up William Hurt as South American prisoner Luis Molina in *Kiss of the Spider Woman*

1984 Best Actor: William Hurt as Luis Molina in Kiss of the Spider Woman
2001 Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Connelly as Alicia Nash in A Beautiful Mind

The very sad moral of the story is that Hollywood never “has to” cast a person of color. White supremacy in Hollywood finds a way.

See also on Bitch Flicks: The Academy: Kind to White Men, Just Like History

Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town, South Africa

“Movie Heroes” Not a Brave Theme for The Oscars (Plus a Quick Noms Reaction)

The Academy has announced the theme of this year’s Oscars ceremony. Producer Neil Maron announced in an Instagram video, “It’s going to be a celebration of movie heroes: the popular heroes, the real life heroes, the animated heroes, and the superheroes.” Here’s what I’m guessing this will look like: montages juxtaposing Nelson Mandela with Luke Skywalker and Norma Rae with Optimus Prime. Ellen DeGeneres wearing a Captain America costume (‘The Winter Soldier’: in theaters April 4!). Bumpers before the cuts to commercial in which stars talk about their heroes. Someone will say Woody Allen and someone will say “my mom.” Lots of commercials for ABC’s Marvel’s ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ It feels like another desperate attempt to get a younger, male-er audience for the telecast (and, truthfully, one I vastly prefer to hiring Seth MacFarlane to host).

Here’s what I’m guessing this will look like: montages juxtaposing Nelson Mandela with Luke Skywalker and Norma Rae with Optimus Prime. Ellen DeGeneres wearing a Captain America costume (The Winter Soldier: in theaters April 4!). Bumpers before the cuts to commercial in which stars talk about their heroes. Someone will say Woody Allen and someone will say “my mom.” Lots of commercials for ABC’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

All those corporate possessives highlight the blatant commercialism behind the selection of this theme. And not just the obvious aforementioned synergy opportunities for host network ABC (which like Marvel Entertainment, is owned by Disney). It feels like another desperate attempt to get a younger, male-er audience for the telecast (and, truthfully, one I vastly prefer to hiring Seth MacFarlane to host). Even if the superheroes part of the equation doesn’t get the most play (and who are we kidding, it will), I suspect the Oscars ceremony will present myriad objectionable approaches to the concept of heroism. I am adding “Lara Croft appears in a montage of movie heroes” to my drinking game.

Feminist frustration aside, “Movie Heroes” is also simply a BORING theme. It’s too loose a category: it could mean “Characters Who Achieve Greatness” or “Characters Who Triumph Over Evil” or simply “Protagonists!”

I should probably roll my eyes and let this one go. The “theme” of an Oscars ceremony is one of the most forgettable and frivolous parts of a largely frivolous event. I had to look up last’s years theme (it was “The Music of the Movies,” which is what to that Jaws theme-as-orchestra-playoff-music debacle), and I’m not even sure how many of the Oscar ceremonies even HAVE themes, and to my horror I cannot find a list anywhere on the internet.

But my endless mining of the Academy’s database of acceptance speeches reminded me that the 65th Academy Awards in 1992 had a theme of “Oscar Celebrates Women and the Movies.” So at least at one point, the Academy was willing to celebrate themes that could generate actual, you know, interesting content.

12 Years a Slave actors Lupita Nyong'o and Chiwetel Ejiofor and Director Steve McQueen — *12 Years a Slave* actors Lupita Nyong’o and Chiwetel Ejiofor and director Steve McQueen

I had hoped that the Academy would use this year’s ceremony to celebrate Black cinema. Even more so after last weekend’s surprising shut-out of actors of color at The Golden Globes (see this great piece by The Root‘s Keli Goff on that disappointment).

Annnnnnnnd I just deleted a paragraph I wrote about how it would be the perfect year for that considering the expected nominees, because the nominations just came out, and, well, why again did I think the Academy would celebrate Black cinema?

The white cast of American Hustle, four of whom are nominated for Academy Awards this year — The white cast of *American Hustle*, four of whom are nominated for Academy Awards

While 12 Years a Slave did nab nine nominations, it is knocked out of the headlines by American Hustle and Gravity, with 10 nods a piece. Nothing for Lee Daniels’ The Butler. Nothing for Fruitvale Station. Long Walk to Freedom couldn’t even get a Mandela death bump to get more than a “Best Original Song” nod for U2. (Hey, remember that time Bono sang “Tonight thank God it’s them instead of you” with the “them” being Africans?) I guess I’ll try to take some comfort in Pharrell Williams getting a Best Original Song nomination instead of Taylor Swift.

I’m not playing by my own rules. I shouldn’t expect the Oscars to nominate the worthiest performances or meaningfully reflect on our cultural moment and current place in the history of cinema. I should expect circus performers wearing capes doing interpretive aerial dance to a montage of John Williams themes. I should expect clips of Disney’s Bolt interspersed with Mr. Smith going to Washington. Maybe this year, instead of cutting off speeches with the Jaws theme, Superman will swoop in to pluck those verbose Sound Effects Editors right off the podium and fly them back to the nosebleed seats.

Older Women Week: The Extraordinary Romance of an Ordinary "Old Girl": Thoughts on ‘Ali: Fear Eats the Soul’

Of course older women have traditionally not been allowed to be sexual beings, and mothers have always been held to a higher sexual standard than fathers. In fact, when a woman of any age does not conform or transgresses sexually she customarily suffers greater social condemnation. What Ali: Fear Eats the Soul makes clear is that the Whore-Madonna complex still reigned supreme in 1970s Germany. When Emmi first tells her daughter and son-in-law that she has fallen in love with a much younger man, they laugh. The thought of an old mother in love and lust is so impossible, so unnatural—horrific, in fact—that laughter is the only fitting response. When she introduces her children to her new husband, one son calls her a whore and another kicks in her television. In the eyes of her deeply conventional, racist children, Emmi is guilty of the most profane double betrayal—racial disloyalty and defilement of the maternal role.

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

This is a guest post by Rachael Johnson.

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is a tale of interracial and intergenerational love set in West Germany in the 1970s. It was both written and directed by one of the key figures of the New German Cinema, Rainer Werner Fassbinder. In his short yet productive life–he died aged 37 of a drug-related heart attack–the workaholic Fassbinder made countless remarkable films and pursued an equally remarkable private life. Anti-bourgeois and anti-establishment, the bisexual Bavarian earned a legendary reputation as a flammable wild child and libertine of extreme appetites. Influenced by Douglas Sirk’s socially subversive melodramas, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is a fascinating exploration of sexual taboos and non-conformity as well as a searing critique of German racism. It is, also, a deeply affecting love story.

The lovers are Ali, a Moroccan-born mechanic in his thirties and Emmi, a white German woman around 60. Tall, bearded and muscular, Ali is played by El Hedi ben Salam, then a lover of the director. Emmi, played by Brigitte Mira, is a small woman of average looks with a pleasant, pudgy face. There is nothing glamorous about Fassbinder’s heroine, and it is this very ordinariness that endears her to the viewer and makes the story all the more poignant. A lonely widow with three married children she rarely sees, there is, it seems, little remarkable about Emmi either. Nor is she a privileged hausfrau. She cleans for a living.

