The Evolution of Minorities in Film Essay -- Movie Film Essays

The Evolution of Minorities in FilmBack in the 1800s, when calculating the population, African Americans were counted as 3/5 of a person (Antonia, p2). One would think that in the past two hundred years peoples beliefs would have changed a little bit, but the public white public are stuck into believing the common stereotypes commonly portrayed in movies. In films and television shows blacks are almost always portrayed as murderers, robbers, rapists, pretty much anything negative, like American History X, for example. Two black men are shown breaking into a white mans car. concourse see this, and in turn believe that all black men will try and steal their car as stupid as it whitethorn seem, it is true, and as a result, film producers try to incorporate this into their films. Very rarely, if ever, is it possible to see a minority depicted as a hero-type figure. Every formerly in a while, there will be an independent film from a minority director, but as Schultz states in Lyo ns piece, We blacks are whitewash being ghettoized in Hollywood, a serious black project of any scope is as difficult to get marketed today as it was in the 70s. By devising a barrier to entry for minorities in the film industry, its almost as if America is trying to keep black films out of the hot media. At first glimpse, it may appear that minorities are very hard to be seen in the filming industry, when in reality, they are becoming more(prenominal) and more apparent in Americas mainstream media culture, particularly in action movies. MacDonald stated in Allan Smiths essay, American mass culture keep to operate as an assimilative force, seeking to maintain social stability while gradually merging people of different backgrounds into the cult... ...ral trend of how minorities are making a bigger and bigger impact on American mainstream culture. All America can do is smile and be content at the concomitant that minorities are finally getting the respect they deserve .Works CitedAntonia, Kathleen. A Lesson Before Living Humanist, March/April 2001,Volume 61 Issue 2, p.43. Beck, Bernard. What Price Glory? multicultural Perspectives, 1999, Volume 1 Issue 1, p.26.Brinkley, Douglas. Edward Nortons Primal Fear George, October 1998, Volume 3 Issue 10, p.110.Lyons, N.L. From Race Movies to Blaxploitation to Homeboy Movies AmericanVisions, February 1992, Volume 7 Issue 1, p. 42.Smith, Allan. see Things Race, Image, and National Identity inCanadian and American Movies and Television Canadian Review of American Studies, Autumn 1996, Volume 26 Issue 3, p. 367.