Conclusion

Films about race—like other cultural monuments—offer us the chance to wrestle with past and present constructs of racism, power, and oppression. By paying attention to the depiction of racism and prejudice, we can call attention to these features, express our contrition for past mistakes, and attempt to find a way forward through continued conversation. Films can make those conversations possible, since we enter them through story, not through our own experience. Thus, films enter into the cultural moment when we find monuments, stained glass, and other elements of culture to be at the forefront of these cultural conversations.

Get Out

In its revision of both Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and significant films from the horror genre, Get Out explores the state of race relations one hundred years after The Birth of a Nation—what has changed and what, sadly, remains the same. Black bodies remain at risk of violence and conversion even at the hands of white liberals, and writer/director Jordan Peele suggests that in the current day the lives of many black people still look like something drawn from horror stories—but there can also be victories and survival. Get Out offers a contemporary exploration of race that acknowledges 100 years of pain andprejudice, but seeks a way forward where black bodies do not simply have violence imposed upon them.

Crashing into Each Other

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, many Americans gave in to a narrative of universal fear and mistrust. In contrast, the movie Crash offers a multicultural narrative that explores the universal difficulty of relating to those who look, act, or believe differently from ourselves. In each of its storylines it invites us to stake out a position—and then reveals that position as one that radically misses the essence of its characters. Its moral lesson is how we are called to live in difficult and complicated community, and to recognize both their and our own imperfections. This film represents a casual multiculturalism that stands in opposition to earlier Hollywood films.

Do the Right Thing

After almost a century of white writers, actors, and filmmakers telling the stories of people of color—when in fact they chose to do so, Do the Right Thing represents the phase of Hollywood storytelling in which people outside the white mainstream are allowed to tell their own stories. It also tells a powerfully prescient narrative about violence against black bodies and the difficulty of dialogue about race. Although critics feared that Do the Right Thing might prompt riots and violence, this movie about a hot summer day in Brooklyn thoughtfully reflects on racial stereotypes, the prejudice we all bear, and the necessity of community, making it one of the most important films on race and prejudice ever filmed.

Introduction

Hollywood films offer a blueprint for the treatment of race and representation in the larger American culture, moving as they do from explicitly racist content in early films to attempts at greater equity and justice to, at last, stories written by, made by, and starring the people they represent. In the process, they remind us how we use culture to make meaning, why film can be both a negative and a positive influence for us, and how our wisdom traditions both reflect and stand in opposition to the culture. Even hateful films like The Birth of a Nation (1915) offer us the opportunity to reflect on how Americans have thought about race—and how they might think about it now.

“That’s the Glory of Love”

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was produced at a time when a third of American states barred marriage between black and white, making this formally conservative film culturally radical. While the film does not allow its black characters to tell their own stories, they are given prominence and treated with respect. At its heart, the film is less a story about race relations and more about the power of love to transform our own prejudices and biases, with the transformation of Spencer Tracy’s character as its marker. Although the film is clearly situated for white audiences, Sidney Poitier’s presence is a startling corrective, and the character arc of Matt Drayton (Spencer Tracy) invites audiences to realize the power of love.

The Birth of a Nation

The Birth of a Nation is one of the most popular and most reviled films in American history, and it continues to influence racial discourse, drawing a clear line from its release in 1915 to white supremacism today. A film can shape the way we see ourselves and see others and can even be the cause of violence when it encourages violent responses to societal issues. White supremacist marchers in Charlottesville one hundred years later were echoing the derogatory messages of this film, the first to be screened in the White House. Yet despite its hateful messages, the film is a cinematic masterpiece. Part of our attempt to grapple with The Birth of a Nation is our recognition that, as James Baldwin noted, the film is simultaneously an artistic gem and a work of vile propaganda.

Best Supporting Actors

After many years of racial derogation or absence, Casablanca and Gone with the Wind are films that offered larger and more representative roles for black actors, in line with the greater involvement African Americans experienced in American culture with the coming of World War II. While Sam (Dooley Wilson) is not the focus of Casablanca, his role in the film goes far beyond earlier roles for black people, and his friendship is essential in shaping Rick (Humphrey Bogart), the film’s hero. While he disappears in the last part of the film, Sam is a character who makes Rick’s transformation possible, and points to the coming awareness of America’s multicultural reality.