Black Masculinity Analysis

Improved Essays
The controversial stereotypes of Black men that negatively impact both the appearance and social status of African Americans have changed over time because of individual perspectives. Black masculinity can be seen as an identity, and by rejecting this idea; Blacks can be distinguished as a unique being. This individualism minimizes the use of racial discrimination and helps to construct relationships within different races. In the past, African American actors were not given major roles in films because producers refused to allow them to be seen. Instead, they had used black face to represent the Blacks. Black face was meant to portray to the audience that Blacks were barbaric human beings. It was created to amplify a threatening presence and …show more content…
Although the films of the Blaxploitation era were popular among Black and White audiences, the films reified negative representations of Black culture and life. All of these images, whether aggressive, violent, animalistic, or emasculated, point to the dehumanization of Black men in society argued is not truly a representation of Black masculinity but rather the conditions of Black men in Western society. Overall, the portrayal of Black men in recent films represents the ‘‘new realism’’ of Black masculinity that is defined by rap music and hip hop culture that appeals to the new Black youth culture. Collectively, these films construct a Black masculinity that is defined by an urban aesthetic, nihilistic attitude, and aggressive posturing.” (Brown, …show more content…
Sho’Nuff helps to recognize that Blacks often times resort to violence, as he constantly tries to fight Leroy. Shaft shows that he is a sexual being when he easily confronts attractive women and talks to them in a promiscuous manor. Shaft is also very threateningly powerful and has no regard for anyone else even before he had resigned from the police department. Shaft cannot be controlled and because of his defiance and assertiveness, his masculinity is unchanging. Leroy Green’s obsession of adopting the Chinese culture displays the racial stereotypes of Chinese. This also shows that because Leroy does not possess the traits believed to be associated with masculinity, he suffers from an issue with cultural identity. Lastly, the Yi brothers represent both the racial stereotypes of Black men’s masculinity and the confusion of cultural identity. Ultimately, society does not accept those that choose to act differently from one’s own race. The racial inequality that occurs in the film proves that it can threaten the manhood of men and cause them to strive to be more dominant. When individuals choose to step outside of their cultures and perform as a different gender or race, as Leroy and the Yi brothers did, it leads to serious issues. Though many of these racial issues are intentionally included in the films to fabricate the movie, it can really emphasis

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The Entertainment Industry plays a huge role in our culture and society today. It is a tool that can be used to inform, voice opinions, and promote products using hidden advertising and product placement. The entertainment industry is very powerful and influential to its audiences. One obligation that the entertainment industry has failed to provide is the politically correct portrayal of minority actors. It is argued that the dominate race in the entertainment industry is white actors, which poorly represents the racial makeup of our society.…

    • 1624 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Male Role Models Vastly Shape Young Men’s Views on Masculinity Where does one’s masculinity come from? This is one of the key questions addressed in Wes Moore’s book The Other Wes Moore. This book contains the coming of age stories of the author and another man named Wes Moore, who begin in similar circumstances but ultimately have two vastly different fates. The masculinity portrayed by Wes Moore and the Other Wes Moore’s male role models as they grew up led them to develop very different views of manhood, and their stories show that in the United States familial male role models play a large role in the construction of young men 's masculinity.…

    • 1206 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In the article Ben Atherton-Zeman (2008) states that: “Rejecting some of traditional masculinity, we will embrace what is useful to us and sometimes create new definitions of what it means to be a man.” Is it necessary for a man to reject traditional masculinity in order to become a feminist man? Or could feminism be incorporated into the traditional understanding of masculinity? The study conducted by Anderson (2009) indicates that feminist men were more associated with typical feminine characteristics than feminist women.…

    • 104 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Hollywood films featuring lead black characters have been in cinema for decades. In contrast, black character images that are portrayed in cinema was usually centered around traditional racial stereotypes of the past such as “Uncle Tom, “the coon”, “the brutal black buck”, and “the mammy”. In today’s contemporary films, the black protagonist is often represented as having super natural or magical powers. As a result of this portrayal, a new racial stereotype was created; the “magical negro” that which reinvents the traditional stereotypes aforementioned. One film that represents the “magical negro” trope is Frank Darabont’s 1999 film, The Green Mile.…

    • 977 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    (“Mass Media and Racism” The Yale Political Quarterly) Many film industries make movies that depict the average African American male as always doing criminal acts. They often depict them as nothing but thugs or hoodlums. Which is as far from the truth as possible. (“Mass Media and Racism” The Yale Political Quarterly)…

    • 1038 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Stereotypes of people of color and minority races have been around for many years, and have proved themselves to dominate the perception of people of color in everyday life. Films portray people of color as they are perceived by white Americans, not how they truly are, unique. Film has only dirtied the minority races’ image over time, though if the movies were not made by other Americans, they were more accurate to their race. Stereotypes of Asians have been around for a long time, ever since Asians were introduced. Stereotypes such as Asian students are smarter, Asian women are more exotic and tend to wait on men, Asian women are submissive, Asian people are all from China, and many others.…

