In Hollywood we hear it s all about the money It s a ready explanation for why so few black films get made no crossover appeal no promise of a big payoff But what if the money itself is color coded What if the economics that governs film production is so skewed that no film by about or for people of color will ever look like a worthy investment unless it follows specific racial or gender patterns This Monica Ndounou shows us is precisely the case In a work as revealing about the culture of filmmaking as it is about the distorted economics of African American film Ndounou clearly traces the insidious connections between history content and cash in black films How does history come into it Hollywood s reliance on past performance as a measure of potential success virtually guarantees that historically underrepresented underfunded and undersold African American films devalue the future prospects of black films So the cycle continues as it has for nearly a century Behind the scenes the numbers are far from neutral Analyzing the onscreen narratives and off screen circumstances behind nearly two thousand films featuring African Americans in leading and supporting roles including such recent productions as Bamboozled Beloved and Tyler Perry s Diary of a Mad Black Woman Ndounou exposes the cultural and racial constraints that limit not just the production but also the expression and creative freedom of black films Her wide ranging analysis reaches into questions of literature language speech and dialect film images and narrative acting theater and film business practices production history and financing and organizational history By uncovering the ideology behind profit driven industry practices that reshape narratives by about and for people of color this provocative work brings to light existing limitations and possibilities for reworking stories and business practices in theater literature and film

Shaping the Future of African American Film PDF

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