The way the media portrays people of color can be traced back to John Berger’s Ways of Seeing. In the book, Berger explains how ‘spectator-buyers’ aspire to be the images that they see in the media (Berger talks most about advertisements and paintings, but here we will discuss media/film at large). The spectator-buyer envies the images she sees and must buy (or at least buy into) the images. Berger continues, “The power to spend money is the power to live. According to the legends of publicity, those who lack the power to spend money become literally faceless. Those who have the power become loveable” (143). Historically and currently, African Americans and people of color more broadly are among the poorest in America. People of color and particularly black Americans are systematically disenfranchised to the point where some of the deepest impacts of poverty manifest themselves regularly in their communities. As such, there is no reason for films and media to include people of color: they don’t have the power to spend, and therefore become faceless. The spectator-buyer would not want to ‘become’ the images or products associated with the ‘faceless.’
However, we cannot avoid analyzing the success of many directors of color and films/media about people of color. One of the most mainstream, wealthy, and well-known African American directors is Tyler Perry. His films are all based on a funny, animated family under the rule of the maternal honcho Madea, whom Perry himself plays dressed in drag. His films are some of the highest grossing of all time and his demographic is primarily black Americans. Perry’s films are often slandered, including by Spike Lee, for portraying harmful caricatures of African Americans. The fact that Perry is black and makes films about black people does not make his films politically and racially responsible. He exploits black people in order to turn up a profit from the black community itself.
As Ayana points out, people are noticing that having a more diverse cast or writers makes for better shows, but simply having diversity for the sake of having diversity is not politically and racially responsible. Racially and politically responsible films should not just be trying to make a bigger profit margin, but should represent nuanced and accurate representations of contemporary issues facing people of color.
Guillermo del Toro’s highly anticipated action sci-fi film Pacific Rim (2013) had a biracial protagonist couple: the man was Caucasian American and the woman was Japanese. Some say that this was a progressive move by del Toro, but a closer look at the movie market suggests otherwise. The Asian market for mainstream American films is one of the largest in the whole world and including an Asian female appeals to that Asian market (The Wall Street Journal). As Stuart Hall points out in “Questions of Cultural Identity,” many formerly colonized countries’ populations have an obsession with western culture because “images of the rich, consumer cultures of the West” permeate all corners of developing nations (302). Returning to Berger then, by showing images of an Asian woman who the Caucasian man falls for shows Asian audiences, who have money and power, an image that they should want to emulate and buy.
It is certainly difficult to make films that are racially and politically responsible, but as Ayana says, shows like “Orange is the New Black” and “Community” are starting to subvert the commoditized portrayals of people of color in the media. “Orange is the New Black” (ONB) is a show about women of color who have been incarcerated; queer women are represented in the show as well. ONB subverts the strategies of del Toro and Perry because it used Netflix as its release platform. The show never aired on television; it just went straight to Netflix. The political implications of this are: one, the show did not have to rely on advertisements by big companies to survive; and two, the show didn’t have to compromise its material for a television channel’s requirements and point-of-view. More independent media sources like Netflix and YouTube have the power to change representations of minority groups, but directors of color and actually any director must resist the temptation to caricature people of color or use them to make higher profits.
Sources:
John Berger “Ways of Seeing”
Stuart Hall “Modernity and Its Futures”
The Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704913304575371394036766312
Perry is black and makes films about black people does not make his films politically and racially responsible.It is certainly difficult to make films that are racially and politically responsible, but as Ayana says, shows like “Orange is the New Black” and “Community” are starting to subvert the commoditized portrayals of people of color in the media.nice post.