The bar

The two meet in a bar frequented by Arab immigrants. Emmi takes shelter from the rain, but she is also drawn by the ‘exotic’ music. It is a fairly odd scene. The bar maid is a buxom, blonde German woman, and there is only a handful of customers. They stare impassively at Emmi when she enters. A long shot emphasizes her vulnerability and isolation. She sits by the door and asks the bar maid about her clientele and selection of music. She orders a coke and keeps her coat on. The women mock her and a female companion of Ali prods him to dance with ‘the old girl.’ He obeys her with a mock salute. The others stare at the couple, of course, but Ali is gracious, and they learn a little about each other. He accompanies Emmi home and their extraordinary romance begins in a sweet, ordinary fashion.

Fassbinder lays bare the nasty, pervasive nature of racism in West German society during the seventies. Ali, we soon learn, only calls himself Ali because white Germans have maliciously given him the stereotypical name. His life is hard. He works constantly and drinks heavily. He tells Emmi that he shares a room with five other foreign workers. ‘German master/Arab dog’ is how he describes race relations at his garage. Racism is a constant in the lovers’ lives. Emmi listens with unease as her fellow cleaning women dole out dehumanizing descriptions of immigrants as dirty, lazy, dangerous and hypersexual. Her female neighbors gossip incessantly about her affair and fix merciless eyes on her lover. Her son-in-law, Eugen, played by Fassbinder himself, is a lazy boor enraged at the mere mention of his Turkish foreman. When her landlord’s son accuses her of subletting due to Ali’s presence, Emmi tells him that the young Moroccan is her fiancé. The ruse becomes a reality when they mutually agree to tie the knot. Emmi’s children, neighbors and co-workers ostracize her and her new husband. She is forced to eat lunch alone at work, and he is humiliated by the local shop-keeper. Only the passage of time and naked self-interest mellow their attitude.

Ali surrounded by Emmi’s coworkers

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul explores the impact of racism on human relationships. Fassbinder specifically underscores how its evil even infects those of an intimate nature. Emmi’s relationship with Ali sours and she is shown to be capable of reproducing the racism of her compatriots. Impatient with his craving for couscous, a sign, of course, of deep homesickness, she tells her husband to adapt to German customs. On one occasion, she encourages her co-workers’ sexual objectification of Ali, an objectification that smacks of unsavory white voyeurism. When he quits the room, she puts it down to a changeable ‘foreign mentality.’ Emmi is, of course, a product of her nation’s past. In the 1970s, Germany’s history of genocidal racism was still a living, breathing memory. Emmi was a young woman when the Nazis were in power. When she tells Ali that she and her father were members of the party, it is a quiet, forever mind-blowing reminder that membership was the norm.

Emmi with Eugen and Krista

There are, nevertheless, indications that Emmi was always a little different. She crosses borders. Her parents did not want her to marry a foreigner after the war, but she married a Polish man. She is not a xenophobe like her father. She enters the immigrants’ bar because she is drawn to the sounds of others. Emmi is genuinely curious about other cultures and accepts cultural differences. She is hospitable and questions why white Germans and foreigners cannot be friends. She is appalled to hear of Ali’s intolerable living conditions. Curiosity, empathy, attraction and love make up Emmi’s feelings for Ali. Although she will never suffer the daily degradations and abuse he suffers, she is also a victim of racism. Although she tries to hide it, she is, in fact, tormented by the hatred besieging them. Emmi is derided and marginalized by white Germans for loving and marrying an Arab man. A neighbor asks, at one point, if she is a ‘real’ German due to her Polish last name. White women who have affairs with North African and Turkish foreign workers are labeled ‘filthy whores’ by her co-workers. Although a manifestly provincial product of her time and place, Emmi artlessly manages to challenge German racism through the simple, human act of loving. In the socio-historical context of post-war West Germany, she is a nonconformist.

Ali and Emmi

Seemingly unsophisticated, Emmi also breaks sexual taboos. She is a desiring old woman, and it is this desire that outrages and disgusts her children. Of course older women have traditionally not been allowed to be sexual beings, and mothers have always been held to a higher sexual standard than fathers. In fact, when a woman of any age does not conform or transgresses sexually she customarily suffers greater social condemnation. What Ali: Fear Eats the Soul makes clear is that the Whore-Madonna complex still reigned supreme in 1970s Germany. When Emmi first tells her daughter and son-in-law that she has fallen in love with a much younger man, they laugh. The thought of an old mother in love and lust is so impossible, so unnatural–horrific, in fact–that laughter is the only fitting response. When she introduces her children to her new husband, one son calls her a whore and another kicks in her television. In the eyes of her deeply conventional, racist children, Emmi is guilty of the most profane double betrayal–racial disloyalty and defilement of the maternal role.

Her daughter Krista mirrors her brothers. She calls Emmi’s home ‘a pigsty.’ There is, it must be said, little female solidarity apparent in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. The older woman’s female peers and acquaintances seem for the most part to be slaves of convention, regarding issues of race and gender. Ali’s female friends are manifestly threatened by Emmi’s sexuality. One calls his wife ‘a filthy old whore’ behind her back. ‘It’ll never work out. It’s unnatural, plain unnatural,’ she spits, with some jealousy. Does Fassbinder identify women in particular with convention? Or does he see his female characters as parts of the patriarchal system?

Emmi and Ali embrace

Fassbinder’s portrayal of Emmi’s passion is, however, empathetic and quite revolutionary. He never depicts the older woman’s desire as warped and unnatural, and it is worth reflecting how rare an attitude this is on screen. Emmi’s sexual subjectivity is acknowledged. When she momentarily looks at Ali showering, she tells him, ‘You are very beautiful, Ali.’ Her looking does not here denote exploitative voyeurism. Her softly delivered words are addressed to her husband only. He smiles back at her. An older female gaze, of course, doubly reverses cinematic male-female conventions of objectification. In this very short scene, the director recognizes Emmi’s subversive female gaze while, it must be said, expressing his own sexuality. Ultimately, Fassbinder understands that his heroine is, at heart, driven by an entirely natural desire for intimate human companionship as well as a simple need for love.

Their intergenerational relationship comprises painful personal humiliations–issuing from racism and infidelity–but it is also an essentially loving one. Ali’s everyday interactions with Emmi are, from the very start, characterized by kindness, devotion and respect. He and Emmi share their insecurities, comfort each other and enjoy each other’s company. Her daughter’s so-called conventional marriage pales in comparison. There are many achingly poignant, well-observed moments in this love story. On the street where she lives, an anxious Emmi fearing that she had lost her new love, cries Ali’s name before running toward him like a little girl. The warm, relaxed way Ali strokes Emmi’s arm their first night together is another arresting sign of their unusual bond. Their supposedly impossible relationship always seems authentic. Fassbinder reveals the unlikely pair’s fundamental affinities. They are both victims of loneliness and social alienation, and they are both hard-working, working-class people.

Emmi and Ali have dinner

There is an essential humanity to Fassbinder’s characterization of both lovers, and their unusual love story is told with tenderness. Unsurprisingly, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul was well received internationally. It honors the empathetic imagination and pays touching tribute to the outsider. It also shows how an ordinary ‘old girl’ can quietly tear down racial boundaries as well as defy conventional expectations of female desire.

Rachael Johnson has contributed articles to CINEACTION, www.objectif-cinema.com and www.jgcinema.com.

Women of Color in Film and TV: Deeper Than Race: A Movie Review of “Crash”

Crash (2004)

Guest post written by Erin Parks.

We are not alone. Our lives are filled with people, places, and things that come together in unexpected ways. Sometimes we are violently brought to understanding – a gun fired, a tumble down the stairs, or a car crash, for example. Writer and director Paul Haggis orchestrates the lives of eleven characters in modern day Los Angeles, California, whose daily lives are altered by various altercations, highlighted with racial tension.

The story lines are all carefully introduced, and, throughout the film, display a range of emotions and attitudes about how we deal with race in America. The movie opens with the title remark from Detective Graham Waters (Don Cheadle) about how we “crash” into one another sometime because we miss human connection.

His Latina girlfriend simply shakes her head then gets out of the confront the Asian woman who ran into her. As the police attempts to mediate the argument, which quickly turns down “Stereotypes Street” – Asians can’t drive, all Latino people are Mexican, etc.- the tone is set. Crash is a dark exploration into what we think when we are angry and afraid, but would not dare utter out loud. After Det. Graham sees something familiar on a nearby crime scene, the film flashes back to yesterday.

We are then introduced to a Persian store owner buying a gun for protection of his shop. He is mistaken for Arab when his daughter translates the gun seller’s questions about bullets. Director Haggis continues to turn up the flame – the White District Attorney (Brendan Fraser) and his wife (Sandra Bullock) are car jacked by two Black men and Det. Waters arrives on a police scene where a Black off-duty cop has been shot by a White officer.

Throughout the film the characters throw out what they believe to be facts when it comes to the races, at times the most outrageous statements are said very cooly. For example, Det. Waters also calls his girlfriend Mexican, who briefly explains that she is of Puerto Rican and El Salvadorian parentage.

Shortly after, the DA’s wife explodes about having her locks changed by a man she has assumed to be a “gang banger.” We are introduced to a successful Black couple on Ventura Blvd. who get pulled over, and the woman is sexually assaulted by one of the known racist officers of the LAPD (played by Matt Dillon). His young partner is a fearful witness. Later when he asks to be reassigned, Lt. Dixon admits that he cannot remove the offensive officer because the LAPD is a racist system and refuses to loosen his position, basically as the H.N.I.C. He offers an embarrassing, albeit reasonable option for reassignment: uncontrollable flatulence.

The movie circles around the intertwined lives like a delicate dance. Most interestingly, none of them know how they will “crash” into each other until it violently happens. All along the scenarios gently beg the question, “What would you do?” Even though the viewer is the spectator, most of the dialogue is reactionary. We see the characters change and attitudes shift as they are brought together again, but as needed allies.

This shift in the film that occurs shows that we are all just skin, blood, and bones, that we may all be able to “just get along.” It is hope. We see the racist officer save the Black woman (Thandie Newton) he previously assaulted from an overturned vehicle about to explode and the shop owner who shoots a young girl but does not harm her because the gun is full of blanks. Even after we discover that what Det. Waters saw at the beginning of the crime scene was his brother fatally shot (Larenz Tate), that is not where the film ends. A group of Thai captives are released, and there is another car crash.

Crash does not tell you how to think or feel. It presents characters who are blunt, who turn the other cheek, are both ignorant and educated, and all of the complicated things people are. Plainly we can see that much of the anger is triggered by fear. Specifically, in the storyline of the shop owner who has everything on the line -his family and his business. Even at his best, it his daughter who protects him from himself. We see that racism is never as simple as racial slurs, and it is so deep that it ultimately affects the person and prevents them from living happy, healthy lives.

Director Paul Haggis does a great job with the film in letting the audience think for themselves, and potentially see themselves in one of the story lines. Most interesting to me is the car jacker Anthony (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), who is the ultimate contradiction. He leads a life of crime, but is offended by White people who stereotype people of color as violent criminals. He claims that he only robs from White people, painting himself as a vigilante, and calls Hip-hop the music of the oppressor. His actions, however, leave us to wonder – is this self-fulfilling prophecy? Does he commit crime because that is all anyone will believe he does, or because of some real issue within himself? His flashes of intelligence would lead us to believe the latter.

In contrast, the other half of the car-jacking duo, Peter Waters, has no ill-will towards anyone. He seemingly feels that we do what’s necessary to survive, and yet he is fatally shot by the young officer off duty (Ryan Phillippe), because he recognized him as a car jacker and thought he had a gun. The young officer then sees that he was trying to show him the idol he carried, same as on Officer Hansen’s dash. The twist of fate for both the car jackers illustrates how second chances are given to some, but not all, and is not necessarily based on race. In fact, making race even more complicated in the real world are politics and money.

No matter how hard we try or how easy it may seem, how people get along based on race does not fit into a neat box. Further, even when race is one day no longer an issue, something else may be. If nothing else, Crash screams to us that we are human – humans make mistakes, humans compete, and humans react violently when afraid. What destroys us can also be what binds. Meditating on all the contradictions may drive you mad, but it is a what makes our connections strong, what makes us want to “crash” into someone else.

———-

Erin Parks is a writer and digital media professional originally from Athens, Georgia. She has worked on film and television promo projects for HBO, TVLand, and NBC Sports. Parks loves to stay abreast of current events and tech news. You may find more of her work on herdiamondback.com, a site with a mission to redefine feminism. Connect with Erin Parks on Twitter @eparksm.

Women of Color in Film and TV: Deeper Than Race: A Movie Review of ‘Crash’

Crash (2004)

Guest post written by Erin Parks.

———-

2013 Oscar Week: Searching for Sugar Man Makes Race Invisible

Written by Robin Hitchcock

Rodriguez, the central figure of documentary Searching for Sugar Man

Searching for Sugar Man, considered the front-runner for Best Documentary Feature at the 85th Academy Awards this weekend, shares the unlikely story of Sixto Rodriguez, an obscure failed musician in the United States who became an icon on the other side of the planet in South Africa. Rodriguez is a figure of mystery to his fans, and urban legends bloom about his having committed suicide on stage. A group of fans seek out the truth in the 1990s, and find Rodriguez is alive, still living in poverty in Detroit, completely unaware that to a generation of South Africans, he’s a rock god.

It’s a fascinating stranger-than-fiction story that is heartwarming and inspiring: perfect subject matter for a documentary. And Searching for Sugar Man is undeniably well-crafted, building suspense and mystery in the first half of the film on the hunt for Rodriguez, yielding to a very satisfying emotional catharsis in the second half of the film, where we meet Rodriguez and his daughters and see his triumphant arrival in the land that adores him. The stand-in music videos for Rodriguez’s songs that pepper the film are gorgeous to look at and the songs themselves are a revelation. Searching for Sugar Man is an excellent film that has a huge problem: the invisibility of race.

Searching for Sugar Man is about white South Africans. This is not in of itself a problem. White South Africans have stories that deserve to be told. [I am a white American living in South Africa and I think you should hear me out, for example.] But race is an intrinsic part of any South African story, especially any apartheid-era South African story. And Searching for Sugar Man is barely interested in race. It presents white South Africans as synonymous with South Africans, which is an exceptionally outrageous instance of white cultural hegemony given this country’s very recent history of extreme racial oppression.

Stephen “Sugar” Segerman, one of the South African Rodriguez fans integral to solving the mystery of the musician’s fate, does qualify Rodriguez’s South African fans as the “white, liberal, middle-class,” but it’s a quick aside in one of many descriptions of Rodriguez’s South African ubiquity. We see how the white conservatives in the apartheid government responded to Rodriguez (by censoring his records and banning airplay). But at no point in Searching for Sugar Man do we hear from a black or coloured South African on Rodriguez (with the very small exception of a news broadcaster in archival footage). I wanted to know if Rodriguez’s influence made it outside the white bubble in apartheid-era South Africa, but Searching for Sugar Man wasn’t interested in telling me. Documentaries should not leave glaring questions unanswered.

