Third World Newsreel 's History

Movies and entertainment outlets speak volumes about the current state of a nation’s culture. Cinematic creations in the United States allow small voices to be heard and controversial issues to be addressed. However, a repetitive and monumental issue continues to be addressed, yet continues to persist in our 21st century culture, racial inequalities. Since the inception of the United States, black men and women alike have been disenfranchised at the hands of the “white man” in America. Instead of continuing the conversation today, the issue is continually silenced referencing the successes and achievements of the Civil Rights Movement in the 20th century. Nonetheless, an unfortunate reality looms upon this great land; racially based systems and structures continue to exist in 2015 the in United States. This paper synthesizes three films focused on racial inequalities in different time periods. Separate but Equal (1991), Selma (2015), and Crash (2005) illustrate how influential the Civil War amendments are, while serving as an uncanny reminder of how the racial prejudices during the 20th century continue to exist in our great nation today. Needless to say our nation has made great strides, but still has a long way to go.

The concept art imitates life is crucial to film directors who express their views on political and social issues in film. In regard to film studies, race is a topic rare in many films. Like America, many films simply refuse to address this topic for various reasons. However, more recently, Jordan Peele’s 2017 box office hit Get Out explicates contemporary race relations in America. In the form of an unconventional comedy horror, Get Out is intricate in its depiction of white liberal attitudes towards African Americans. In short, Get Out suggests a form of covert racism existing in a post- Jim Crow era. Similarly, Eduardo Bonilla- Silva’s book Racism Without Racists acknowledges the contemporary system of racism or “new racism,” a system

Wilson stated that ''The truth is that often where there are esthetic criteria of excellence, there are also sociological criteria that have traditionally excluded blacks.'' He then continued on to say ''... raise the standards and remove the sociological consideration of race as privilege, and we will meet you at the crossroads, in equal numbers, prepared to do the work of extending and developing the common ground of the American theater.'' Through these powerful words Wilson is saying that in order to reflect American culture in the theater, the history of African American’s must be reflected. There have always been systems in place that have excluded African Americans and white Americans will never understand the way that sense of oppression felt. White Americans will never understand how it feels to be enslaved, be powerless in protecting your family, and being sold off as property, as Eliza Harris from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and millions of other slaves felt. Photographing the “American Negro” by Shawn Michelle Smith presented the idea that white Americans have tried to take away the histories of other races in America. People have always turned against embracing the histories of the African Americans because they were seen as alien to their owners. Their different skin tone separated them from the white Americans who thought of them as uncivilized before they were brought to work for them. Ultimately Wilson calls for Black Theaters to prevent the culture of the

The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords detailed the dynamic history of African-American media in the United States. Newspapers created community amongst Black Americans by connecting stories of Black life across the country, and allowed Black people the freedom to express themselves politically and socially through their own words, as opposed to White people telling them how they should feel. The story of the Black press as newspaper print faded before the end of the century, but Black press as a cultural phenomenon continues today in the dawn of social media. This film adds onto the class discussions of African-Americans’ unification through Black culture, and its contradiction to White American culture throughout history.

The book Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left, by Laura Pulido, studies the politicization process which led to the development of several Third World Left activist groups in Los Angeles, as well as their defining characteristics. To do so, Pulido outlines salient historical continuities that shaped resulting racial and economic landscapes, which in turn influenced how activist groups framed their goals and chose the methods they used to achieve those goals. With politicization as a foundation for her argument, Pulido demonstrates how the Third World Left, in varying degrees, failed to take into account the larger racial and economic structures which shaped their development, and highlights the resulting lack of solidarity among the groups which

The 20th century composed of many organizations ideologies and leaders helping to promote and advance liberation both in America and worldwide. These different entities worked to defy the social structure filled with aspects of conservatism and oppression and rather upheld the Africana sense of governance and encouraged socialism in terms of a more broad and pervasive perspective on civil rights. Additionally, many leaders, Nelson Mandela, MLK, and Madame C.J. Walker, to name a few, made domestic and international differences advancing the Africana community through different inventions,

The United States has long been a country that has accepted that change is a necessity for prosperity and growth. However, each change within the nation's history was hard fought against those who resisted such change either through racism, bigotry, and blatant discrimination. African American cinema is enshrouded in history that depicts these themes of racism, struggle, and deprivation. Yet, this same cinema also shows scenes of hope, artistic spirit, intellectual greatness, and joy. Black actresses, actors, directors, producers, and writers have been fighting for recognition and respect since the great Paul Robeson. The civil rights movement of the 1950's and 60's was fueled by black cinema through films like A Raisin in the Sun.

