Representation of Race and Ethnicity in Hollywood Films
Introduction
This paper discusses the different situations that race and ethnicity is represented in Hollywood films. It is concentrated on the recent state of the Black actors and actresses in Hollywood industry. This paper also cited relevant information on interviews and comments from the black men and women in Hollywood. Popular black Hollywood celebrities were also taken as significant examples in the study,
In the United States, where Hollywood is, race and ethnicity is not more of a factor in many of their industries. The most evident is the dominance of the blacks in the US National Basketball Association, whether African-American or Black-Americans. As a matter of fact, you can rarely even see white Americans in the All American Basketball Association.
There has been a thin line that separates the whites from the blacks. For the fact that the mixture of the two classes has only one outcome – black, there has been a threat of the shortage of the whites. This will take us to the racism in the America before. With this practical reason, racism until now is evident in the U.S., especially in the Hollywood.
Scarcity of roles for the black actresses in Hollywood
According to the latest figures from the Screen Actors Guild, Black actresses are cast in only 10 out of 29 percent of all female roles in major film and TV projects. Moreover, in 1990, not a single Black actress made the list of Top 10 box office attractions - not one.
In terms of awards, no black actress has ever won a best actress Oscar, and Whoopi Goldberg--only the second Black actress ever to win an Oscar--became the first Black actress to win since Hattie McDaniel took best supporting actress for Gone With The Wind in 1939 (1991). This significantly portrays a noticeable discrimination going on in the industry. That is quite a long time not to be recognized. The reason roots to the chances and number of roles available for the black actresses.
The paucity of roles for Black actresses—and Hollywood's limited vision of them as maids, hookers, sidekicks and best friends--makes it tremendously difficult for them to keep on keeping on, never mind find steady work. As Spike Lee points out, "The way for Black actresses to start getting more roles is for Black women to start directing and producing their own films." It would take great an effort for a black woman to get into a movie or a commercial to deserve for it to get past the industries narrow-minded obsession of the “Barbie-Doll Starlet”.
In Hollywood films, most Black women who landed in a role that every Black actress wanted, tremendous expectations and pressure placed were upon them, says Lynn Whitfield who won the title role--and critical raves--for her portrayal of Baker in the HBO production.
Racism in Hollywood
Three black actors are up for the top acting prize at the 2002 Academy Awards. It should be a cause for rejoicing. Instead, it points to the appalling racism in the film industry today. Best Actress nominee Halle Berry said as much recently when she accepted the Best Actress award from the Screen Actors Guild for her role in “Monster's Ball”.
Berry is right - though the big players in the Dream Factory do not appreciate ingratitude, and her remark may cost her the other prize. When it comes to what is euphemistically known as "The Business", blacks are not considered people with whom business is done. This is despite the enormous box-office clout, well out of proportion to their numbers, that black people wield. Indeed, if African Americans were a separate nation, we would give Bollywood a run for its money.
The three nominations - aside from Berry, there is Will Smith for “Ali” and Denzel Washington for “Training Day” - are, according to most black people in Hollywood, just that: three nominations, nothing more or less. They are no benchmark, no watershed. Sidney Poitier, who is being honored this year for his contribution to the industry, calls Hollywood "deeply disappointing", although he is happy for and proud of the three nominated actors (2002).
Julia Roberts is campaigning for Denzel Washington finally to win the prize he deserves - but even the Queen of Hollywood cannot break through the curtain that keeps black people at the back of the bus. This has greatly created an impact in the way Hollywood presents a film. There hasn’t been an equal privileged for the blacks that would give back to every effort the have contributed in the industry.
The specter of racism is everywhere; just don’t say it out loud. Just as Howard E. Rollins Jr. did when he began to speak out about the discrimination he had witnessed even though he was nominated Best Supporting Actor that time. Nothing better for him followed after and eventually made him vanished from the silver screen.
The last time that three black actors were nominated for lead roles in the same year was in 1972: Paul Winfield and Cicely Tyson for “Sounder” and Diana Ross for “Lady Sings the Blues”. None of the films was memorable, but they were indicative of the liberal, post-civil rights, Vietnamera sentiment of the time.
Hollywood in Transition
Black people have been in Hollywood since the early two-reelers almost a century ago. Yet so far, here are the numbers that count: Hattie McDaniel, Best Supporting Actress, “Gone with the Wind”, 1939; Sidney Poitier, Best Actor, “Lilies of the Field”, 1963.
In the 38 Academy Award ceremonies since Poitier's triumph, no other black leading actor or actress has won the top prize. Despite 780 total acting nominations and 152 winners since Poitier's award, only four winners have been black, and all have won in supporting roles: Louis Gossett Jr in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Denzel Washington in Glory (1989), Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost (1990) and Cuba Gooding Jr in Jerry Maguire (1996).
Between 1975 and 1980, there were no black acting nominees at all, until protests started. The most recent protest began in 1995 after a People magazine cover story, titled “Hollywood blackout", pointed out that only one of that year's 166 Oscar nominees was black: the director Dianne Houston, co-nominated for a short film. She lost.
, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has stated that black people in LA are keeping their heads down so as not to scupper the three actors' chances.
But the problem of black under-representation has not been solved and will not go away even if Berry and Washington or Smith wins. Actors may be in the limelight, but black producers, directors, writers, directors of photography and techies still find it difficult to get jobs. Most important of all, there are no black faces among the studio execs who can give the green light to a project. These are the people needed to change the industry, and they are not there.
The bottom line is that Hollywood is about relationships: who wants to be seen with whom, who wants to secure favors from whom, who wants to "hook up". It's a question of familiarity, comfort-zone casting, and who's seen "in the ranks".
It has been almost a century since cinema's first undisputed masterpiece: D W Griffith's Birth of a Nation, a celebration of the Ku Klux Klan. It has been more than 70 years since Al Jolson put on blackface to cry "Mammy!" and open up the movies to sound, yet black people are relatively no better off in Hollywood back then.
Come to think of this - four black people on 24 March, posing together for the press backstage after the ceremony: Sidney Poitier with his Special Achievement Oscar; Halle Berry, Best Actress; Will Smith or Denzel Washington, Best Actor; and past Oscar winner and compare Whoopi Goldberg. It was captioned: “In your dreams”.
Whether related to roles or awards, black actors and actresses haven’t got much to deserve it. Even through time, the issues of race and ethnicity in the Hollywood industry are still left up in the air. Even the portrayal of most Hollywood films says it all. Contributions of the blacks in the industry are remarkably far more significant than the subject of what they are and where they came from. Even with an increasing number of black actors and actresses, only a few of them, mostly veterans, are recognized; and to note that this documentation took several decades before regaining it.
The case immensely reflects to the way race and ethnicity is represented in Hollywood films. This industry is no longer an inclusive one; many outside nationalities have wanted to be in the Dream Factory as Hollywood goes global. In this case, the depiction of race and ethnicity in the Hollywood films should take a smooth and fair description.
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