African-American in the Media the Comedy Barbershop,

African-American in the Media

The comedy Barbershop, starring Ice Cube juxtaposes the harshness of city life with the resiliency of the people living in the city. The movie with its black cast has an impressive standing in the movie industry for the year 2002. I'm not sure that I agree that this specific film means a breakthrough for African-Americans in the industry. The Black person has after all been part of the industry for a long time, and there are many African-American stars, not featured in this movie, who have made a great success of their movie careers.

The "integration period" for example is determined to be around the years 1949-1969. During this period there is an integration of Black people into the societies depicted in films. Thus the African-American is portrayed in a more positive way. Also, "black" themes and issues of conflict among races and peers are depicted in a positive and solution-oriented way. A good example is Home of the Brave, starring James Edwards, Steve Brodie, Lloyd Bridges, and Frank Lovejoy. This movie, released in 1949, deals with the controvercial issue of racism during World War II. This movie, with its hopeful theme of healing, was a box office success.

Thus there are many movies, featuring African-American issues and actors, that do become box office successes. Actors and actresses such as Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Will Smith and Whoopie Goldberg are but a few of today's extremely successful African-Americans in the movie industry. I must therefore say that I cannot entirely agree with the claim that Barbershop is a total breakthrough in the area.

Question

Bogle's definition of a Coon is rather more harsh than that of the pledge author. According to Bogle, a Coon is a Black person who is a source of amusement as a result of being a complete idiot, and acting like it. This is regardless of the person's social standing, which does not seem to be very high. Bogle divides his definition into two subtypes. The first is the "pickaninny," or Black child, who rolls his or her eyes in an amusing way. The second is the saintly grown-up, who is also naive and comic while trying to be philosophical. Furthermore Bogle goes on to note that the Coon is originally defined as a crazy, lazy and downright subhuman creature, who is not good for very much apart from eating and making a mockery of the English language.

The author of the pledge on the other hand raises the status of the Coon to something more "human." The Coon is actually in a noteworthy position of relative power, but is unable to use this power for anything other than perpetuating already existing stereotypes.

I believe that language such as defined in the work by Bogle is extremely derogatory and harmful towards those of African descent. This is especially true since there are no equivalent terms to describe White performers or White people in similar positions. Terms such as "Coon" do tend demonstrate that the person using these terms is racist. It is also unfortunate that even in today's enlightened times, the ideas spawned by the above-mentioned terms continue to pervade Western thinking, and especially White racist thinking.

Bogle suggests that Black actors playing these stereotypes managed to overcome both racism and stereotyping by bringing pleasure to both Black and White audiences. This appears to be true when one considers the many African-Americans in the media who are being taken seriously for their work.

Stereotypes have been popularized in the American culture and arts since the days of slavery. Thus film depictions of these stereotypes are simply an extension of this tendency. It appears therefore that the phenomenon can be ascribed to White imperialism and superiority during the birth of the very concept of racism.

Statistics offered by Entman and Rojecki are sobering when one likes to think of our times as enlightened. The authors reveal that not only film, but also television shows, commercials and news, tend to put Black characters in a negative light. Car, perfume and cosmetics commercials for example show predominantly White people. And where Blacks are depicted in management positions, this very position distances them from their White co-workers.