Another South African blogger had the same curiosity, and asked a black friend about his memories of Rodriguez:

He replied that he had known of the artist, but only because he used to work in broadcasting. This short and interesting answer was essentially all I asked for; a black South African commenting on the fact that Rodriguez was virtually unknown or seemed to not have played a vital role in the lives of black South Africans. Not to prove that Rodriguez did not matter, but to acknowledge that though Rodriguez fan base was mainly white, it does not mean that black South Africans have nothing to contribute with in this particular and fascinating aspect of South Africa during apartheid. A story about Rodriguez would be incomplete without the mentioning of apartheid, and a story that talks about apartheid without including a black South African experience feels incomplete to me.

Searching for Sugar Man‘s treatment of apartheid is also limited to the white middle-class perspective. Rodriguez’s anti-establishment lyrics are said to have ignited political awakening in the white Afrikaner youth in South Africa. The white male Rodriguez fans elaborate: one saying Rodriguez’s song “The Establishment Blues” taught them the very concept of being “anti-establishment”, planting the idea that “it’s OK to protest against our society; to be angry against your society.”

Segerman adds, “Because we lived in a society where every means was used to prevent apartheid from coming to and end, this album somehow had in it lyrics that almost set us free, as oppressed peoples. Any revolution needs an anthem, and in South Africa, Cold Fact was the album that gave people permission to free their minds and to start thinking differently.”

South Africans protesting apartheid in the Soweto uprising of 1976.

While there is no doubt that the apartheid government was oppressive to all South Africans, I bristle at hearing a white man refer to himself and his Afrikaner friends as “oppressed peoples” in a film that doesn’t provide the context of how apartheid shaped the lives of people of color in South Africa. The anti-apartheid movement we see in Searching for Sugar Man is one of privileged white youth rebelling against the censorship and control of their ultra-conservative government; when the fight against apartheid was a life-and-death struggle for basic human rights and freedom for millions of black and coloured South Africans.

Searching for Sugar Man‘s narrow white perspective on apartheid-era South Africa is all the more troubling because Sixto Rodriguez is himself a person of color (Mexican and Native American) living in extreme poverty in Detroit. Clarence Avant, an African American record producer who worked with Rodriguez, is the first and only person in the documentary to suggest that Rodriguez’s race may have contributed to his commercial failure in the United States. Rodriguez does not appear to be concerned with material wealth, having given away most of the money he’s earned touring after his rediscovery in the late 1990s (Since the release of this documentary, Rodriguez has embarked on a world tour). But when one compares the urban blight Rodriguez sang about on his albums to the circumstances of many South Africans two decades after the end of apartheid, the omission of their story in this documentary is even more appalling.

I’m delighted that Searching for Sugar Man has helped expose Rodriguez’s fine music to a wider audience (including myself); and as a resident of South Africa it is nice to see this country have a worldwide cultural moment. I just wish that the documentary that achieved all this was more fully and honestly representative of South Africa and its history.

Gender and Food Week: ‘The Princess and the Frog’

The Princess and the Frog (2009)

This guest post written by Janyce Denise Glasper originally appeared at Bitch Flicks as part of our series on Animated Children’s Films and as part of our series on Women and Gender in Musicals.

The Princess and the Frog is a Disney milestone for two reasons: it is the first hand-drawn animated motion picture from the company since 2004’s Home on The Range and features an African-American female heroine.

Also keep in mind that the last film co-starring a human princess was 1992’s Aladdin.

But hold that applause.

For these accomplishments mean little once the viewer realizes what is in store.

The poster of a pouting girl holding a frog amongst bugs, an alligator, and a snake amongst a dark, swampy background says it all. No cute fuzzy bunnies, kittens, or deer friends here.

Our characters: Tiana (originally to be Mamie–uh oh!), a two job hustling sassy twang lady with a lifelong dream of becoming a chef/owner of a fine restaurant. The leading man: disinherited, shallow, but very good looking, Prince Naveen. Tiana’s best friend since birth, Charlotte: a rich, apple-cheeked blond with ample curves to die for and a strange obsession with calling her sole parent “Big Daddy.” The villain: a top hat wearing, African mask collecting, voodoo havocking witch doctor with a smooth, seductive albeit evil voice, Dr. Facilier.

A bopping 1920’s New Orleans is where the story takes place.

The opening to the film was irking. After story time, little Charlotte demands a new dress and daddy begs Tiana’s mother to make her a new one. As the camera pans to several versions of the same pink dress, the kind black, very tired seamstress obediently obliges. Sadly, while she and Tiana leave, daddy spoils Charlotte’s silhouette with a puppy.

How cute!

Eye roll.

Tiana and her mom ride the bus back home- nice part of town disappears rather quickly. One does not need to mention where they have a home. Remember these are black people here.

Five minutes later, Tiana and Charlotte grow up.

(I must also state that I found Charlotte’s treatment of Tiana infuriating.)

At the café, Charlotte just throws all of her daddy’s money at Tiana and demands that she make a boatload of beignets for her Mardi Gras soiree–on that very night!

Inferiority complex is at play.

Charlotte and her daddy make Tiana’s family work like slaves even though they are paying for them. Much too docile and meek, Tiana and her mother take this dominating behavior and its sickening, even for an animated cartoon.

The plot thickens.

Tiana and Prince Naveen-turned-frog

Thinking her to be a real princess due to the tiara on her head, Prince Naveen-turned-frog begs for Tiana’s kiss. Unfortunately, she isn’t a princess at all. So after a slimy short make out session, she too becomes a frog.

Ah, how wonderful!

Arguing and swapping flies together, these two frogs embark on a journey in the wet, scary marshlands. The quest to finding their lost humanity is supposed to be funny, sweet, and somewhat romantic. Let’s not forget to mention there is a scene in which their long tongues get twisted in a style reminiscent of Lady and the Tramp’s infamous innocent spaghetti smooch. But that connection was due to a bug, not good old-fashioned Italian fare.

As Tiana and Prince Naveen search for the person who could make them “normal” by following a goofy alligator and a bug that is more friend than delicacy, the viewer quickly becomes annoyed and a tad bit infuriated.

By the near end, they are in love and willing to accept each other forever … as frogs!

When compared to the other Disney princesses, Tiana’s story is a bunch of BS. She didn’t have an evil stepfamily, eat a poisoned apple, have graceful legs instead of fins, receive many hours of beauty rest, or become a madmen’s “love” slave.

Does that make her luckier? I think not.

None of those women would wish to be a frog with long, batty eyelashes.

Nope. Not one.

After the green, jumpy lily pad life and having a grand night’s adventure in the bayou, our humanized heroine finally becomes a princess and a restaurateur. The end.

Feeling robbed?

Yes.

We all know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but this is a distasteful metaphor. It kind of makes one feel that all brown-skinned women are frogs and that in order to love them, one would have to be a frog too.

Other notable lowlights: blacks are put in their “respective” places–living in close-knit, modest shacks and taking overcrowded public transportation. As previously mentioned, submissive Tiana and her mother both work diligently for white people and Prince Naveen’s right hand white man transforms into Prince Naveen via Dr. Facilier’s powers. It would almost be a cry for demeaning blackface politics, except Prince Naveen is not a black man.

