Blog #1

Hollywood is the entertainment of the man. Just as today as we have certain blacks who are puppets to the man, you had certain blacks who were puppets to hollywood back then. Hollywood was white entertainment and white entertainment included the image of black people that they wanted to see; The toms, coons, mulattos, mammys and bucks. They started out with these basic, demeaning characters because that is how they saw black people at the time. They also did not want to give blacks empowerment on the screen because of course it would translate over into the real world and it is naturally in the american white man culture to feel entitled to superiority and they display that by having blacks on the screens acting a fool. It started out with white actors and black face, to outlandish black characters, to black characters in small roles but still limited, so on and so forth. The white man always gives a crumb to the begging mouse after good behavior. It socially impacted the black community by forcing them to advocate for better roles and such things that we see today where we have black films however negatively, it impacted blacks with low self esteem. Instead of having films and tv portray blacks as equals, they weren't, and that could have affected any black person with the lesson that if you kiss the white mans ass then thats the only way you will make it. These issues still exist today except you even have blacks making the demeaning films. Tyler Perry is a great man in the fact that he writes, directs and produces his own films but most of his films play to black stereotypes. The light skinned male hero, the dark skinned villain, and the generic black jokes are common in all his films and stage plays. In truth, it is sometimes hard to get away from these stereotypes in real life as well.