The Scene staff
Movies and TV shows have been my main source of entertainment since childhood. As I’ve grown into a black woman, I’ve come to realize that Hollywood misrepresents my race. It uses stereotypes to create a negative image of African Americans.
Let’s start with Walt Disney. After 75 years of film-making, the company produced its first animated movie with a black princess in 2009. But I question whether “The Princess and The Frog” should be celebrated or criticized.
Disney has a long history of comparing blacks to animals, and although “The Princess and The Frog” seems like an improvement, the black main character still spends most of the movie as a frog.
The 2002 documentary “The Mickey Mouse Monopoly” points out that Disney movies have almost always given black personalities to animal characters. It gives the example of “The Jungle Book,” the classic 1967 animated Disney movie with an Indian orphan named Mowgli and jive-singing gorillas.
“It’s that same, you know, jive … the hustle, the dance,” said Harvard professor Jacqueline Maloney. “These gorillas and orangutans that sound like black people that want to be like men, but will never be men.”
Similar comparisons go back centuries, according to Laura Green, assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, who wrote a 1998 article called “Negative Racial Stereotypes and Their Effect on Attitudes toward African-Americans.”
“Beliefs that blacks were ‘mentally inferior, physically and culturally unevolved and apelike in appearance’ were supported by prominent white figures like Lincoln, Johnson, and Jefferson,” she wrote.
Another problem is that many black actors and actresses have been forced to accept stereotypical roles. Take Dorothy Dandridge, an actress, singer and dancer in the 1940s and ‘50s. She reluctantly played a black prostitute in the movie “Carmen Jones.”
It paid off for Dandridge, as she became the third black actress nominated for an Academy Award in 1954. But many believed her race was the reason she lost to Grace Kelly, who starred in “The Country Girl.”
The first black woman to win the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role was Halle Berry (“Monster’s Ball” in 2002). Many people disliked the idea that it took a sexually explicit and degrading role to make that happen. Green addressed the problem from an historical standpoint in her article.
“This image of the ‘bad black girl’ represented the undeniable sexual side of African-American women,” she wrote. “The creation of the hypersexual seductress Jezebel served to absolve white males of responsibility in the sexual abuse and rape of African-American women. Black women in such cases were to be ‘askin’ for it.”
The sad part is, while Hollywood has made improvements on race, it still promotes stereotypes and limits opportunities for black actors and actresses.
The TV series “Scandal,” which premiered in 2012, is one of the most popular shows on ABC. The main character is a young black woman named Olivia Pope (played by Kerry Washington), who works as White House communications director.
It’s great that Pope is a powerful black woman, but her sexual affair with the president makes her seem like a sophisticated whore. I wonder if this is Hollywood’s passive-aggressive way of hanging on to the old stereotype.
My favorite new TV series is “Gotham,” which premiered in 2014 on FOX. It’s set in the crime-infested city of Gotham, where young Bruce Wayne grew up, after his parents were murdered and before he became Batman.
I love the villainess Fish Mooney, played by black actress Jada Pinkett Smith. She is a very sensual, intelligent crime boss, who wants to rise higher in the organization. She seduces male gangsters to get ahead.
Again, Mooney is powerful, but she’s also furthering the stereotype of the “bad black girl.” She’s the only black lead in “Gotham.” I wonder why she has to play a villain who is also a seductress.
I found a scene from the “Scarecrow” episode both funny and irritating. The Penguin is found past out on the ground by a group of elderly, overweight gospel singers, who offer him a ride. As he gets on the church bus, the women start singing old hymns.
I found the gospel singers reminiscent of the Mammy stereotype. She was “a large, independent woman with pitch-black skin and shining white teeth,” as described by Green. I was surprised that even my favorite show misrepresented my race.
As I watch television shows and movies, I constantly see history repeating itself. Many black actors and actresses still accept stereotypical roles, even though those roles aren’t quite as blatantly negative as in the past.
I believe Hollywood has begun to show black people in a more positive light, but not completely. I would encourage black actors and actresses to be more concerned about how they represent their race. That would help the world better understand us and treat us with more respect in the long run.