Is Black Hollywood getting a raw deal or is theatrical Karma real?

There has been a recent outcry from Black actors and actresses about the lack of roles for them. They say that roles in high budget movies are written by White writers, directors and producers for White actors, actresses and audiences. Samuel L. Jackson had some harsh words for the Academy Awards show. Victoria Rowell, daytime soap star, complains about the lack of diversity in daytime soaps. Anthony Mackie has complained that powerful Blacks don’t use their money and influence to create better roles for Blacks. The most egregious complaint is the lack of Black writers, directors, and producers.

Hollywood has a history of a lack of Black writers, producers, and directors. That is nothing new. Hollywood also has a history of creating images that impact the Black community. An obvious example is the movie The Birth of a Nation. This cinematic milestone not only cost Black men their lives, but was used as a recruiting tool for the KKK in the early twentieth century. More recently, the movie American History X, was used as a recruiting tool for skinheads and hate groups in southern California. But very few Black actors complained about the negative impact of these movies. Instead many focused on the big paydays for a chosen few like Will Smith or Denzel Washington. They think that Black actors have made it. But this is the basis of the token theory, in which a small percentage from a particular group is created to justify anything or to shut up the critics.

The prime example of positive Black television is the Cosby Show. At the height of the Cosby Show, not many thought it was part of the Black community. I heard many people say (White and Black) that the Cosby Show wasn’t a realistic show. The power of the show’s positivity was neutralized by its singularity. How can you change perceptions with a 30-minutes comedy show, when the rest of the day, week, month, all people are seeing are Black athletes and criminals. Shows like Dynasty and Dallas, in which affluent Blacks were nonexistent or Hill Street Blues, which showed Black crime-ridden neighborhoods, where welfare and poverty run rampant, point to the community hero as the high school basketball star. But also deeply ingrained is the stereotype caused by spawning decades of spin offs: Homicide, Life on the Streets, Law and Order franchises, and CSI. The Black actors playing cops or doctors on these shows are isolated outside the community.

The only time these characters are integrated as being part of the Black community is when it is time to showcase a negative perception. The actors don’t care about the stereotypical journey they take the audience on through the hood. Why? Because they know the check is in the mail and the residual checks are around the corner.

Black actors and actresses have a history of not caring about the images and the stereotypes Hollywood produces. “I’d rather play a maid than be one.” This is one of the most famous lines in Oscar history. It is what Hattie McDaniel, the first (and for more than 30 years the only) African-American to win an Oscar, said when she was criticized for her role as Mammy in Gone With the Wind. The accurate quote was “I would rather play a maid for $7000 a week than be a maid for $7 a week.” That’s the mind-frame that continued through the 70s 80s and 90s and even governs Black Hollywood today. They constantly clamored for roles as crack heads, drug dealers, thieves, prostitutes, single mothers, abusive men, and dysfunctional family members.

Black actors and actresses who are known for philanthropic efforts and ground-breaking portrayals of roles of strong Black characters in positions of power haven’t had an effect on stereotypes, because of the history of Black Hollywood. These people are considered to be out of the norm. This is how they rationalize: I’m one more person making enough money playing these characters not to burden society by being one of these characters. They don’t care that their work reaches millions of people. Even worse, Dittowoods see the Black characters on Law and Order, or any crime drama as being the “norm” of Black America. And since these people only know Black people through the lenses of the camera, they have nothing in the real world to compare, and subconsciously begin to think that all Blacks act a certain way.

Here is more evidence that Black Hollywood doesn’t care. When Mel Gibson made his stereotypical comments about Black men raping his wife, nobody from Hollywood came out and said anything. Black Hollywood was silent. I understand why the Dittowoods wouldn’t criticize Mel. They believe the stereotype that all Black men do is want to rape White women, is true. But Whoopi Goldberg comes out not to scold him, but to support him and say that he is not a racist. His personal belief system is not the point; the point is that 95% of hate is based on stereotypes. These stereotypes are used to rationalize and justify hate. Maybe Black Hollywood believes the stereotypes they help create.

That’s why Black Hollywood complaining about the quality and quantity of opportunities in Hollywood, makes me laugh. They made a living perpetuating and contributing to the stereotypes. Their Hollywood community is more important than the community in which they grew up. They don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them. By putting their own personal finances ahead of the community, they have created a cycle of degradation. Now, instead of opening doors for the next generation of Black thespians, they create a stalemate where it is actually unprofitable to provide positive Black images.

Today, if you’re not one of these super star Black actors like Samuel L. Jackson, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding Jr., or Halle Berry, you are stuck facing the conundrum of playing yet another character you don’t want your child nor your grandmother to see you playing, or losing the mortgage on your million dollar house. Black Hollywood not only failed the community, they painted themselves into a corner where because of negative stereotypes they help create the not many positive roles for themselves. I don’t want to hear you did that role because you were being authentic to the art form or it was a realistic character you could relate to. If Hollywood was thinking about being realistic, we would have seen more fat White females in lead roles. Rosanne Barr wasn’t the only fat White women in this country, yet, she is the only fat White female to ever be the lead in a show out of hundreds of thousands of shows. That is crazy. I’ll go deeper into this issue in another blog.

I know some people think of some Black actors as pioneers who open doors. But what door did they open? Black Hollywood might have walked through the doors opened by the old minstrel, maid, pimp, pusher, and butler roles, but they slammed and padlocked it behind them with the thug, and urban decay roles and negative urban hood movies. You have type cast yourselves as a whole and don’t even realize it. Karma is a bitch, ain’t it?

Nerdy Jones

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