<
https://www.messynessychic.com/2019/02/06/race-movies-and-the-black-owned-studios-that-thrived-next-to-hollywood/>
"There was another Hollywood that thrived once upon a time. From the 1910s to
the 1950s, an independent Black American film industry was in full swing,
making movies specifically for an all-Black audience, with its own African
American directors, stars and studios. The movies they produced, the first
alternative American “indie” cinema, are known as “race movies”. Of more than
500 motion pictures made, nearly all have been destroyed or damaged and are now
considered to be lost films.
To understand how race movies came about, we first need to take ourselves to
the picture house at the turn of the century. In popular white culture, in the
press, in cartoons and now on the silver screen, African American audiences are
not only being ignored, but constantly insulted with demeaning images of
themselves, portrayed as illiterate and uneducated, having never moved on from
the plantations, never having advanced. At best, they are comedians, illiterate
and uneducated; their roles serving only to provoke laughter and ridicule
certainly not to provoke any kind of serious thought.
In reality, a sophisticated black middle class had emerged from the previous
enslaved generation, one that needed to construct and see a new dignified image
for itself that they couldn’t find in the regular cinemas, which were also
segregated of course. The demand for a film industry geared to portray black
society with affection and pride was brewing."
Via Esther Schindler.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
