Black Manhood on the Silent ScreenIn early-twentieth-century motion picture houses, offensive stereotypes of African Americans were as predictable as they were prevalent. Watermelon eating, chicken thievery, savages with uncontrollable appetites, Sambo and Zip Coon were all representations associated with African American people. Most of these caricatures were rendered by whites in blackface. Few people realize that from 1915 through 1929 a number of African American film directors worked diligently to counter such racist definitions of black manhood found in films like D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, the 1915 epic that glorified the Ku Klux Klan. In the wake of the film's phenomenal success, African American filmmakers sought to defend and redefine black manhood through motion pictures. Gerald Butters's comprehensive study of the African American cinematic vision in silent film concentrates on works largely ignored by most contemporary film scholars: African American-produced and -directed films and white independent productions of all-black features. Using these "race movies" to explore the construction of masculine identity and the use of race in popular culture, he separates cinematic myth from historical reality: the myth of the Euro American-controlled cinematic portrayal of black men versus the actual black male experience. Through intense archival research, Butters reconstructs many lost films, expanding the discussion of race and representation beyond the debate about "good" and "bad" imagery to explore the construction of masculine identity and the use of race as device in the context of Western popular culture. He particularly examines the filmmaking of Oscar Micheaux, the most prolific and controversial of all African American silent film directors and creator of the recently rediscovered Within Our Gates—the legendary film that exposed a virtual litany of white abuses toward blacks. Black Manhood on the Silent Screen is unique in that it takes contemporary and original film theory, applies it to the distinctive body of African American independent films in the silent era, and relates the meaning of these films to larger political, social, and intellectual events in American society. By showing how both white and black men have defined their own sense of manhood through cinema, it examines the intersection of race and gender in the movies and offers a deft interweaving of film theory, American history, and film history. |
Contents
Racialized Masculinity and the Politics of Difference | 1 |
Watermelon Razors | 14 |
Black Cinematic Ruptures and Ole Uncle Tom | 41 |
AfricanAmerican Cinema and The Birth of a Nation | 63 |
The Defense of Black Manhood on the Screen | 91 |
From Homestead to Lynch Mob | 122 |
Within Our Gates | 150 |
Blackface White Independent AllBlack Productions | 164 |
Conclusion | 206 |
Notes | 215 |
| 249 | |
| 259 | |
Common terms and phrases
actors African-American community African-American filmmakers African-American male all-black American Film argued attempt audience Birth Black and White Black Film black filmmakers black male black manhood blackface Blacks in Black Bowser Bowser and Spence censorship Chicago Defender cinematic claimed colored Coon critical D. W. Griffith dancing demonstrated depictions early silent entertainment Euro-American fight Film Company filmmakers Fire and Desire gender genre GPJC Griffith History Hollywood Homesteader Ibid ican ideology imagery images Jack Johnson Jane Gaines Klan Library of Congress Lincoln Motion Picture Louise Lubin Lynch mainstream major minstrel motion picture Motion Picture Company Movies Nation Negro Noble Johnson Oscar Micheaux played popular portrayals of African-American portrayed production racial racist role romantic Ronald Green Sampson Scar of Shame scene screen sexual silent era silent film social South southern spectator stereotypes Stoneman Straight Lick studio Sundaisy theaters theme tion Uncle Tom Uncle Tom's Cabin University Press viewer woman women World