Hollywood’s Vision of Africa

The Roles of Black Folk in Film

May 12, 2007 Gabriella Beckles

It's not often that Africa is the subject of Hollywood films. But even when it is, why are the stories of black characters seondary plots and the stars remain white?

Having heard the rave reviews for The Last King of Scotland and Forest Whitacker’s Oscar winning performance, I was excited to see what the fuss was all about.

I couldn’t help, however, having a nagging skepticism about the film; any film with a black subject matter that receives great reviews from the film establishment, invariably perpetuates and reinforces stereotypical images and contrived messages about black people and their place in the world. Sadly, The Last King of Scotland epitomized all that is wrong with Hollywood’s vision of Africa.

Why is it that anytime a film is set in Africa the story is centered on relatively insignificant white people? Why aren’t the lives of black people important enough to engage Hollywood and the viewing public’s attention for an hour and a half?

The Last King of Scotland was supposedly about one of Africa’s most infamous and powerful leaders of the twentieth century. Why was the protagonist his Scottish doctor, who as the film rightly showed was little more than a naïve puppet, who had no idea of the politics he found himself submerged in? The Academy Award nominated Blood Diamonds is another black buddy film with Leonardo DiCaprio, playing Danny Archer, as the lead and Djimon Hounsou, playing Solomon Vandy, relegated to his sidekick.

Stephen Spielburg’s Cry Freedom was allegedly about Stephen Biko, one of South Africa’s most amazing revolutionary humanitarians, who helped dismantle that nation’s racist system of apartheid. Why did Biko, played by Denzel Washington, die about half way through and the rest of the movie was about some unknown white journalists. Were there no black journalists who covered the story?

We see a similar trend for films about other non-white heroes, in America and globally.

Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning, as film historian, Donald Bogle notes, which set out to dramatize the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, actually revolve around the antics of two FBI agents? Did the events that led to the most dramatic change in America’s legal and social structure since the emancipation of slavery, not match up to what was little more than another cops and robber’s chase?

Likewise, despite the dramatic events that happened to Carl Lee, played by Samuel L. Jackson, and his daughter supposed to be captured in A Time to Kill, the protagonist ends up being Jake Brigance, played by Matthew McConaughey, a white lawyer. Should the way liberal whites confront other racist whites truly constitute the main plot when the untold story of the real horrors of racism, both personal and institutional, still goes unheard?

Will black people and their lives, ever be important enough to command the direct attention of Hollywood? And if not, will there come a time when we see the emergence of an independent black film industry that tells our history from our perspective, and depicts our stories through the lens of our experience? If Oscar Micheaux was able to accomplish such a feat from1918 to the mid-twentieth century, is there anyone willing to give Spike Lee a helping hand in the twenty-first century?

It is very disturbing to think that fifty years from now when we delve into the film archives to teach our children the history of the black experience all they’ll be left with is films like Amistad and The Last King of Scotland. Surely we have seen enough of what Hollywood thinks of black people. It’s time to get black on the big screen.

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