Loved that an upstanding, loving, appreciative father shared Tiana’s passion for cooking and inspired her ethic. So glad Disney didn’t go with that stereotype about black men being absent from their children’s lives…

Now, Tiana’s mother: only commendable when not complaining about Tiana needing to find a “prince charming” so that she could have grandbabies. Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Jasmine, Ariel, and Belle lacked motherly parenting, which added to their naïveté about men. Little fairies and godmothers are sweet and all, but the genuine love from a mother is a special, sacred bond often missing in Disney films.

As a strong, independent woman, Tiana knew that one does not sit on her butt talking to baby animals and making wishes on stars.

Oh wait, she did wish on a star! Damn.

Still, she dreamed big and worked from the ground up.

Now that is a character for little girls to be inspired by. Too bad Tiana was a frog for so long in the movie.

Overall, The Princess and the Frog is enjoyable for a few laughs, infectious moments, and the trademark watery eye sap. But it takes many steps–backwards, forwards, sideways. One wonders what this film is truly trying to accomplish.

———-

Janyce Denise Glasper is a writer/artist running two silly blogs of creative adventures called Sugarygingersnap and AfroVeganChick. She enjoys good female centric film, cute rubber duckies, chocolate covered everything (except bugs!), Days of Our Lives, and slaying nightly demons Buffy style in Dayton, Ohio.

Guest Post: Movie Review: ‘Think Like a Man’

This guest post by Ela Eke-Egele previously appeared at Black Feminists and is cross-posted with permission.

The film is a romantic comedy based on Steve Harvey’s book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. It follows four couples and each woman is dating a different type of man as defined in the book, “The Player,” “The Non-Committer,” “The Mama’s Boy” and “The Dreamer” respectively.

The women follow relationship strategies for the given type of man they are dating and all seems to go well, until the men discover what they are up to. They get a copy of the book and attempt to counter the women’s plans but ultimately, end up alone. Following some reflection and regret, the couples make up and the movie ends with a joyful reunion and uplifting music.

Think Like a Man is unsophisticated and dated. It’s blatantly self-promoting with Steve Harvey appearing several times to talk about the ideas in his book (K-Ching!). The film’s soundtrack is a lot more entertaining than the script which in places relies more on sexism than realism. Chris Brown has a minor role in it and for me, it’s still too soon. The last person I need to see in a film dealing with relationships is Chris Brown.

L-R: Mya (Meagan Goode), Sonia (La La Anthony), Zeke (Romany Malco) in Think Like a Man

Think Like a Man operates in a heterosexual world and works on the premise that women have an innate need for commitment while men are all about sex and that men are in a position of power today because sex and women have become too available. This is made clear at the onset, with James Brown’s It’s a Man’s World opening and a voiceover by Kevin Harris.

The impression that Think Like a Man gives is that a black woman’s primary focus is on finding and keeping a man and that we’re prepared to lie, cheat and manipulate in order to get one. But, I have to say, the men in this movie aren’t very appealing. They are sexist, emotionally immature with little potential for growth. The “Happily Married Man” is portrayed by a white man who in fact does seem more enlightened when it comes to relationships and more willing to compromise. But, I wonder what is this trying to tell us, that black men are not this sophisticated by nature and we just have to work with this?

Admittedly both the men and women in Think Like a Man are overplayed stereotypes. To suggest this is the best that men, particularly black men, have to offer is very bleak and to assume that black women are so desperate is insulting.

Think Like a Man roots for a playing field that favours men while it pretends to empower women. Conforming to some basic stereotypes and predefined rules makes women easier to understand and also removes the need for men to relate to us as individuals. Steve Harvey is unapologetic when he says that “we need to talk” are the four words most dreaded by men. This is following a scene where one of the men gets a call from his girlfriend who says exactly that. The scene also makes it plain that men have no such reservations when it comes to talking about strippers and ‘titties and ass.’

L-R: Michael (Terrence Jenkins) and Candace (Regina Hall) in Think Like a Man

The movie denies that men are intimidated by a woman’s success yet we are told that the male DNA is encoded with the need to be the provider and the compulsion to be in control. A view that conveniently ignores evolution and is so worn out that it is completely threadbare. Successful and accomplished women are accused of being too independent and giving off the impression that they do not need men because they are men. The preferable strategy for these women is to downplay their achievements, lower their standards and settle for less. So, this film doesn’t seem as much about helping women get men as it is about helping men get women with minimal effort and undamaged egos.

Think Like a Man is nostalgic for a time when men were men and abundant chest hair and gold medallions were a sign of virility, and I can’t help but feel that it may be a reflection of how hard it is for black men to deal with the much-improved status of women today. Women are more successful, financially secure, sexually liberated and independent than they have ever been and, perhaps for men like Steve Harvey, it makes it seem like male privilege is slipping away, so now there’s a war on.

Harvey’s book was on the New York bestsellers list so it obviously did well, but I think that any women who finds it necessary to resort to these tactics is simply encouraging bad behaviour and buying into the idea that black men are a lost cause. Steve Harvey, instead of looking to women for a solution, should encourage men to look to themselves. Men, even black men, need and benefit from commitment and any who refuse to adapt will lose out in the long run. Women deserve better. Perhaps he hasn’t realised this yet, which might explain why he is on his third marriage. This makes it even harder to take his book and this movie seriously.

———-

Ela Eke-Egele is involved with the Black Feminists group in London. She works full time in the IT industry and enjoys writing part-time. She lives in Hertfordshire with her two children and a goldfish.

Horror Week 2012: A Brief Feministory of Zombie Cinema

I spent my teen years hopelessly addicted to zombie movies. No matter how poorly made, no matter how artistically worthless, no matter how nasty and exploitative, if the movie had zombies in it, I would watch. The first thing I bought with the first paycheck from my first job at seventeen was Jamie Russell’s Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Zombie Cinema.

In 2006, it was indeed more or less complete, but a LOT of zombie movies have been made since then.

I should state upfront that I hold no truck with narrow, exclusionary definitions of “zombie.” To me, the zombie is a very broad church: if somebody has ever called it a zombie, it’s a zombie. The Deadites of Evil Dead? Zombies. The Somnambulist in The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari? A zombie. The Dead Men of Dunharrow? Zombies. (Don’t even try that 28 Days Later “infected” crap with me. Those are most definitely zombies, and you should trust me on this because I probably know more about zombie cinema than you.) (Unless you’re Jamie Russell, in which case thank you for stopping by, sir, and I love your book, and I wrote a paper about Zombie Jesus if you’d like to read it?)

As well as being a zombie aficionado, I spent my teen years deep in confusion and denial about sexuality and gender – and these two things are perhaps not unrelated. Vampires and werewolves are explicitly sexual and very gendered, but my movie monster of choice erases sex and gender entirely by its very nature. There are no alluring seductions, no monthly cycles, no explosions of pent-up masculine rage in the zombie: only a creeping sameness and inevitability, all social categories dissolved into nothingness, all physical difference literally consumed in the nightmarish Eucharist of undead cannibalism.

Of course, this erasure of sex and gender does not mean that sex and gender are not explored in zombie films. On the contrary, there are some very interesting things going on, as we shall see in our whirlwind tour of the Three Eras of Zombie Cinema.

Stage One: The Pre-Romero Era

The early stage of zombie cinema is the least popular (and it is also my strongest ammunition in the fight against the purists who insist that only the Romero flavor of zombie – the dead, resurrected, flesh-eating variety – counts as a true zombie). For the first 35 years of its onscreen existence, the zombie didn’t eat anybody’s flesh. Instead, a zombie – first seen in 1932 Bela Lugosi vehicle White Zombie – was a mindless slave resuscitated by voodoo.

