I saw an article and then watched the trailer for the upcoming film Netflix's Concrete Cowboy, starring Lorraine Toussaint, Idris Elba, Cliff “Method Man” Smith, and Caleb McLaughlin (the sole Black kid in Netflix's Stranger Things). The article from The Root opens with a simple question: "When did you first learn that Black cowboys exist?"
In the article, a few of the film's actors offer a few answers:
- Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldiers" (about the all Black calvary regimen of U.S. Soldiers).
- The film Posse (directed by and starring Mario Van Peebles, also related to Buffalo Soldiers)
- The film Buck and the Preacher (starring the amazing and incomparable Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte).
The article also mentions the person who was my earliest memory of Black cowboys: Bass Reeves. My dad told me about Bass Reeves when I was younger. Dad loves western stuff AND actual history, and my parents always made an effort to fill in the gap of the knowledge they knew we wouldn't and didn't get from school.
Reeves was the first Black deputy U.S. Marshal west of the Mississippi River (which makes me question who was the first east of the MS). He was born a slave in 1838. Ended up fighting in the Civil War (because his then-enslaver made him), gained his freedom, and then went on to become a very decorated law man. He was an excellent detective and marksman. Had over 3000 arrests to his name. Although it's disputed, Historian Art Burton claims that Reeves is who inspired the character of the Lone Ranger. Lone Ranger, a white fictional lawman, is well known. White cowboys are very well known thanks to movies and shows depicting this. Reeves and the fact that Black people were cowboys not so much.
It's this belief--that the Lone Ranger was based on Reeves--that prompted my thinking and questioning:
If the Lone Ranger was based on Reeves, would casting the Lone Ranger as someone who actually looked like Reeves--that is, a Black man--have changed people's perception of law enforcement, of Black people, of the West, of Black people in the West, etc.
And as per usual, my brain kept going:
1) we KNOW there have been MANY people in films and shows in the past who were based on Black people and other people of color but were recast as white people because, well, reasons. (Pick a reason: racism, whitewashing, "delicate sensibilities" of mass audiences (read: white people), "scared of Black people," etc. We also KNOW this is not an old phenomenon. While some studios are attempting to do better--esp. since Red Summer 2020 when at least half the country suddenly realized that Black people and other racial minorities haven't been making shit up all along and that white supremacist systems are great at racial gaslighting, we also know that studios have a long damn way to go towards equity, diversity, and inclusion of telling stories that are more reflective of the actual population of this country.
2) if Hollywood had made an effort a long ass time ago to be more inclusive in telling stories of the people of this country and had actually cast actors who were the race of the characters, would this country be further along in terms of equity, inclusion, and diversity? (I really hate that those are buzzwords now).
I am NOT naive or delusional to think that this rests solely or even halfway on the shoulders of Hollywood, but I AM positing the idea that perhaps if Hollywood hadn't told such whitewashed versions of "American" stories for all these many decades, perhaps people (read: white people who just suddenly realized that shit has always been fucked, cishet people who are struggling to acknowledge queer identities, people in general who are learning that not everyone experiences life like they do) would be far more aware and considerate of how people who don't look, live, love, worship (or not at all) like them.
A friend from college commented that when we were freshman, I (and several other Black dorm mates) sat them down and made them watch Malcolm X and The Five Heartbeats. I didn't remember this particular movie watching, but I did remember having a lot of cultural exchange type conversations with them. They acknowledge that The Five Heartbeats is"such a good movie" and realize that had we not shared those movies and those experiences with them, their eyes wouldn't have begun to open up about Black lives and experiences all those many moons ago. (Related: check out this article from The Root about how great The Five Heartbeats is because it is, damnit! If you haven't seen it, go watch it. Then go watch it again next week. Then dance around the house singing all the songs. "Got nothing but love for you, baby!")
In the past few weeks, I've posted on social media about The Five Heartbeats several times. Lately, I've posted a LOT about amazing Black films, actors, etc. mostly because 1) it's my lived experience and there are movies that mean so much to me as a Black person, but also 2) because so many of my adult friends are white, and I think they should see these movies too because these films often were not a part of their lived experiences growing up. And truly that's a damn shame. My college friend's comments that seeing these movies and having these convos with us offered them different perspectives and knowledge they hadn't been exposed to kinda proves my point, no?
So, it looks like this Hollywood issue is multifaceted and beyond just Hollywood.
On one hand, for FAR too damn long, Black people and other POC were omitted from the films and shows, even when some of the characters might've been based on real life POC. On another hand, Hollywood did such a pisspoor job of advertising films telling Black stories, Latin stories, Asian stories, Indigenous stories (good gooddess, the lack of Indigenous and Asian stories is ridic!) to anyone other than the communities that the stories were about that the mass audience (again, read: white people) have been deprived of golden gems. I've always used films, shows, and music to learn about and explore other cultures that I'm not a part of or cannot travel to and learn about. I adore learning about other cultures and film is my way of doing so. It's a damn shame that too many people in this country haven't, can't, or won't take the time to learn about their own fellow citizens who might not look like them because 1) the systems haven't be equitable in making the films and 2) the films that are about Black life, Muslim life, Asian life, Indigenous life, Latin life, etc. aren't mass marketed so all of America can learn from and about.
