Upon first glance it just looks like every other book I’ve ever purchased or, in recent quarters, rented (Chegg and Bookrenters are life savers) for school. “AMERICA ON FILM” in big bold letters with a picture of two white guys in cowboy hats looking across the plains at the snow capped mountains in the background. The gentlemen are posed casually as If to say, “this is our land, and I brought my rifle to protect it.” A freeze frame of the “golden era.” Below the big bold letters is the subtitle “representing race, class, gender and sexuality at the movies.” Maybe this will be slightly different. Then you look at the authors; Harry Benshoff and Sean Griffin. This is going to be book about the history of film with a combined 8 pages (out of the 400+) outlining the “Black Experience,” “Female Empowerment,” “Chicano Pride,” and “We’re here, We’re Queer, Get used to it.”
For the sake of making assignments for the class a little easier, and to practice what I preach regarding keeping an open mind; I read the introductory chapter. Expecting to read about the first film camera and a patronizing paragraph about “the struggle” I was floored by the crash course on perceived American white male superiority and its affects on people of color, women, and other parts of the world. The authors wasted no time explaining hegemonic negotiation, institutionalized & internalized discrimination and how they have shaped American cinema. In those first 20 pages I “hmmm’d,” “Oh’d” and exclaimed, “That’s what I’ve been saying!” I flipped to the back cover to check for a photo of an Angela Davis look-a-like with a dashiki and did double take at the two white men I found instead.
“America on Film” is not a cinema studies book, but a multicultural studies book that uses cinema as its units of analysis. I would argue that the complete title of this book is “America Caught on Film.”
Their brief breakdown of “The Lion King” was an eye opener.
Although I love the movie and remember fondly singing along to “Hakuna-Matata” in the theater and at home, I do have my “beef” with the fine folks Disney. As mentioned in the book the handful of actors of color all voiced villains and/or buffoons, less James Earl Jones as Mufasa. The lead role of Simba went to Jonathan Taylor Thomas
but Disney decided to go with Jason Weaver
when it was time for the singing and dancing portions of the movie. The voice of Simba changed once more during the course of the movie to that of Mathew Broderick.
Seeing a pattern? Benshoff and Griffin sure do and made me aware of a few more. The role of females in the movie is significantly down played to merely breeding machines. As such, the jungle falls apart when Scar, the seedy villain with a homosexual disposition, takes over. And the lush green vibrancy is restored when Simba the rightful king of the Jungle reclaims his throne. If not White Heterosexual Male Supremacy propaganda this movie could be considered at the very least an ISA (Ideological State Apparatus) for that agenda.
I didn’t close my book ready to take to the streets Gil Scott Heron style (RIP).
Why, partly because I had to get this assignment done, but more so because these practices and subliminal messages are nothing new. While these types of films do plant seeds of lowered self worth/image into the fragile psyches of the impressionable children of color that watch them, I do not honestly believe the Disney corporation holds secret meetings with Donald Trump and Bill Gates on how they are going to use these movies to promote white superiority. Rather these themes, over time (lots and lots of time), are allowed to permeate our culture and are reflected in our artifacts; namely our media. We’ve come a long way since the days of
“Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs,”
(or “Goldilocks and the Jivin’ Bears”)
but there are still traces of those same prejudice attitudes in our media today. Peter Berg’s “Hancock” staring Will Smith where the central theme of the movie is “white women are the black man’s kryptonite” is a prime example of that subliminal messaging. But we’ll save that for another post.
