Thesis Presentation - Advice and Notes

I've written up some of Phil's advice from my thesis presentation today so the advice stays fresh in my memory. I've got quite a clear understanding of where I'm headed with my thesis, I just need to cut down and focus a bit more. I think I'll be using 'Get Out' as my case study to support a discussion about black tropes, theories of race, and scientific racism.

Notes:

• Postcolonialism - look at specifics, theories of race, scientific racism, you don't necessarily need Freud or Marx unless you find it useful.

• Gone With the Wind was invisibly racist.

• Look at who has theorized most reputably about race relations and anthropologies. Claude Lévi Strauss. 

• Enlightenment project of dividing races into categories, look at postmodernism slides. White/ European privilege sneaking through.

• Look at scientific racism, Darwinism and the study of race, Find the people that critique this work and those critiques will be useful theoretical frameworks.

• Reservoir dogs, Spike Lee's opinions on Quentin Tarantino.

• Digital blackface, Sex Education: a black actor that has been put into a trope.

• Choose one out of 'Get Out', Black Panther, Spider-Verse.

• Get Out is a film about racism, Black Panther is a film that has facilitated a discussion about racism. 

• Get Out continued the representiations on screen; the black maid, the groundskeeper, smiling docile black man. it is about the debate itself in the commentary of the film.

•  Black Panther gets its head above the debate, asserts itself and uses this incredibly conventional genre and causes a transformative, social phenomenon.

•  Spider-Verse because it's about animation and diversity more generally, but it's not just about having a black Spider-Man, it's about a universe in which all people can be spider-man. 

• Get out because it is a critique and it's a specific genre and the director himself is positioning black characters in a genre where there's even less latitude. 

• The genre of Blaxploitation, a moment in 70s cinema where it was all about black characters, there were suddenly black actors on the screen like Pam Grier, Shaft, in terms of progressiveness, there was the 'pimp' and other tropes.

• The other place where you still see black representation being expressed in ways which suggest that things aren't very progressive is in porn. Taboo, inappropriate fantasies figures, you see race relation playing out there. While looking at more progressive tropes, there is still this kind of place that is frequented by lots of people where things haven't moved on very far at all. 

• The tropes of the black brute, the mammy, the comedic uncle tom's cabin smiling docile black man in the fields you see in 'Get Out', but they are being used for a critical effect. In the plot, there's still tropes like; black men are fast, black men can dance etc. 

• Chapter 1 - A users guide to black tropes in literature, fiction, advertising, and representation.

• Chapter 2 - Theories of Race, scientific racism to help understand those tropes.

• Chapter 3 'Get Out' as a case study with critique and reflection on the previous chapters.

Proof of Concept Presentation

@Phil Thesis Proposal Notes

Diverse Racial Representation in Hollywood  (Or Western Cinema); Why is White-washing Harmful (Or how important proper racial representation impacts culture), What Caused Change, Comparing Early and New Cinema.

In my dissertation, I would like to discuss diverse Racial representation in Hollywood Cinema in regards to how POC are represented in film, especially during the Golden age of Hollywood. I would like to analyze why certain cultures and races were presented in a certain way. What were the public’s reactions to these representations? How was the media influencing society’s views on other races and vice versa, how was society influencing the media and film? Who were the studios and the people working behind the films that inaccurately portrayed specific races? I would also like to look into how society’s views on POC changed over time. What caused the change? Who or what influenced this change. I will also be discussing the American film industry’s use of black facing, yellowfacing, and whitewashing, and how this practice is extremely harmful to POC, and how the public reacted to this subject from the early age of cinema to today. I will also be discussing themes of Orientalism, Racism, Censorship, The Gaze (PUT OTHER THEORIES HERE)

Chapter 1: What is Whitewashing? How does this relate to Hollywood? 

-Define Whitewashing, look at “whitewashing race” book

-Hollywood’s history with whitewashing, Blackface and Yellowface, and Hollywood’s Racism.

- Why/how it is problematic

-Misrepresenting cultures, perpetuating stereotypes e.g Hollywood treating Africa as wild, exotic, tribal savages (King Kong, 1993)

-Racist subtext

Early examples:

- Birth of Nation (1915) its portrayal of black men (many played by white actors in blackface) as unintelligent and sexually aggressive towards white women, and the portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) as a heroic force.

-The King and I (1956) Whitewashing the cast and strong orientalism, casting Teddy Tahu Rhodes, a white New Zealander, as the Thai King Mongkut. 

- Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) Whitewashing and Yellowface, Mr. Yunioshi, as portrayed by Mickey Rooney, that has been the subject of extensive critical commentary.

-White actors were praised for roles in which they put on blackface, whereas black people are not even considered for roles that fit their race.

-Where did blackface originate? Look into the Civil War and books that portrayed racist caricatures e.g Jim Crow.

- Disney’s representation, Racism in Dumbo, Whitewashing in Princess and the frog and whitewashing in upcoming live-action films.

- How do films nowadays address this issue when creating films that are set in the past? 

(Shape of Water and any other examples I find) Does the context of the film make the racism okay? E.g in the past, racism was not as controversial as it is now, so to show racist acts in films that were set in the past, is this racist?

“The history of American cinema is also the history of American Racism.”- Manohla Dargis.

-How were these films received at the time of their release? Were there protests? Were the film’s that are viewed as controversial today a problem at the time they were released? Did the films influence society’s views on POC? Did the public’s reaction influence the film industry at all? 

- Racism today, current issues in America: Mass incarceration, police violence, diversity arguments, African enslavement and forms of white supremacy remain present. 

-Social Media and its influence on the American industry, #OscarsSoWhite 2016 Oscars Diversity Controversy.

-White actors being given roles for Japanese characters e.g Kubo and the Two strings.

- censorship, we have a voice and a means of research because of the internet and social media but the media still has influence and control over what we see.

-What is sparking change? Social media, laws that were put in place, technology. People born in the 90s are in a grey area where they were only just being introduced to advanced technology.

-steps in the right direction, Black Panther, compare this to Aladdin. Although black panther is a huge improvement in racial representation, what were the issues with this film? 

-Spider-man: Into The Spiderverse, explain how this film impacted societies and cultures across the world, and how important proper representation is for.

-Possibly discuss colorism in film and animation.

Chapter 2: Theorists

Theories I want to look into:

Orientalism

The Gaze

Pastiche

Censorship

(look back at postmodernism to find more theories)

Chapter 3: Case study - King Kong

I would like to analyze all the King Kong films that have been created, focusing on how each of them represented different races, and what the difference was with each film, how these films were received to the public and apply the theories I look into in chapter 2 to these films. Or I could compare some of the earliest examples of POC representation, and compare these with one of the most recent examples e.g Get Out, Into the Spiderverse (find more examples) to compare how much society is evolving.

Conclusion

Discuss why whitewashing is harmful, why incorrect/stereotypical/misinformed “representation is harmful to western society and how these films have impacted cultures around the world. What influenced change in the way Hollywood/Western cinema represents different races. How much has Western society progressed?