The words “voodoo,” “1932,” and “slave” all in the same sentence like that has probably alerted you to the most striking fact about these early zombie films, which is that they are hella racist. In White Zombie, Bela Lugosi plays a Haitian voodoo master who conspires with a plantation owner to zombify a white woman. I Walked With A Zombie (1943) and Hammer’s The Plague of the Zombies (1966) also draw on Haitian voodoo and slave plantations. Per Russell’s thoughtful postcolonial reading of these films, they play on colonial fears of white enslavement and Afro-Caribbean magical powers. In all three movies, the great threat posed by the zombies and their voodoo master is the enslavement of a young white woman.

I Walked With A Zombie: SO MUCH horrendous racial and sexual imagery in one little screencap.

In these early films, white women exist primarily to be threatened by a monster with a subtext of sexual violence, suggesting the racist narrative of predatory, animalistic black men preying on lily-white women. It’s pretty stomach-churning to watch, even if it’s fascinating fodder for students of gender, race, colonialism, and the cinema. Luckily, in 1968 zombies were revitalized, and their race and gender aspects completely transformed, by one remarkable movie.

Stage Two: The Golden Age

In Night of the Living Dead, George Romero’s most obvious innovation was actually cribbed from the Richard Matheson novella I Am Legend (in which the undead bloodsuckers are actually identified as vampires, though often read as zombies). Like their literary predecessors, Romero’s shuffling reanimated corpses fed on the living. The association of zombies with Haitian voodoo, slavery, and colonialism was jettisoned, and pop culture hasn’t looked back.

Calling this period the golden age is almost entirely a matter of personal preference, but good lord are there some terrific zombie films from the 1970s. Romero’s own Dawn of the Dead is the undisputed masterpiece of the era, but there are some wonderful movies from all across Europe: the Spanish Blind Dead series, Lucio Fulci‘s giallo gorefests in Italy (especially the splendid The Beyond), French film The Grapes of Death, the underrated and transnational The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue…

But it was Night of the Living Dead that set the tone for these movies, both in terms of the unremitting bleakness and in the heightened consciousness of social issues. Romero has always claimed that his choice of African-American actor Duane Jones for protagonist Ben was color-blind casting, but his own subsequent filmography displays a clear concern for class and race issues. The role of gender in golden-age zombie films is subtler, but no less present. One of the more shocking moments in NotLD is the reveal of the little zombie girl chomping on her dead father and murdering her own mother. The message is clear: the zombie apocalypse breaks down all social categories. The mother-child bond, so often inviolable in Hollywood, is broken in the most violent way imaginable. A little girl, the archetype of innocence, enacts the violence. Social roles cannot possibly hold in the face of the undead threat; in the end, the zombie makes equals of us all.

No wonder I am terrified of preteens.

Stage Three: The Great Comeback

The eighties and nineties saw a proliferation of slasher flicks, while the zombie fell out of favor. Russell ascribes the zombie resurgence of the past decade to the 2002 double-whammy of 28 Days Later and the video game Resident Evil. Before long, Dawn of the Dead was remade, while Shaun of the Dead gave the genre a simultaneous shot in the arm as the first self-styled “RomZomCom.” By the middle of the decade, zombies were well and truly mainstream.

It’s a curious fact, explored by Carol J. Clover in Men, Women, and Chain Saws, that lowbrow genre fare can sometimes push the boundaries of what’s socially acceptable by mainstream Hollywood standards. Arguably, the mainstreaming of zombies has actually defanged some of their ability to make interesting commentary on gender.

For example, the largely entertaining and in some ways surprisingly innovative 2009 zom-com Zombielandends with its previously strong, capable female characters screaming on an amusement park ride, needing to be rescued by the male protagonist. While 1970s zombie films didn’t exactly lack delicate fainting ladies, there was an overall thematic sense that the rising of the dead renders categories such as gender roles ontologically insignificant. A film like Zombieland manages to use the zombie apocalypse to actually enforce gender stereotypes. Similarly, I rage-quit AMC’s The Walking Dead after one season, in part based on a scene where the female characters had a discussion along the lines of, “Well, the apocalypse has hit; better revert to traditional gender roles, ’cause cavemen!!”

I still love zombies deeply. I love the wish-fulfillment aspect of imagining yourself as the last brave outpost of survival against the onslaught, creating your own beleaguered little society when this one collapses. I love the multiplicity of symbolic potential in the zombie, the seemingly endless variety of fears for which it can stand: the inevitability of death; infiltration of human-seeming replicants or pod people; fear of brainwashing or enslavement; loss of all particularity or individuality; uprising of the faceless proletariat; the revenge of Gaia; communism; enforced conformity; being overwhelmed by whatever force it is that you fear most (feminism or kyriarchy or theocracy or secularism or or or…).

But I’m experiencing burnout. I don’t enjoy seeing such a rich, challenging, bleak, existential symbol stripped of all its nuance to cater to the same old reductive Hollywood tropes and narratives. I’m sick of the mainstream cultural attitude toward gender and social roles, and I am very sick of seeing things I love harnessed to serve this attitude.

It makes me want to eat somebody’s brains! Which is a thing invented in Return of the Living Dead in 1985.

Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax.

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: The Princess and the Frog

This review by Janyce Denise Glasper previously appeared at Bitch Flicks as part of our series on Animated Children’s Films.

The Princess and the Frog (2009)

Also keep in mind that the last film co-starring a human princess was 1992’s Aladdin.

But hold that applause.

For these accomplishments mean little once the viewer realizes what is in store.

The poster of a pouting girl holding a frog amongst bugs, an alligator, and a snake amongst a dark, swampy background says it all. No cute fuzzy bunnies, kittens, or deer friends here.

A bopping 1920’s New Orleans is where the story takes place.

How cute!

Eye roll.

Tiana and her mom ride the bus back home- nice part of town disappears rather quickly. One does not need to mention where they have a home. Remember these are black people here.

Five minutes later, Tiana and Charlotte grow up.

(I must also state that I found Charlotte’s treatment of Tiana infuriating.)

At the café, Charlotte just throws all of her daddy’s money at Tiana and demands that she make a boatload of beignets for her Mardi Gras soiree–on that very night!

Inferiority complex is at play.

The plot thickens.

Tiana and Prince Naveen-turned-frog

Ah, how wonderful!

By the near end, they are in love and willing to accept each other forever … as frogs!

Does that make her luckier? I think not.

None of those women would wish to be a frog with long, batty eyelashes.

Nope. Not one.

After the green, jumpy lily pad life and having a grand night’s adventure in the bayou, our humanized heroine finally becomes a princess and a restaurateur. The end.

Feeling robbed?

Yes.

As a strong, independent woman, Tiana knew that one does not sit on her butt talking to baby animals and making wishes on stars.

Oh wait, she did wish on a star! Damn.

Still, she dreamed big and worked from the ground up.

Now that is a character for little girls to be inspired by. Too bad Tiana was a frog for so long in the movie.

———-

Janyce Denise Glasper is a writer/artist running a silly blog of creative adventures called Sugarygingersnap. She enjoys good female centric film, cute rubber duckies, chocolate covered everything (except bugs!), Days of Our Lives, and slaying nightly demons Buffy style in Dayton, Ohio.

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: The Lion King: Just Good, or Feminist Good?

