Framing Black Lives: African American Films from Oscar Micheaux to Tyler Perry

• In Event: 078 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 13. Values, Race, and Gender

Abstract

Films present stories of literary and artistic value but the analysis of which transforms those stories into data of considerable sociological value as well. The analysis presented in this paper relates a story of African American filmmaking that in the years following the 1915 racist epic, The Birth of a Nation, and continuing today. Our purpose is twofold: (1) to understand why the stories related in the films of African American lives contain the themes that they do; and (2) to explain why these stories have changed over time. To do this, we have examined a sample of 60 films featuring African American actors, and which narrate aspects of African American life in the U.S. What renders these films particularly distinctive, however, is that they all have been directed by an African American. Employing seven indicators of the stories’ themes, our analysis leads us to the following conclusions: (1) films directed by African Americans have increased significantly in number over time and have shown clear evidence of their profitability; (2) comedies have become more popular than dramas in recent eras; and (3) recent films have focused more on the lives of middle-class and upward-striving, career-oriented men and women than was true earlier and have taken a more accommodationist tact, avoiding issues of social inequality and racial discrimination. The films, in sum, have become more individualistic, and provide less evidence of a critical social awareness and concern for social change than had been true in earlier periods.

Authors

• Terrence Hall, The University of Georgia

• James J. Dowd, University of Georgia