Gender, Power, and Politics: Reshaping Black Images in Contemporary Film
John Singleton attempts to reshape the image of African American men in his most recent film Baby Boy (2002); I will examine how the film deals with race, gender, and representation by incorporating Afrocentric concepts focusing on the dominant (hegemonic), preferred (men's studies), and subversive (deconstruction of the film) views of the movie. Though, the characters in Baby Boy (2002) present a daringly gritty view of the world through the eyes of a black youth from the inner-city; Singleton's male characters ultimately adopt assimilative black middle-class values and reinforce hegemonic notions of patriarchy. African American filmmakers have finally emerged from the backseat of segregated Hollywood, but black folks will forever remain as "Others" if they continue to measure race against the Eurocentric models that confine and dichotomize blackness. Now that there are more black image-creators, marginalized audiences have gained a sense of progress, but that should not distract both moviegoers and Hollywood players from deconstructing the images presented by black moviemakers.
School:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Department:
Journalism
Research Advisor:
Norman Denzin
Department of Research Advisor:
Communications
Year of Publication:
2002