The history of African Americans in early Hollywood films originated with blacks representing preconceived stereotypes. D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film, Birth of a Nation, stirred many controversial issues within the black community. The fact that Griffith used white actors in blackface to portray black people showed how little he knew about African Americans. Bosley Crowther’s article “The Birth of Birth of a Nation” emphasizes that the film was a “highly pro-South drama of the American Civil War and the Period of Reconstruction, and it glorified the role of the Ku Klux Klan” (76). While viewing this film, one would assert that the Ku Klux Klan members are heroic forces that rescue white women from sexually abusive black men. Griffith

According to Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi, prior to 1930, the role of Blacks on screen were seen involving mostly in criminality and idleness (540). That role still persists until the present, with Blacks usually have to withstand to “longstanding and unfavorable media stereotypes including sexually provocative females and aggressive male thugs” (Tukachinsky 540). 1970’s movies such as The Mack, Black Caesar and Coffy have reinforced this stereotypic image of the black community. The

In examining how local and global relationships are mediated during the era of neoliberal globalization, there is a disconnect between appearance and reality. Despite an appearance of prosperity and benefits for both local and global spaces under a system of neoliberal globalization, it is instead an era of inauthentic prosperity in the core built off the exploitation of periphery nations. With the violent realities of neoliberal prosperity displaced to the periphery of the world-system, the genre of Afrofuturism allows literature to mediate and discover the importance of hidden histories while giving a voice to the marginalized. Nalo Hopkinson’s novel The New Moon’s Arms and Pauline Melville’s short story “The Sparkling Bitch” work to reconstruct

Over the course of approximately one-hundred years there has been a discernible metamorphosis within the realm of African-American cinema. African-Americans have overcome the heavy weight of oppression in forms such as of politics, citizenship and most importantly equal human rights. One of the most evident forms that were withheld from African-Americans came in the structure of the performing arts; specifically film. The common population did not allow blacks to drink from the same water fountain let alone share the same television waves or stage. But over time the strength of the expectant black actors and actresses overwhelmed the majority force to stop blacks from appearing on film. For the longest time the performing arts were

Gil Scott-Heron presents many references to the superficial media and policies that were at the time ignorant of the struggle of African American integration. His spoken word poetry describes these outlets of references before repeating the phrase “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised…” to strengthen the claim that the consumer media is superficially choosing to pretend that all was well when in fact a revolution was happening at their doorstep. A selection of references will be analyzed from

[1] Before I start this essay, I feel the need to remind the reader that I find slavery in all its forms to be an oppressive and terrible institution, and I firmly believe that for centuries (including this one) bigotry is one of the most terrible stains on our civilization. The views I intend to express in the following essay are in no way meant to condone the practices of slavery or racism; they are meant only to evaluate and interpret the construction of slavery in film.

The film focuses on African American historical events, with special concentration on the civil rights era. With the White House segments of the film starting in the oppressive Eisenhower years, it offers a presidential level insight into the historic freedom movements of the 1960’s, all the way through until the day that Barack Obama is elected president in 2008. I am going to argue that Daniels’ representation of history and race are much more than a ‘parody of historical drama’, as he defies the ‘conventional’ stereotypes of Hollywood (Martin 2013) through the focus on individual character depictions and rejection of generalisations seen previously in African American films.

In America, racism as well as race relations are generally extremely sensitive subjects that are often brushed underneath the rug. Earlier this year, Jordan Peele’s Get Out graced the big screen, and left audiences with a great deal to digest. Peele’s first cinematic debut touched on the delicate topics of racism and the continuous devaluing of African American culture by “liberal” Caucasians in American suburbs. In this essay, one will explore the ways in which works written by modern political thinkers such as Nietzsche and Marx effortlessly add perspective through various theories on the difficulties brought to light in the motion picture, Get Out.