Racism in the Movies, Essay Example

It is generally known and accepted that racist portrayals of minorities was widespread in American movies until only a few decades ago. As the society itself was fearful and racist in many ways, the films produced during these decades simply reflected those attitudes.

Standing today as perhaps the most striking evidence of racism in movies is D.W. Griffith’s silent epic, The Birth of a Nation, from 1915. The film was a huge success, both critically and commercially, and President Woodrow Wilson himself praised it. Nonetheless, the depiction of African Americans was outrageously racist; they were uniformly shown as lazy, savage, and a dangerous force that had to be kept in check. The racism in this film was so extreme that even some contemporary voices of the press and government condemned it.

Minorities did not receive much better treatment in the decades that followed, although few movies matched the levels of sheer racism in Griffith’s film. At best, African Americans were portrayed as ignorant, but goodhearted, slaves or servants. Vincent Minnelli’s 1943 musical fantasy Cabin in the Sky stands as a perfect example of a “gentle racism”; a contest for the soul of the male African American hero is underway. The devil is confident of winning, as the man, although supposedly fine at heart, is lazy, weak, and drawn to liquor and gambling. Meanwhile, equally racist is the role of his wife, who is the stereotypically long-suffering, extremely Baptist, non-nonsense African American woman.

Other minorities were not spared by Hollywood, in particular the Asian communities. William Wyler’s 1940 film, The Letter,  presents Gale Sondergaard as a classic Chinese villainess. She does not have a single line of dialogue. Rather, she is there to represent a sinister and frightening element, dressed in many bangles and standing silently in the beaded door of an opium den.

While later years reflected greater public awareness of racist issues in movies, it could be argued that what has happened, even today, is a racist backlash, as unjust as the stereotyping that came before. In the light comedy Sixteen Candles, released in 1984, a running joke is the hopeless English and funny character of the Chinese exchange student. Director John Hughes actually mocks the stereotype, even as he exploits it for laughs; a gong is heard whenever the character’s name is mentioned.

Latin Americans do no better. Ironically, 1995’s To Wong Foo, which clearly set out to defend gay people as an oppressed minority, had no problem in presenting the Latin American gay character as a cartoon stereotype of blind passion and outrageous, “fiery” ways. As with Asian Americans, Latino accents alone are deliberately exaggerated to get laughs, as they were in To Wong Foo.

Then, African Americans endured many years of vile images in movies, only to be portrayed now in an equally insulting way. In modern films, there is a pronounced wisdom and spirituality written into many male African American roles, from the chauffeur in 1989’s Driving Miss Daisy,  to the weary, kind gym manager of 2004’s Million Dollar Baby. It is as though these writers and  directors are so horrified at how badly African Americans were once portrayed, that they now deify them on the screen. Any prejudice in film, however, even what is meant to be a flattering one, is still racism in the movies.