Beshidze 9
Salome Beshidze
Professor Yankovich
English 12
31 May 2018
Hollywood: Racism and Racial Stereotyping
Film industry has always been one of the most influential spheres in the world in many aspects, as well as the most favored part of Entertainment. Many characters and their actions, even phrases and words and the smallest details from movies often become a trend, and sometimes they can be transformed into habits, manners, some movies changed the lives of many and some had strong political influence. In other words, film industry is a powerful weapon, and a big opportunity to influence and change the world. That’s why it’s very important what happens “behind” and “in” scenes at the same time. Art is considered to be a free concept, but as we can see, movie industry as a part of Art, is often involved in political riots and the national and international issues. For example, as one of the largest film industry representatives Hollywood has an emotional, tense and dramatic history of going through the stages of racism and shaping the racial conceptions in America, and we can say, even in the world.
The Hollywood film industry had always been a bastion of whiteness. Its decision makers and workers were the same color as the heroes and heroines who populated its film narratives. Racial minorities were represented in films through stereotypical regimes that reproduced white-dominated racial norms for vast audiences. Starting most notoriously with the birth of the nation (1915), African Americans have figured prominently in Hollywood’s racist symbolic relations because of their unique history of material and cultural oppression as well as their rich expressive resources (Eithne Quinn p.469). It must be said that many filmmakers in the united states associate the best box-office years with difficult times for Americans. Film historians note that during the “Great depression”, the economic crisis of 1929 and the whole period after it, a similar picture was observed.The years of depression have shown the enormous role played by cinema in the life of Americans: it amused them, was at least some outlet in the oppressive environment of the economic recession. Production of Hollywood was in demand so its position of the American film market was strengthened. Fulfilling their ideological functions, “saving” the working people of the United States from “dangerous thoughts”, Hollywood successfully created its positive economic balance too. Americans actively bought a movie. On average, at that time, every American family spent $25 per year on film, and that at ticket price of 10 to 25 cents. Today every visit to a cinema costs an American $3-$5, it’s easy,on this basis to calculate the incomes of film companies. This is to emphasize how significant the Hollywood is in the lives of Americans and not only for them and how everything it promotes or doesn’t promote can influence the world.
Jack Valenti’s (The Head of the Motion Picture Association...