    • 1951 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The definition of a black film would seem to be an easy standard to mutually agree on. Films about the people and culture of the African diaspora would satisfy most definitions, but issues arrive when black people are poorly represented and stereotyped or when the definition excludes other cultures from discussing black culture when they could also give a fair and thoughtful representation in Black Cinema. Thomas Lott argues that it can be hard to identify what makes quality black films because there must be an analysis of the separate concepts blackness and cinema. In his article “ “A No-Theory Theory of Contemporary Black Cinema,” Lot provides a compelling reason why his no theory approach provides a satisfying and open-ended approach to defining Black Cinema. Lott references Thomas Cripps’ Black film as Genre, Cripps to discuss a proposed definition of Black films to be defined as movies produced, written, directed, performed by, and performed for black people.…

    • 499 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Article, Musing New Hoods by Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. addresses this important and conflicting aspect about the opportunities that African-Americans avoid in order to be loyal to their culture. He continues to address the idea of “guiltsploitation” or feeling guilty for going against one 's culture to move up in social class (Ramsey 311). An idea introduced by Henry Louis Gates and the different message that is received by society from the underlying message surrounding African-American films (Ramsey 311). The portrayal of African-Americans in cinema creates an identity that some Blacks feel is necessary to uphold…

    • 891 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Representations of African Americans in Media: in the past and now Individuals have been labeling things since the stone ages to entertain or occupy themselves in their free time. The consequences of these classifications are the current cultural stereotypes that highlight the variances between people of unlike nationalities. Based on recent movies and television shows one would believe that the United States is not diverse at all looking from outside American culture into American culture. Media illustrations, each race in certain circumstances blacks shown only when needing an oversexed woman or thuggish man. Media makes sure that blacks are represented in this way allows the others to lower their expectations of African American overshadowing…

    • 1462 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Though the days of blackface might seem like ancient history to Americans today, Spike Lee resurrects it to refresh our memories. In the beginning of the film we are introduced to Delacroix, the main character, followed by a Webster definition of the word “Satire”. Delacroix in the film is portrayed as a black man who has assumed the white impersonation in order to become successful in the American Television world. Delacroix seems to reject his culture for an identity that is more similar to the ideal of being white, he aims to please and satisfy the white masses even at the expense of his own racial identity.…

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The essay “Just Walk On By: Black Men and Public Space”, by Brent Staples, shares many similarities with the poem “Rite of Passage”, by Sharon Olds, about the connotations of how violent men appear to be. By using gender theory analysis to compare and contrast both pieces a fuller image of how men are generally viewed can be seen. While in the poem, “Rite of Passage” violence is seen as an aspect of how man are, in “Just walk on by” it can clearly be seen that violence is a stigma that follows certain men. Violence is an aspect that is seen in many men, however not all men are violent; an examination of both pieces helps in illustrating this point.…

    • 1004 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Shaft Film Analysis

    • 966 Words
    • 4 Pages

    CENTRAL ARGUMENT / THESIS Shaft (1971) is a film about the utilization of race as a source of power over all social constructions. The film utilizes race, performance, and the theme of opacity to convey this. Shaft, being a Blaxploitation film, allows common themes such as race to take on a whole different meaning. In other film race might simply just be a distinguishing trait to tell one character from another. But in Shaft, race equates power.…

    • 966 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Last Dragon Analysis

    • 578 Words
    • 3 Pages

    As a minority, living in a world surrounded by racism and stereotypes can be very difficult to face. Many males believe that to become accepted by society, they must possess typical masculine qualities. According to modern culture these traits include strength, defiance, and assertiveness. These characteristics, however, are misrepresentations of black masculinity, and should not be a factor when defining men. A perfect example of how inequality deeply affects social interaction and developing adolescences can be found in John Singleton’s Shaft and Berry Gordy’s…

    • 578 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Janes Gaines’s, White Privilege and Looking Relations: Race and Gender in Feminist Film Theory, Gaines wanted to show how a theory of the text and its spectator, based on the psychoanalytic concept of sexual difference, is unequipped to deal with a film which is about racial difference and sexuality. “The Diana Ross star vehicle Mahogany (directed by Berry Gordy, 1975) immediately suggests a psychoanalytic approach because the narrative is organized around the connections between voyeurism and photographic acts, because it exemplifies the classical cinema which has been so fully theorized in Lacanian terms” (Gaines, 12). But as Gaines argued, the psychoanalytic model works to block out considerations which assume a different configuration…

    • 929 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. New York: Routledge, p. 1. Hooks, B. (2004). We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity.…

    • 1788 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays