RACISM IN THE LAST DECADE OF HOLLYWOOD COMEDY MOVIES

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Thiska Septa Maiza ◽  
Ida Rochani Adi

The United States is considered to have entered the post-racial era in the 21st century, where racial preference, discrimination, and prejudice towards minorities, such as African Americans, are supposed to no longer exist. As one of the media that reflected American society, Hollywood movies tried to eliminate the discussion on race and racism. It can be seen in Hollywood movies that begin to eliminate the negative images and stereotypes of African Americans. However, it does not mean that racism vanished from the Hollywood movie industry, especially in comedy movies. Comedy movies are one of the genresthat often involve African-American actors and actresses. Their stereotypes are also commonly used to make humor in the narrative. Therefore, this genre is closely related to racism. However, comedy movies in the last decade, such as Evan Almighty (2007), Wild Hogs (2007), Meet Dave (2008), The Maiden Heist (2009), Last Vegas (2013), Someone Marry Barry (2014), and Going in Style (2017), are not showing any racism on the surface. By using Interdisciplinary as the approach, this research attempts to see how Hollywood presents racism in comedy movies, especially in the last decade. The representation theory is employed to interpret the images, scenes, and dialogues from seven selected comedy movies concerning racism. Meanwhile, the theory of humor is used to find out how racism makes humor occur through African-American characters. The finding of this research indicates that negative images and stereotypes of African Americans are still sustained in Hollywood movies. These depictions are shown covertly. Meanwhile, overt racism indicates that the African American characters are used to make humor occur in comedy movies.Keywords: African American; comedy; Hollywood; humor; racism; representation

Author(s):  
Carl L. Gardiner

The representation of African Americans in the media has been a major concern in mainstream American culture and is also a component of media bias in the United States. Representation, in itself, refers to the construction in any medium of aspects of “reality” such as people, places, objects, events, cultural identities, and other abstract concepts. Such representations may be in speech or writing as well as still or moving pictures. Media representation of minorities is not always seen in a positive light; therefore, representation of African Americans in particular propagates somewhat controversial and misconstrued images of what African American represent. According to Potter, research on the portrayal of African Americans in prime-time television from 1955 to 1986 found that only 6% of the characters were African Americans, while 89% of the TV population was white. Among these African-American characters, 19% lacked a high school diploma, and 47% were low in economic status.


2013 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devyn Spence Benson

Abstract This essay explores the role that conversations about race and racism played in forming a partnership between an African American public relations firm and the Cuban National Tourist Institute (INIT) in 1960, just one year after Fidel Castro’s victory over Fulgencio Batista. The article highlights how Cuban revolutionary leaders, Afro-Cubans, and African Americans exploited temporary transnational relationships to fight local battles. Claiming that the Cuban Revolution had eliminated racial discrimination, INIT invited world champion boxer Joe Louis and 50 other African Americans to the island in January 1960 to experience “first class treatment — as first class citizens.” This move benefited Cuban revolutionary leaders by encouraging new tourism as the number of mainstream white American travelers to the island declined. The business venture also allowed African Americans to compare racial violence in the US South to the supposed integrated racial paradise in Cuba and foreshadowed future visits by black radicals, including NAACP leader Robert F. Williams. The politics expressed by Cuban newspapers and travel brochures, however, did not always fit with the lived experiences of Afro-Cubans. This essay uncovers how Afro-Cubans threatened national discourses by invoking revolutionary promises to denounce continued racial segregation in the very facilities promoted to African American tourists. Ultimately, ideas about race did not just cross borders between Cuba and the United States in 1960. Rather, they constituted and constructed those borders as Afro-Cubans used government claims to reposition themselves within the new revolutionary state.


Author(s):  
M. Elfan Kaukab ◽  
Atinia Hidayah

The United States has a range of methods that is strong enough to carry out propaganda. The role of the mass media and Hollywood movie industry have become a tool of war used by the United States. The media is very influential in persuading one's thoughts and actions. Media is also able to carry out its social construction to wrap reality into an ideal one which is strongly believed because it has been occurring over periods of time. The purpose of this research is to analyze the United States in dominating global influence through Hollywood as a media that plays a role in running propaganda politics. The method used is an explanative analysis of the Black Panther movie. The result of this research is the significant role of the mass media in reconstructing global social conditions by the United States which tries to maintain its dominance through various kinds of propaganda, including those carried out through the production of Hollywood movies.


Author(s):  
Anthony B. Pinn

This chapter explores the history of humanism within African American communities. It positions humanist thinking and humanism-inspired activism as a significant way in which people of African descent in the United States have addressed issues of racial injustice. Beginning with critiques of theism found within the blues, moving through developments such as the literature produced by Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, and others, to political activists such as W. E. B. DuBois and A. Philip Randolph, to organized humanism in the form of African American involvement in the Unitarian Universalist Association, African Americans for Humanism, and so on, this chapter presents the historical and institutional development of African American humanism.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-210
Author(s):  
Michael Leo Owens

Charge: As Ismail K. White and Chryl N. Laird note, collectively more than 80% of African Americans self-identify as Democrats according to surveys, and no Republican presidential candidate has won more than 13% of the Black vote since 1968. This is true despite the fact that at the individual level many African Americans are increasingly politically moderate and even conservative. Against this backdrop, what explains the enduring nature of African American support for the Democratic Party? In Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior, White and Laird answer this question by developing the concept of “racialized social constraint,” a unifying behavioral norm meant to empower African Americans as a group and developed through a shared history of struggle against oppression and for freedom and equality. White and Laird consider the historical development of this norm, how it is enforced, and its efficacy both in creating party loyalty and as a path to Black political power in the United States. On the cusp of perhaps the most consequential presidential election in American history, one for which African American turnout was crucial, we asked a range of leading political scientists to assess the relative strengths, weaknesses, and ramifications of this argument.


