Black contributions to film have gone largely unacknowledged, says author
CBC Radio | Posted: December 17, 2021 5:35 PM | Last Updated: December 17, 2021
Wil Haygood says there have been improvements on the small screen but Hollywood still has room to grow
Black storytelling in film has come a long way in the past 100 years, according to writer Wil Haygood. But he said many contributions by Black filmmakers and performers continue to go largely unacknowledged, and there's still more work to do to see better representation on the big screen.
"They're doing some great stuff on the small screen and we're seeing stories with more racially diverse casts," Haygood, author of Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World, told Matt Galloway on The Current.
"[We] still have some problems on the 60-foot-wide motion picture screen, but we all still love movies. So I hope Hollywood has a moment of wokeness."
Haygood's book analyzes 100 years of Black movies, and uses those films to explore this history of Black culture, civil rights and racism in the United States.
Birth of Black cinema
According to Haygood, an early wave of Black cinema in the U.S., was actually sparked by the infamously racist 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, directed by D. W. Griffith.
"This was a movie where the Ku Klux Klan were heroes, and Black men were rapists and villains. It told the story of the Old South and what happened in the aftermath of the Civil War," said Haygood.
"It was the first movie that was so appalling and so widely received by white America, all while it was a savage attack against Black dignity and Black freedom."
The Birth of a Nation inspired protests and marches across the United States, but Haygood says it also inspired Black filmmakers to tell their story, including Oscar Micheaux. Micheaux was a farmer, but would write novels in the evening. He started converting his books into scripts, and making short, silent films.
"Within an eight-year period, he had really given birth to Black cinema in this country," said Haygood.
Haygood said Micheaux made it his goal to show the world what it was like to be Black, and to celebrate that through the arts. The films featured Black actors, and were played in cinemas across the United States. Some of his notable films include Within Our Gates, The Symbol of the Unconquered, and Swing!
Navigating Hollywood while Black
In the 1939 Hollywood classic Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel became the first Black person to win an Academy Award in her role as a maid named Mammy.
But taking on that part meant McDaniel had to play a character built on Black stereotypes. McDaniel was told by some of her friends that it may not be a good idea.
"It was a very stereotypical role. Her character's name was Mammy. She had no first name. She had no last name. There was no family in her life. And yet it was a very, very popular novel," said Haygood, referencing the 1936 book the film was based on.
"She famously said: 'I would much rather play a maid than have to work as a maid.'"
McDaniel wasn't allowed to sit with the rest of the film's cast, who were white, at the Oscars' awards ceremony.
Race has always scared America, and race has always frightened Hollywood. There is simply no getting around it. - Wil Haygood
And the prestige of the award didn't bring her any new roles, explained Maygood. She got more offers to play maids, but none as a lawyer or doctor or school teacher, for example.
Haygood said many Black actors, just based on the fact that they were Black, became linked to the civil rights movement. And that meant many of them, including Sidney Poitier, had to carefully consider what roles they took.
"He was so charismatic, he was so well-trained. He was a handsome actor," Haygood said of Poitier, a multiple-time Oscar nominee and the first Black man to win the Best Actor award for his role in 1963's Lilies of the Field.
He said filmmakers Stanley Kramer and Ralph Nelson cast Poitier in leading roles. But Poitier was very choosy about the characters he would play, and what he would do.
"A lot of whites looked at Sidney Poitier, and they judged the whole race of Black people by him. And so he was very careful in the roles that he played," said Haygood.
To that end, Poitier never played a villain, and made sure his characters were morally upstanding. He also would rarely kiss somebody on screen, and wouldn't kiss a white woman.
"His career really sort of mirrored in a sense, what was happening in this country as far as racial attitudes. Race has always scared America, and race has always frightened Hollywood. There is simply no getting around it," said Haygood.
Recorded on a phone
Haygood pointed to several other big moments and names in Black cinema history, like Jordan Peele's 2017 film Get Out or the 1977 miniseries Roots, which featured LeVar Burton in his breakout role as Kunta Kinte.
But he says the most impactful video in Black film came from someone's phone in 2020: the footage of George Floyd's death being killed by a Minneapolis police officer's knee on his neck.
That video crystallized the ongoing century long pain of Black people in the United States, Haygood said.
"I watched it and cried. I just cried."
Not unlike The Birth of a Nation, that video also sparked a movement: the resurgence of Black Lives Matter marches and protests across the United States and the wider world.
"It was just very important because so often in the past, Blacks have not had somebody on the scene to tape a horrific incident, and this time there was," said Haygood.
"I think many whites had to think, 'Oh my God, if that can be done out in broad open daylight, what's happening to Black people in the dark of night?"
Haygood said that incident did create awareness in all areas of Black life, including film, and he hopes there can be improvement going forward.
"I think that moment will be remembered for causing Hollywood to widen its reach, to let Black and Brown filmmakers, Asian filmmakers sit at the table."
Written by Philip Drost. Produced by Howard Goldenthal.