Black Representation In Film

In “Black Looks: Race and Representation,” bell hooks states on page 18, “Given the real life public circumstances wherein black men were murdered/lynched for looking at white womanhood, where the black male gaze was always subject to control and/or punishment by the powerful white Other, the private realm of television screens or dark theaters could unleash the repressed gaze.” After reading this passage and considering our first discussion on the film, Compensation, I tried to think of what it was like to watch mainstream films from as many viewpoints as possible. Though we discussed phallocentrism in class, I felt this passage by hooks set up a strong argument why black men should also be considered when discussing the gaze and black representation in film. Because of this, I would argue that historical connotations of the black male gaze have set black men up to be the receiver of the white female gaze. …show more content…
In Freudian thinking, men see women as something different from themselves, something that can be intimidating and foreign, so they Other them and make them objects of sexual desire. I believe that this same idea occurs with black men. Historically, black men were not to look at white women. As seen in the case of Emmett Till, black men were harassed, beat up or even murdered if they looked at a white women. Because of this, women were set up to be afraid of black men. They saw black men punished for looking at them, helping them believe that it was a wrongful violation to be looked at by a black