Storytelling Pucpr 2013 - Os negros na mídia/ the media and the black community

One of the most popular films and honored films last year was "Jango", about slavery, and it featured black actors, majority of black cast This year is "The Butler", about an Afican American man who was butler in the White House, serving eight different presidents and if you heard, the Oprah Winfrey she's in it as well So we've come a long way from this portrayal of blacks on screen for comic relief; they were maids, they were con man, they were the "go to" person to make everybody laugh, but they were not taken seriously, so we've seen a great deal of improvement in the image, but the image often panders to stereotypes, people think or those who create the messages think in terms of stereotypes that black people all look a certain way, act a certain way, think of certain way, and sometimes that's not presented in a very positive way but we do have exceptions. I do have seen many movies with Will Smith or Denzel Washington, Samuel Jackson, these are actors with tremendous presence on screen, and they're not ones that will take on roles that they might see, they might be a bad guy on the movie, but the portraial is one that is not going to be an embarrassment for them or that is below their culture or wathever, disrespectful to African American people for them to play this role So it just depends on the casting and what the roles speak for But at the center of all of this is, for most part, there are whites who are behid the production or create the characters or write the characters or direct the actors But it all depends on the portrayal, there is a difference in terms of men. The men can be portrayed as masculine, as heros, they could be family men. Sometimes women are just portrayed as the sexpot godess, the mother type. It just depends on the casting One of the most successful black directors and producers is a man by the name Tyler Perry. He is criticized because he creates characters that often rely on steotypes, he has a very popular character named Madea. He plays a woman, an elderly woman, but she perpetrayal is one that is stereotypical, of what media messages send out all the time about the black woman. She's large, she's agressive, she doesn't, you know, takes no prisoners, she's just runs the play and so if you have a black director, like Spike Lee, it is his interpretation of black. He's very vocal in his criticisms of Tyler Perry, because he, as a black director, is vehemently opposed to portrayals that Tyler Perry, as a director, puts on the big screen. But they make money. Black characters in American films, as I said earlier, they went from being comic relief or characters that weren't taken seriously, that were there just to make people laugh, they didn't have lives, they didn't have families but they were there to advance the story for the white lead Back in the 70's period of films, called black exploitation. Films like "Chef", Richard Roundtree, an African American actor, were all the sudden... African American men became the heros, they were the good guys, they saved the day, they got the girl at the end, they were playing roles that genereally a white guy would play But in this black exploitation films just changed the environment. They operated in Harlem, New York, or they operated in an African American environment of gangsters and the white guys were the bad guys so at end of the day they gonna bring down the white guy, who is the bad guy, and the black guy is the hero and he gets the girl at the end of the movie One of the most popular television shows in America was "The Cosby Show" and it would star a comedian by the name of Bill Cosby and the portrayals on this show were so positive. He was a doctor, she was a lawyer. These are black people and they live in a brown stone, they have three beautiful children and grandchildren and all of this. And the show was never about race, but you knew it was about race because the lead characters were all black. The guest starts or other actors on it were white, but they were not the stars of the show. All of the stars were black and race was never an issue America welcome these families, these black, this particular black family into their home Befora a black president was in the White House in real life, a black president existed on television on "24". A white woman was a president on Prision Break, a white woman was a president on a failed TV show called "Commander in Chief" but television prepares you, so one day, when Hillary Clinton or a woman is the president of the United States, won't be a big deal because they've already seen it It was no big "bro-ha-ha" over a black man being president Subtitles by the Amara.org community