This post stems from a conversation in chat about why can't we seem to get a foot hold in Hollywood beyond buffonery and why are there no quality Black films in a more abundant quantity? Why dont Black films get green lit more often? I attempt to answer some of those questions using the very talented Charles Burnett (To Sleep With Anger and Nat Turner A Troublesome Property) as my template to explain it all. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0122344/?ref_=tt_ov_dr
It is often said that a person and a culture writes what they know or what they want to share with their future generations. For Greeks it is the glorification of success in battle, for Rome it was political prowess, diplomacy, and conquest by any means, for Sumerians it was dominance through pacification, collusion and false deity worship by manipulation of fear and technology. Throughout history what ever a culture was best at that is what its half truths and fiction grew out of, I pose what is the African American culture good at doing.
Fighting the man? Overcoming insurmountable obstacles such as oppression, crime, self loathing? What half truths do we tell our children? In your mind is Nat Turner a terrorist, a revolutionary, or a just pissed off slave? If you paint him as a terrorist you justify the current detention of American righteousness. If you see him as a revolutionary you justify world unrest. If you see him as a pissed off slave you empathize with violence against oppression. Having your thoughts turned like that is what story telling is designed to do. If you see Nat Turner similar to Lech Walesa you begin to see why Nat Turner actions became necessary. Simply because there was no other recourse available at the time creating a tipping point in American history.
Telling these stories is not a crime, telling these stories is not taboo it is just depressing, informative but depressing. At the same time making fun of ourselves in the current story telling medium also has its draw backs; the Friday and Madea film franchises are films made for a Black audience. Designed to make us laugh at our daily plight and get beyond it and move on with our lives. We have no control over what another culture does with what we produce or how they perceive it. We as a group need to get off of that thinking because Hollywood financiers ask a question "What do they want to see?" Bio-pics, historical tragedy, black-washed romantic comedies with an interracial cast or buffoonery?" Each time they opt for buffoonery it is not an accident but it is what we accept. Our film makers do not agree so they spend their careers making documentary after documentary about the past emotional abyss that we so steadily try to climb out of while giving us glimmers of hope without directed solutions.
As people of fiction and sci-fi know once it is imagined it can come true. Once we are shown the possibility that it can exist it comes true. Chris Rock writer/director Head of State, writer/director Luc Besson Fifth Element made the sight of a Black president acceptable.
When our humor is placed into the hands of non-Blacks from a writing and directing perspective you get films like Fighting Temptations from director Johnathan Lynn. In order to be at the forefront of our story telling we have to be there. It needs to be about the product that you can produce not the dollars you can make .
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