Black Masculinity and Manhood in Film

Black Masculinity and Manhood

Introduction

Mainstream Hollywood films often encompass masculinity as a carefully crafted performance. Including scripts, physical pomposity and impression management which focus on male characters striving to fulfill the single critical role of power.  However, masculinity and manhood in the African American community are imprudently rooted from displacement. Black masculinity similarly to white manhood focuses on the journey of striving to fulfill the roles of benefactor, breadwinner, procreator, and guardian.

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 However; black manhood in the US is regrettably rooted in the slave experience. During the institution of slavery, Film often showcased the image of Black males, as docile characters. Embodying images of the “Passive Slave” which included “the buffoonery, blissful ignorance and juvenile angst which were the primary traits portrayed of enslaved Blacks”  (Pilgram, 2000). Even after the emancipation of slavery, mainstream media’s representation of black males served as the interests of “White America”. Preventing black males to have access to forms of political and economic power. As an alternative, Hollywood pushed the “Mythical Black Brute”, relying on the two concepts of violence and sexuality to push this image. For instance, D. W’s “Birth of a Nation” (1915),” used adverse images of African American males to promote a racist political agenda which threatened white female purity.

 This approach ignores the complexity of the black experience, instead of focusing on ways to shift the attention away from the problems inherent with the federal government. Instead, the film industry focused on getting the dominant white class to garner their full support. The provision of white Americans caused mainstream Hollywood to monopolize on films that endorsed the negative characterization of black males. Which either included being characterized as criminals or drug addicts. White America’s perception of blackness caused black communities to suffer, fracturing the structure of the “black family”. For instance, by the 1960s “over 40 percent of black children living in the United States are born into the two-parent household (Novak,1968). Fatherless young black males constructed their own form of masculinity from the negative images that were perceived in American media. Thus, creating a destructive cycle of the black manhood. However, after the 1960s civil rights era, black independent filmmakers turned to Black indie cinema to satisfy the craving that the Black community had for screen representation. One influential filmmaker we can discuss is Spike Lee.

Films either written or directed by Spike Lee contain issues regarding racial indifference and the constant battle for equal supremacy. Through his own experiences living in Brooklyn, New York, Lee either blatantly or subtly demonstrated the “male black identity” in America. Lee culturally critiques black manhood insisting that film can “collectively reconceptualize and reconstruct black manhood while challenging the prevailing negative representations of black men”  (Holt & Jackson, 2004).  Lee discusses the undeniable role film has had shaping America’s national consciousness about protest and resistance by focusing on giving a voice to the alienated and rageful Black youths. Contrasting the differences between Lee’s two films “Do the Right Thing” and “Clockers”, the following paper will attempt to discuss the reconfiguration of black manhood outside of its current and historical particularizations regarding Rap music and the criminalization, offering a lens for viewing black manhood differently.

Black Masculinity in Gangsta Rap Music

“Rap music has served as a vehicle of protest among Black America in the late 1980s addressing the discontent of police harassment”  (Gibson, 2017). Rap’s initial role was to invite listeners to increase their awareness of the sociopolitical realities of Black communities. Highlighting both class differences in low-income black families vs the white middle class. In addition, to representing a counter-cultural movement that acknowledged Black Youth. For instance, we can understand this “counter-cultural movement by looking at Spike Lee’s, “Do The Right Thing as an example.

Do the Right Thing is a stylistic tragedy that focuses on the intergenerational relationship between the members of Bedford-Stuyvesant. This film examines the relationship between race relations, ambition, urban survival, economics, violence, and liberty. In the film, we understand how rap is used in response to civil unrest. For instance, the character Radio Raheem playing “Fight the power” a song that “symbolizes the embracing of hip-hop as a cultural rejection of Anglo-American popular music and culture of earlier decades that his forefathers of the Black Power era rejected before him”  (Gibson, 2017).

However, even though rap’s initial voice was to appeal to black audiences, rap achieved greater commercial credibility and wider circulation through the white youth. Increasing the lucrative sums of money being generated from the white and middle-class. (Because of this) rap groups further pushed the “ghettoized pathology of a rapper (drug selling, gangbanging, violence, pimping, etc). Regrettably facilitated an important link between the reconfiguring of black youth and music” (Gibson, 2017).  Between the late 80s to early 90s, this shift reconstructed black men’s masculinity reasserting it as extreme toughness, invulnerability, violence, and domination.

For instance, in Spike Lee’s “Clockers”, the protagonist Strike and his crew have an impromptu debate on Rap. Half the crew has the belief that the only “real rappers” are the ones who glorify extreme toughness, immunity, violence, and domination. While the others believe that rap needs to return to its roots of spreading out a more positive constructive change. Spike Lee cuts this exchange short, however, he indirectly asks the audience a question of “How should rappers deal with the inner city”? Clockers problematizes the thug exterior because there aren’t positive father figures are not present in the movie, these young black men look up to these rappers to explain to define masculinity. Some of Strike’s crew realize that in order to mend the “black family”, rap must showcase positive ways to improve the structure of low-income neighborhoods.