This review by FeministDisney previously appeared at Bitch Flicks as part of our series on Animated Children’s Films.

Nala to Simba: “Pinned you again.”

Overall FeministDisney Rating: **, 2/4 stars (see below for specific categories that feed into this)

The Lion King is an interesting movie to pick apart. I think when it comes to anthropomorphized casts, it’s almost more difficult, at first, to examine it critically in terms of how it portrays humans. After all, when you think “Feminism” + “Disney,” who thinks to critique The Lion King? I didn’t, at first.

But truth be told: there is much to critique here.

I should say first, let’s throw the whole “But this is how lions act” argument out the window. Lions are not actually “kings” of all animals; they do not actually get along with prey when they’re feeling like singing a song, or learn to eat bugs from them; when (male) lions become subadults, they have to leave their pride, and no, they can never come back. Etc., etc., etc.

So none of this “Disney just portrayed it that way because it’s that way in real life” ish. This isn’t the National Geographic Channel.

One big, happy family?

So anyhow. It’s very noticeable in this movie that male characters take the center stage, and female characters take a backseat to the action. Simba, Mufasa, Scar, Rafiki, Zazu, Timon, Pumbaa (these are all characters that take up a significant amount of screen time) versus … Nala. Sarabi was there but existed as little more than a supportive nurturing background character who took a backsteat to Simba’s relationship with his father. The male story and the male perspective clearly dominate. As a simple Bechdel test or more in-depth examination will tell us, this is not a single occurrence but rather a troubling reflection of movie character diversity in general.

When it comes to Nala, her role has always frustrated me a lot. Ignoring that it might not work with the plot already in place, it was quite disappointing that Nala did not take over partially or fully in Simba’s absence. She is always shown, especially early on in the film, to be Simba’s equal, and she is perhaps even more intelligent, or at least a more naturally sound leader throughout the film, while Simba tends to be comparatively a bit more immature and in need of multiple characters propelling him into responsible/rightful action. This isn’t a critique of Simba’s likeability or abilities, but merely to say that in all aspects, Nala would have made at least a decent fill-in.

Simba and the more cunning Nala

Another feminist critique of this movie (on Nala):

She comes up with better ideas then he does. She is the one who starts Simba thinking about his past and his future. Yet, despite the fact that she left the pride lands to find help, she also does not challenge Scar’s right to rule. She does little more than Sarabi to work toward getting a better life for herself and the other lionesses, only leaving the pride lands to seek help (read: a different male lion). Only when Simba returns to the lionesses stand up to Scar. This is because a new male has been found to lead them. The lionesses are very much kept in the shadow of the male lions.

Neither Sarabi nor Nala challenge the male lion’s leadership even though there is no clear reason for why they should allow him to run and ruin their entire kingdom, other than that he is male. Not even when they are starving do they speak up and act for themselves and for their people. Simba has to do it for them.

I think this is really one of the main and most problematic aspects of the film: it basically boils down to the fact that an entire group of strong female characters are unable to confront a single male oppressor; to do so, they need to be led by a dominant male. It almost sucks more that Nala is such a strong, independent, intelligent, savvy female character and still ends up constrained by this plot device. It doesn’t say a lot of positive things about the role of women or about the importance of female characters in this film.

Scar: Simba’s evil gay uncle?

When it comes to androgyny and non-binary characters in this film, it is worth noting that they all “happen” to be the evil characters: the 3 hyenas and Scar. Scar is clearly a male lion, but as has been noted previously and in many blog posts apart from mine, he is portrayed as basically the “gay evil uncle” owing to his effeminate gestures/speech/appearance that are stereotypically known to be gay markers. Shenzi is presumably female but is never actually referred to as one in the movie–it is something we can only assume from the general tone of the voice. All the hyenas look very similar/are difficult to distinguish other than by voice inflection (it isn’t bad to have androgynous characters: it’s bad that they’re always cast as villains in childrens’ movies).

A piece called “Women, Race and Culture in Disney Movies” states:

The characters are animals, but their voices show racist stereotypes. Even though The Lion King takes place in Africa, two white American actors are used for the voice of Simba, the hero. However, the hyenas who are bad characters in the film, speak non-standard English and are played by actors like Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin. The villain, Scar, suggests homosexuality.

While I do agree with some of the observations, many readers have pointed out that the cast is pretty diverse and both good and evil characters have “black” and “white” voices so neither one is necessarily villainized. I don’t think it’s accidental though that Simba/Mufasa/everyone are very bright and light colored, while the Hyenas and Scar are a lot darker. While this has been a traditional coding for good/evil in film, I think it’s pretty obvious for children watching who the good and bad guy is, rendering this device unnecessary. But since it’s still there in the movie it could, rather than being a helpful cue, actually helping to instill subconscious notions of morality relating to the color of your skin.

Another review states:

Many critics saw a racial subtext to the villainous outsiders, noting that the racialized voices of the hyenas hewed to hackneyed stereotypes of African American and Hispanic threats to nice kids from the suburbs who stray too far from home.

Racialized hyenas?

Don’t get me wrong here: I loved The Lion King when it came out in 1994. I was 5 years old and I wanted that movie on VHS sooo badly that I created this “moving train” of paper characters to show my mom in hopes that she would realize that we had to have it since I loved it enough to create a paper train (so started my life of unnecessarily complicated scheming!). We got it as a gift when my brother was born, and I had a Zazu stuffed toy that I carried everywhere like a doll for a year or two.

So yeah, it’s a great film, but that doesn’t make it a great feminist film.

Promotion/Equal Voice given to women: *
Representation of Women present (are they more than typecasts of female stereotypes etc): ***
Racism/Classism: **
LGBTQ representation: *~ (1.5)
Gender Binary adherence: *~

———-

FeministDisney runs a tumblr blog of the same name that seeks to deconstruct and examine Disney through a feminist lens. FD is a Disney fan, which is why she finds it necessary to discuss how Disney narratives can be both groundbreaking and problematic. She identifies as a feminist, an artist and a cat lover.

The Zoe Saldana / Nina Simone Biopic Controversy Illustrates the Need for More Black Women Filmmakers

(L-R): Zoe Saldana and Nina Simone; image via Black Street

When Zoe Saldana was recently cast as legendary singer Nina Simone in her upcoming biopic, the decision ignited a firestorm of controversy. People have vehemently criticized the decision. Not because Saldana isn’t a skilled actor (she is). But because her skin is much lighter than the music icon.

I’ve wanted to write about this topic for awhile now. But how can I, a white woman, do justice to the complex issue of race?

I’ll never know discrimination or oppression based on the color of my skin. But I realized that while the whitewashing of Hollywood remains an ongoing conversation in the Black community, it’s not a discussion amongst everyone. And it should be.

Nina Simone’s daughter Simone spoke to Ebony about why skin color should matter in the casting of her mother’s biopic:

“I can guarantee that the sense of insecurity and the questioning of one’s beauty that results from a grownup telling you that as a child you’re too black and your nose is too wide, remained with her [her mother Nina Simone] for the rest of her life.”

At The Huffington Post, Nicole Moore writes about Nina Simone and the “erasure of black women in film”:

“Because Simone’s blackness extended as much to her musical prowess as to her physicality and image, it’s perplexing that the film’s production team, led by Jimmy Iovine, expects anyone, particularly in the black community, to (re)imagine Nina Simone as fair-skinned, thin-lipped and narrow-nosed? I guess if you look at Hollywood’s history of casting black female roles, especially in biopics, it’s not all that surprising.”