Blood ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (8) ◽  
pp. 2959-2962 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Schneider ◽  
Linda Forman ◽  
Beryl Westwood ◽  
Catherine Yim ◽  
James Lin ◽  
...  

Abstract In 424 African-American and 75 white subjects, we found that the −5 (TPI 592 A→G), −8 (TPI 589 G→A), and −24 (TPI 573 T→G) variants in the triosephosphate isomerase (TPI) gene occurred frequently (41.0%) in the African-American subjects but did not occur in the whites. These data suggest that this set of polymorphisms may turn out to be one of the higher-incidence molecular markers of African lineage, a surprising finding because others had reported that these nucleotide substitutions were restricted to a small subset of African Americans who had been characterized as TPI-deficiency heterozygotes. Additionally, we investigated the relationship of these variants to TPI-enzyme activity. Although the variant substitutions (occurring in three haplotypes: −5 alone, −5 −8, and −5 −8 −24) were associated with moderate reduction in enzyme activity, severe-deficiency heterozygotes could not be identified with certainty, and none of the haplotypes were restricted to subjects with marked reduction of enzyme activity. Three subjects were homozygous for the −5 −8 haplotype, a finding inconsistent with the putative role of this haplotype as the cause of a null variant incompatible with life in homozygotes. Despite these findings, the possibility remains that the −5 −8 or −5 −8 −24 haplotypes may in some instances contribute to compound heterozygosity and clinical TPI deficiency. © 1998 by The American Society of Hematology.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
James B. Stewart

This article argues that contemporary antislavery activism in the United States is programmatically undermined and ethically compromised unless it is firmly grounded in a deep understanding of the African American past. Far too frequently those who claim to be “the new abolitionists” evince no interest in what the original abolitionist movement might have to teach them and seem entirely detached from a U.S. history in which the mass, systematic enslavement of African Americans and its consequences are dominating themes. As a result contemporary antislavery activism too often marginalizes the struggle for racial justice in the United States and even indulges in racist ideology. In an effort to overcome these problems, this article seeks to demonstrate in specific detail how knowledge of the African American past can empower opposition to slavery as we encounter it today.


2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 265
Author(s):  
Trent Shotwell

History of African Americans: Exploring Diverse Roots by Thomas J. Davis chronicles the remarkable past of African Americans from the earliest arrival of their ancestors to the election of President Barack Obama. This work was produced to recognize every triumph and tragedy that separates African Americans as a group from others in America. By distinguishing the rich and unique history of African Americans, History of African Americans: Exploring Diverse Roots provides an account of inspiration, courage, and progress. Each chapter details a significant piece of African American history, and the book includes numerous concise portraits of prominent African Americans and their contributions to progressing social life in the United States.


Circulation ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (Suppl_3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anas M Al Zubaidi ◽  
Graham Bevan ◽  
Mariam Rana ◽  
Abdul Rahman Al Armashi ◽  
Mustafa Alqaysi ◽  
...  

Background: African Americans are at increased risk of fatal cardiac arrests, but population-based studies exploring contemporary epidemiology are not available. We sought to identify the trend in race-specific mortality from cardiac arrest in the United States. Methods: Using the multiple cause of death database, we identified all patients (Caucasians or African Americans) who died of cardiac arrest (International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision code I46.x listed as underlying cause of death) between 1999 and 2018. Age-adjusted mortality rates were standardized to the 2000 US census data, and stratified by age group (<35 years, 35-64 years, and ≥ 65 years). Results: A total of 311,065 cardiac arrest deaths were identified, with an overall age-adjusted mortality of 53.6 per million (Caucasian: 49.1 per million, African American: 90.6 per million). Overall, age-adjusted mortality decreased from 80.1 per million persons (1999) to 44.3 per million persons (2012), followed by 8.8% increase to 48.2 (2018). Between 2012 and 2018, African Americans had higher rates of increase (10.9%) compared with Caucasians (6.9%). Largest disparities in relative changes between 2012 and 2018 occurred in patients younger than 35 years (African American: 35%, Caucasians -11%), and patients ≥ 65 years (African Americans: 8%, Caucasians 4%), figure. Conclusions: Although the mortality due to cardiac arrest has declined in the US between 1999 and 2012, a recent increase has been noted between 2012 and 2018, particularly among younger African Americans. Studies should focus on identifying causes of disparities and identifying methods to reduce the racial gap.


1995 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-23
Author(s):  
Immanuel Wallerstein

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, the study of Africa in the United States was a very rare and obscure practice, engaged in almost exclusively by African-American (then called Negro) intellectuals. They published scholarly articles primarily in quite specialized journals, notably Phylon, and their books were never reviewed in the New York Times. As a matter of fact, at this time (that is, before 1945) there weren't even very many books written about African-Americans in the U.S., although the library acquisitions were not quite as rare as those for books about Africa.


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