Since the arrival of Africans in America the image in America for the African American people has been majority negative. Although the African American males today has risen up to some of the highest positions in America such as the US president being black, and other top job positions being held by an African American male or female. The people as a whole still have that negative outlook on them as a whole since the beginning of their time here. However black males are the ones who are stereotyped the most, in which the film world has only contributed to the negative image of African American males and the roles they play inside of films. With African American males being stereotyped the most it makes the film world focus in on these stereotypes
…show more content…
In this paper I will discuss the transition of the black male stereotypes from early films to current films today and how the image of the black male and stereotypes has changed from before to now. All the way since the introduction of the first image of the black character in film being introduced as an aggressor, and acted out by a white male named Walter Long in the film called Birth of a Nation in 1915. The film image of the African American male has been mostly portrayed as negative ever since. The role of the character Gus in the film Birth of a Nation when introduced had much do with the social status of the African American people during the time. In this film where black people were just overcoming slavery during the civil war era, and were still looked at as less then any other people in America, was how the African American male character Gus immerged. In this film the character role was the aggressive negro, delinquent military criminal who needed to be stopped throughout the whole film. This character committed crime after crime which is still a relevant stereotype in todays black character roles as well, which I believe was due to the treatment that blacks were getting during this time which made the …show more content…
In this film a girl was left behind with her mother and a slave called Uncle Billy who was content and happy with being a slave and didn’t want freedom. This film would go on to create the stereotype later on in film that the African American male does not mind their social status and are completely happy with where they are, and many other stereotypes.
Just like in in the old film Birth of a Nation discussed before the current film called the Training Day which starred Denzel Washington as a cop Lieutenant who was crooked has the same type of negative African American male character that Birth of a Nation created. In this film Denzel Washington had got a new white rookie partner that he was training his ways of the cop life too and just like Walter Long’s character Gus Denzel’s character broke law
In this paper I will discuss the transition of the black male stereotypes from early films to current films today and how the image of the black male and stereotypes has changed from before to now. All the way since the introduction of the first image of the black character in film being introduced as an aggressor, and acted out by a white male named Walter Long in the film called Birth of a Nation in 1915. The film image of the African American male has been mostly portrayed as negative ever since. The role of the character Gus in the film Birth of a Nation when introduced had much do with the social status of the African American people during the time. In this film where black people were just overcoming slavery during the civil war era, and were still looked at as less then any other people in America, was how the African American male character Gus immerged. In this film the character role was the aggressive negro, delinquent military criminal who needed to be stopped throughout the whole film. This character committed crime after crime which is still a relevant stereotype in todays black character roles as well, which I believe was due to the treatment that blacks were getting during this time which made the …show more content…
In this film a girl was left behind with her mother and a slave called Uncle Billy who was content and happy with being a slave and didn’t want freedom. This film would go on to create the stereotype later on in film that the African American male does not mind their social status and are completely happy with where they are, and many other stereotypes.
Just like in in the old film Birth of a Nation discussed before the current film called the Training Day which starred Denzel Washington as a cop Lieutenant who was crooked has the same type of negative African American male character that Birth of a Nation created. In this film Denzel Washington had got a new white rookie partner that he was training his ways of the cop life too and just like Walter Long’s character Gus Denzel’s character broke law