Hollywood has a massive race and gender problem. Black women’s bodies belong to a dichotomy suffering from either fetishization or erasure. When Black women appear in media, which doesn’t happen nearly enough, they suffer from stereotypes of mammies, jezebels and sapphires. And too many producers and directors clearly don’t understand the nuances of race, thinking any person of color will suffice.

Clutch Magazine’s Britni Danielle writes about the biopic and Hollywood’s massive misunderstanding and insensitivity when it comes to women and race:

“In the past few years Hollywood has consistently gotten it wrong when it comes to telling black women’s narratives. From the questionable choice of casting Thandie Newton as an Igbo woman in the film adaptation of the novel Half of a Yellow Sun and Jennifer Hudson as Winnie Mandela, to Jacqueline Fleming, a biracial woman, playing Harriet Tubman, when other people are in charge of portraying us, it seems like any brown face will do.”

The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates also finds the “bleaching of Nina Simone” problematic and reinforcing systemic racism:

“But this casting (with no shot taken at Saldana) manages to both erase the specific kind of racism Simone contended with and at the same time empower it.”

Most white people probably don’t realize the painful history of colorism and skin shade hierarchy — dark vs. light skin — Black women continually face. When the media portrays Black women, we often see women with lighter skin and more Caucasian features. Both L’Oreal and Elle photoshopped Black women — Beyonce and Gabby Sidibe — to make their skin appear much lighter. In film, advertisements and magazine spreads, the media often whitewashes black women, continually perpetuating the unachievable attainment of the white ideal of beauty.

At The Daily Beast, Allison Samuels writes about “the myth of black beauty” and skin color:

“Skin color and its importance around the world—and particularly in the African-American community—has been a hot-button issue for generations. The debate over skin color and its painful origins dates back to the days of slavery, when lighter skin often equaled a better overall quality of life. With more pronounced European features, bearers of a lighter complexion were also considered more attractive than their darker-skinned peers. Possessing this trait was believed to open the cracked doors of opportunity ever wider.”

Due to white privilege, white people don’t agonize over their skin color. We don’t have to worry if someone will harass us or follow us around in a department store, thinking we’re going to steal merchandise simply because of our skin. If we move, we don’t have to worry about finding neighbors who don’t like us because of our skin color. We don’t have to fret over something as simple as putting on a Band-Aid which won’t match our skin tone.

My point is this: we don’t ever have to think about race. Sure, we can if we want to. But we don’t haveto. And therein lies the privilege.

But Spectra, an amazing Afrofeminist writer, asserts the dark vs. light skin in the Zoe Saldana/Nina Simone biopic debate misses the point about Black women in the media. She poses that Black women must create media in order to reclaim and tell their own stories:

“The hard truth is this: if we spent more time creating media instead of criticizing it, there’d be way more diversity in representation, and way more stories and perspectives to which white people can be more frequently held accountable.

“Pushing for ownership of both the infrastructure and content that portrays our lived experiences – that is the crux of the issue; not just the politics of light vs. dark-skinned actresses. So, whereas I am completely on board with calling out the colorism behind the biopic’s casting choices (and the harmful message that’s being sent to young, dark-skinned black girls everywhere by having a light-skinned woman play Nina Simone) there aren’t enough strong lead roles written for women of color in Hollywood for me to fairly tell Zoe Saldana, a hard-working, talented brown woman to ”sit this one out.”

Here at Bitch Flicks, we talk a lot about the need for more female filmmakers and women-centric films. One of the takeaways from the Zoe Saldana/Nina Simone controversy is that we desperately need more women of color filmmakers.

The Help crystallizes Hollywood’s problem with Black women. Sure, we see strong and complex Black women telling their stories of discrimination and hardship to writer Skeeter (Emma Stone). But even in a film containing the inarguably talented Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer giving phenomenal Oscar nominated and Oscar-winning performances, it still remains a racially problematic film. Even in a film that supposedly champions Black women, it ultimately revolves around a white female protagonist’s perspective.

While women filmmakers don’t merely depict female protagonists, when more women are behind the camera, we tend to see more women in front of the camera. Looking back at this year’s movies, female-fronted films such as Brave, The Hunger Games, Prometheus, and Snow White and the Huntsman graced the big screen. We saw women-centric indies like Your Sister’s Sister, Take This Waltz, For a Good Time Call… and Bachelorette. We even witnessed strong women in male-dominated movies like Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises and Black Widow in The Avengers.

But when you look at the female protagonists — aside from Beasts of the Southern Wild, Sparkle, The Lady, Girl in Progress and Celeste and Jesse Forever which all featured women of color in lead roles — you’ll notice their overwhelming whiteness.

Perhaps if we had more Black women filmmakers, we would see more nuanced and diverse depictions of Black women on-screen.

Now, that doesn’t mean white women and men can’t or shouldn’t write strong, complex Black female characters. But it does mean white people have to stop appropriating Black women’s narratives, especially if we’re not going to take the time to attempt to understand the intricate and painful complexities of the light vs. dark skin stigma. And we’ve got to stop pretending we live in a post-racial society. We don’t.

We need more films from Black women directors like Ava DuVernay, Dee Rees and Julie Dash. But we aren’t seeing enough Black women in front of or behind the camera. In her Women and Hollywood cross-post, Evette Dionne wonders “Where are the black women film directors?” She explores the “exile of black women film directors” by studios that refuse to fund their work.

“So black women, one of the most sought after audience demographics for movie studios, aren’t behind the camera providing insight into our culture. This leads to a misrepresentation of the black community on the silver screen. Often, we are caricatures of ourselves, as evidenced in Jumping the Broom and other projects, which leads to resentment for what the media machine represents in our communities.”

When a young Black female tennis player is told she’s too fat to receive funding, when the Swedish Minister of Culture and rapper 2Chainz eat racist cakes of dismembered Black women’s bodies, when the media cares more about criticizing Olympic gold-medal winning gymnast Gabby Douglas’ hair than her performance — we as a society clearly have a fucked-up, racist and misogynistic problem denigrating and oppressing Black women.

Last year, I had the overwhelming privilege of meeting one of my feminist idols, Professor Melissa Harris-Perry (squee!!). After her brilliant and empowering speech on her must-read book Sister Citizen, she graciously stayed afterwards and spoke to each and every person. When I finally got my chance to talk to her, I gushed about how much I loved her and how she needed her own TV show (and this was BEFORE her fantastic MSNBC weekend show was announced!). I also asked her how to be a good ally to women of color. She gave the simplest yet hardest advice of all. Listen. When in a room with women of color, she said to be silent, listen and let them speak for themselves. When you find yourself in a space with no women of color, that’s when you need to speak up.

So we white women (and men) need to speak up against racism.

When people talk about the need for more women in media — sadly, they often mean white women. Many of us who write about the need for women’s representation in film or women-created media feel satisfaction when we see white female leads on-screen and white female writers and directors. But that’s got to change. We need films to portray women of all races, created by women of all races — not just white women and think we’ve somehow achieved some semblance of equity.

White women and men filmmakers need to realize the damage they wreak when they only cast light-skinned Black women (if they cast women of color at all), especially in a biopic of a famous Black woman with dark skin.

It’s time for us white women to listen. Listen to black women. Listen to their needs and wants and support them from the sidelines. We can’t merely be satisfied when any woman stands on-screen. Black women must be behind the camera, telling their own stories.