Its been reported at The Root that the new movie “New in Town,” starring Renee Zellweger actually started out as a fish-out-of-water tale about a southern black woman who ends up working in a small midwestern town. How did it morph into a vehicle about a white woman from Miami transplanted to a small midwestern town? It seems that Hollywood producers and execs don’t see women of color as viable or bankable female leads. Too bad. It sounds like the original script would have made a much more interesting movie.
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Welcome to The Sepia Screen
This blog is dedicated to chronicling films featuring people of color in non-stereotypical roles. My reasons for starting this blog are summed up in an article I wrote this summer on my other blog mesoamused.com and appears below:
My Struggle with Hollywood’s Quintessential Negro
August 24, 2008
This week I was able to attend a screening of the movie “The Express” [http://www.theexpressmovie.com/] which is scheduled to be released in October 2008. I had seen the preview of the movie before being invited to the screening, so I knew the movie was about Ernie Davis, the first African-American college football player to win the Heisman Trophy. Based on the preview, I was lukewarm about seeing the movie and wrestled with my decision to attend the screening. After all, I’d seen this type of Hollywood movie before:
Superior/exceptional/special African-American living in a time of intense racisim (slavery/Jim Crow) overcomes great odds with the help of his/her white benefactor.
Glory Road**Remember the Titans**The Long Walk Home**Glory**Imitation of Life**Driving Ms. Daisy**The Hurricane**Men of Honor**Radio…
If I had to create a name for these types of films, whether or not based on real people or fictional characters, I might call them “The Quintessential Negro Story.” You can probably substitute the word “Negro” with any other ethnic or marginalized group. Even when these movies are good and based on real and courageous human beings, I am still wary of these films because, in Hollywood, it is almost as if there is no compelling black experience to dramatize outside of slavery and the Civil Rights era. Movies that tend to show other facets of the experiences of black people tend to be comedic or clownish or thuggish [which are two whole other topics of discussion.] The other problem I have with these quintessential negro films is the benevolent white-character counterpart who is in the film to have a revelation that racism is wrong and without whom the black character might not overcome the obstacles before him. Such characterizations are paternalistic and condescending as if black people cannot achieve goals without help from white people.
Even with some of my disdain for these class of films, one of my favorite films in this “genre” is “A Dry White Season” which is set in South Africa during apartheid. [****If you hate spoilers, don’t read any further.****] In that movie, Donald Sutherland is the benevolent white character who, through a personal friendship with a black man, finally sees the evil of apartheid, although he has been complacent and complicit in the system for most of his life. What I like most about the film is that not only does Sutherland realize and acknowledge the horrible impact of apartheid on blacks in South Africa, but he makes real personal sacrifices to rectify his past complacency–he loses his wife, his daughter, and ultimately his life. The movie was directed by Euhzan Palcy, a black woman from Martinique, and so you have to wonder if the story would have been as compelling in the hands of a Hollywood director.
So as a lover of film, I ache for more dramatic films featuring a wide-range of black experiences— Love Jones , Talk to Me, She’s Gotta Have It, The Color Purple, Eve’s Bayou —and about people of color in the world—Rabbit Proof Fence, City of God, Bend It Like Beckham, Last King of Scotland. [A big shout out here to personal friends of mine making thoughtful independent black films Drayton Jamison (Big Ain’t Bad) and Christine and Michael Swanson (All About Us).]
Now that I got all of that off my chest, back to “The Express.” I went to the screening because I thought If I didn’t I might not have an opportunity to go to a screening of something I really wanted to see. So I was prepared not to like the film. But, unexpectedly, I did like it and was blubbering like a baby at the end. Perhaps it was the compelling story of Ernie Davis as portrayed by actor Rob Brown (Finding Forester). In Brown’s riveting performance, Mr. Davis comes across as a man who takes destiny into his own hands on and off the playing field. To the filmakers’ credit, the benevolent white character–real life Syracuse football coach Ben Shwartzwalder as played by Dennis Quaid did not come off particularly paternalistic or patronizing during most of the film. He was mostly portrayed as a man who cared about having the best football team made up of the best players. I’m not going to go into any more detail or review the movie further because it will be several more months before it is released.
Just consider this an open letter to Hollywood that there is an audience for dramatic films about compelling black characters and experiences that need not be so patronizing or formulaic.
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