The African American Portrayal Of The Film Genre, Big...

The African American portrayal in white-American entertainment, especially in films has produced malicious and ignorant beliefs of the everyday Black person. Entertainment venues such as minstrel shows and silent films are causes to today’s stereotypical views of African Americans. The African American community along with other American ethnic cultures had enough; therefore, between 1915 and 1950, the race film genre began its movement to increase positive cultural awareness to the world. This paper will examine three key elements (Keywords, Unspoken Cues, and Threads) from the films, Big Timers (1945) and Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A. (1946) in explaining their significance impact and their fitting into the paradigm of race film genre. The race film genre is a source of important material highlighting the African American culture. The genre not only focused on culture, but also emphasized African American talent, Black’s ability to film, produce, and direct a motion picture, and most importantly, the genre exposed the world to the â€Å"real† African American individual and family. Although many of these films were only shown and marketed to â€Å"colored only† theaters, films like Harlem of Prairie (1937) and The Blood of Jesus (1941) are notable films that struck a core with both White and Black Americans. These are a few of the forgotten race films that have provided today’s African Americans with a sense of encouragement and confidence to continue to fight the struggle of