But you know what Hollywood IS great at: trafficking in pain and trauma stories of marginalized, minoritized identities in this country. Hollywood is great at rewarding actors of color when playing roles that are the worst of the worst or in REALLY shitty or buffoonish situations. Hollywood is good for rewarding Black actors NOT for playing amazing, powerful roles of people who had positive impacts on society but for playing folks we wouldn't want to be friends with.
So, I ask: would society be further along in terms of understanding and caring about folks who don't look, live, love, worship like us if all along, Hollywood had put more effort into telling stories of ALL identities of this country (and other countries) from a wide variety of perspectives rather than telling mostly white stories from every perspective possible while telling stories of all minoritized groups from very narrow, often stereotyped views?
There's so much mythologized history that lives forever in books, on screens, and in music. There's so many lies of history, utter rubbish, that have been passed down for generations and seeing those lies playing out on screens and play on radios in perpetuity helps nothing. White people the world over, and esp. white Americans, have a VERY distorted view of so much shit simply because they weren't exposed to the truth, because shades of truth were shared, and because shit was straight-up whitewashed for white comfort.
If I'm honest, I think several things I've seen and read recently have prompted me to this line of thinking:
- The article about Richard Wright's novel The Man Who Lived Underground being censored and shelved because the man character is beaten and tortured by police. The editors thought "its depiction of police brutality was so graphic, his publishers believed that it shouldn't see the light of day." (Goes on sale Apr. 20, 2021.)
- The article acknowledging that it's well past time that Western music recognize and honor its Black roots. Don't act like Chuck Berry, Big Mama Thornton, and Little Richard weren't pure fire at their craft back in the day, but folks like Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis were more well-known back then. And if you don't know Big Mama Thornton, you damn sure know her famous AF song "Hound Dog," but you know it from Elvis. Here's her version.
- The video of David Bowie from 1983--NINETEEN EIGHTY-THREE--interviewing Mark Goodman (one of the original five DJs of MTV, when it was actual Music Television) and questioning why the TV channel didn't play music videos from Black artists, other than in odd hours, like between 2a and 6a. The excuses Goodman offers are asinine, but offer proof of what I'm saying: they didn't want to play videos from Black artists because ... reasons. But I love that Bowie kept pushing back.
- The advertisement for ABC's Soul of a Nation. A show that seems like it will show true depictions of Black life, Black history, Black pain, AND Black joy and excellence. Described as a show "by Black people, for all people, about Black experience in America." If shows or movies like this had existed all along about ALL people of all backgrounds in this country, where might we be today?
- The knowledge I just acquired (like days ago) from Netflix's The Lost Pirate Kingdom that Black people were pirates too. (This is probably up there with realizing Black cowboys exist(ed). Pirates intercepted slave ships. Sometimes, the chained Africans became pirates as well (shoutout Black Caesar!). Sometimes, unfortunately, the pirates "freed" them only to then sell them later.
- The responses of so many people to cultural and historical events of Black American life to what was shown in both Watchmen and Lovecraft Country. A whole slew of folks learning of Tulsa, Sundown Towns, the Green Book (the real one, not the white-centered movie), medical experiments (and Black folks weren't the only ones suffering from this), and all the little nuggets tucked in those shows.
- The general "awakening" by so many people in recent years to basic historical shit that Black folks pass down in their families because it isn't taught in schools. Again, a lot of this awakening seemed to be expressed online after Watchmen aired and later Lovecraft. (And shoutout to the Langston League for developing syllabi for each Lovecraft ep. And here's an article exploring political and historical references from Watchmen.)
- The shock, anger, and dismay of my students when we discuss shit like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, human zoos, Pol Pot's dictatorship, the Japanese Internment camps, Stonewall Protests, Residential schools (and Sixties Scoop in Canada and Stolen Generations in Australia), etc. etc. etc.
- The knowledge shared by so many Black thinkers, internet yellers, wypipologists, etc. Thank you to Ijeoma Oluo, Austin Channing Brown, Rachel Cargle, Lynae Vanee, Michael Harriot, and so many others for doing the goddesses work and constantly trying to educate folks on the missing stories via books, call-outs, Insta-feeds, twitter threads, Parking Lot Pimping videos, and so many articles.
So, again, I ask: given how much the conversation has shifted in literally just the last year with the massive increase in visibility of voices and stories (both painful and tragic as well as beautiful and amazing), do we think people would be any more aware, would society be any more advanced in terms of equity and basic human kindness towards people who are different from themselves if Hollywood and all sorts of other media had made better efforts to be more inclusive and considerate in telling EVERYONE'S stories from way back in the day?
Hmmm...
For some, yes.
But for most, probs not because humans will always find a way to treat others like trash and tear shit down.
Humans need to do better.
Hollywood does too.
Music industry does too.
Book publishing industry too.
Education too.
E'rrybody.
DO BETTER!
Image credit: By Bobbeecher at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10843908
Comments
Post a Comment