Demonetization and Criminalization of Black Males in America

Synonym of Blackness with criminality is not a new phenomenon in America. The film has continually shown the myth, stereotypes and racist ideologies of black males. During the “Radical Reconstruction”, filmmakers argued that without slavery, A.A(African Americans) would revert to their animalistic ways. To construct this concept, Hollywood pushed the “Mythical Black Brute. “A caricature that portrayed black men as innately savage, animalistic, destructive, and criminal that deserved punishment” (Pilgram, 2000). Hollywood’s racist political agenda forced the White Middle Class to fear black males. “Even focusing primarily on the discrimination policies and court rulings. Many rulings fueled racial violence in a post-Reconstruction era and culminated the exponential increase of Black male incarceration” (Smiley & Fakunle, 2017).

For instance, we can understand the response of the A.A community by looking at an example of Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing”.  Even though the heat of “Do the Right Thing provokes the tensions between the members of Bedford Stuyvesant and the police. Lee claims the movie was “inspired by the racism that the riot purports, creating a dialogue about race in America that is real and illustrates a call for dialogue among U.S citizens” (Meta G et al,2017). Instances in the film which focused on the police’s relationship with the Black youth in the. For example; “Radio Raheem’s death is an act of injustice, breaks silence on matters of police brutality and address the effects of racism in the rising genocide” (Gibson, 2017). Lee exemplifies and maintains the critical valuation of racial tensions within the Black Community.

Additionally, even after the increasing interest of black culture from white teens. Black culture achieved greater commercial credibility and wider circulation. An increase of lucrative sums of money being generated from the white and middle-class causing the introduction of the “Ghetto film cycle”. “Ghetto Action film cycle was timely and problematic cycle that shaped by the social and economic dislocations of poor inner-city youth” (Watkins, 1996). Examples of; young African American gangbanging and slinging (dealing drugs) become staple images.

Even Spike Lee’s “Clockers” focuses on the same subject matter as many hood films. Lee still presents the pressure male adolescents must conform to a set of distorted notions of masculinity. For instance, in “Clockers”, Spike Lee depicts a society infused with violence. Lee follows the traditional Hollywood genre formula of building the film around a tight, fast-paced narrative filled up chase-sequences, however, he depicts the film as pensive and restrained rather action-oriented style. Lee wants to turn his adolescent audience away from violence, rather than be attracted by the fast-edited scenes of cop chasing scenes. Instead, Lee focuses on the “coming of age story” of the main protagonist “Strike”. He focuses on making Strike more approachable and sympathetic. Concentrating on his interactions with authority figures making him more inarticulate and child-like. Additionally, Lee’s representation of the police demonstrates how morally balanced and free the Clockers can be. Lee characterizes the cops as corrupt, cynical, contemptuous, and casually racist who don’t have any concern for the people in the neighborhood. Instead the police roast and insult the clockers, being more interested in making them a case stick than in serving justice. Although the cops don’t extend to the community. Lee’s vision of the police this time is so reasonable that he showcases one of the few men in a position of power a sense of justice. Its Rocco, the main detective who comes the closest to offering a glimmer of hope to Strike and the inner-city adolescents

Conclusion

Masculinity and manhood in the African American community are ill-advisedly rooted from displacement. From the negative symbols of black males in film from the “Passive Slave” to the “Mythical Black brute”. Mainstream Hollywood film constitutes success by monopolizing on films that endorsed the negative characterization of black males. However; with the use of both “Clockers” and “Do the Right Thing, we can understand that black males must seek self-liberation from Hollywood’s destructive cycle. Both films focus on different ways to view “black masculinity and black manhood”.

 Focusing primarily on rap music and the criminalization of black males, Clockers and “Do the Right Thing” still present the pressure black male adolescents must conform to a set of distorted notions of masculinity. Spike Lee follows the traditional Hollywood genre formula of building the film around a tight, fast-paced narrative. However, Spike Lee reconstructs “black masculinity”. Instead, Lee focuses on the convergence of diverse black manhood. Both films discuss the issues of unemployment, single-parent families and a crippling nihilism among youth in two separate ways. However, Lee focuses on a reconstructed black manhood. Which frees up black men from the divisive and hurtful rips of the Hollywood film industry. Instead of healing the “black family”, increasing the active involvement of black fatherhood. “Lee asserts that politics of difference and intolerance to rebuild and sustain our communities” (Meta G et al, 2017)

Bibliography

• Gibson, C. (2017). “Fight the Power”: Hip Hop and Civil Unrest in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. Black Camera, 183-207.
• Holt, E., & Jackson, W. (2004). RECONSTRUCTING BLACK MANHOOD: MESSAGE AND MEANING IN SPIKE LEE’S “GET ON THE BUS”. CLA Journal, 409-426.
• Meta G. Carstarphen, Kathleen E. Welch, Wendy K. Z. Anderson, Davis W. Houck, Mark L. McPhail, David A. Frank, Rachel C. Jackson, James Alexander McVey, Christopher J. Gilbert, Patricia G. Davis & Lisa M. Corrigan (2017) Rhetoric, Race, and Resentment: Whiteness and the New Days of Rage, Rhetoric Review, 36:4, 255-347, DOI: 10.1080/07350198.2017.1355191
• Pilgrim, D. D. (2000, Nov). Ferris State. Retrieved from The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia: https://ferris.edu/jimcrow/brute/
• Smiley, C., & Fakunle, D. (2017, Jan). From “brute” to “thug:” the demonization and criminalization of unarmed Black male victims in America. PubMed. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5004736/
• Watkins, S. .. (1996). Representing: Hip Hop Culture and the Production of Black Cinema. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.