Journal Article Analysis - Due September 18, 2014

Challenging Lilywhite Hollywood: African Americans and the Demand for Racial Equality in the Motion Picture Industry

This article covers the time period of 1963 to 1974, which were the years when racial equality and the civil rights movement were highly controversial topics in America. One might think by the title of this article that it speaks to the lack of African American actors appearing in Hollywood movies. However, there were actually quite a fair amount of black actors during this time period. The areas where African Americans were demanding racial equality were in the stage technician jobs and craft jobs.

The racial discrimination in Hollywood was actually occurring “behind the camera” (Dawson, 2012). The stage technicians, cameramen, directors and producers were quite hostile to the idea of allowing African Americans into their fields. The Hollywood Executives didn’t help this cause. To the public, they appeared to support changes to allow African Americans into the industry, but behind closed doors, they did nothing to aid black employment and racial stereotyping. Labor Unions were also resistant to change employment practices to allow African Americans into these industries, claiming that they were unqualified and lacked industry experience.

The main point of this journal article is the analysis of why the three different factions of the motion picture industry, (1) the actors; (2) the technicians; and (3) the executives, take different positions when it came to racial discrimination and employment changes. The author’s opinion is that the Actors were more supportive because they had been performing with African Americans for many years prior the civil rights movement. I agree with this concept, and I also think that the actors were not threatened in any way by supporting black actors in their industry. An example that supports this concept is when Charleston Heston, along with a group of high profile actors, during the Civil Rights movement joined in the March on Washington in a display of racial unity.

On the other hand, the stage technicians resisted the changes that would come with racial equality. The author’s reasoning for this attitude is that the studio workers felt the African American worker was not qualified to perform the jobs that they did.  I agree with this opinion, and also think that there was a real fear of being replaced by African Americans in some of these jobs, which helped to fuel the fight against racial equality.

From a pop culture point of view, this is an important article because it analyzes the controversial issue of racial equality in a very public arena. The motion picture industry is known world-wide, and what happens there can have a large impact on how the rest of the world responds to a particular issue. Throughout history, people have imitated celebrities, and even given them hero status, so it would make sense to assume that if Hollywood accepted the black race into its community, the rest of the world might follow, or vice versa. Along that same thought process, if Hollywood would continue to stereotype African Americans as undereducated and not qualified to perform certain job functions, this would probably influence other industries to act in the same way.

On the flip side of this issue, one could also see where Hollywood would be influenced by what is currently popular among the masses. During the time period of this article, segregation and job equality was not very popular, and at the end of the day, Hollywood is about making money. It would not have benefited the movie industry to back this issue too strongly because their main audience was predominately white and they might lose customers if they looked like they were supporting a cause that was not popular.

Unfortunately, I think that racial equality and stereotyping of not just African Americans, but other classes of people as well, continue to be an issue here in American and abroad. Some strides have been made in changing the way people view other classes, but it has been a slow process, and I think it will continue to be this way for many years to come.

References

Dawson, A. (2012). The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 45, No. 6, 2012. Challenging Lilywhite Hollywood: African Americans and the Demand for Racial Equality in the Motion Picture Industry, 1963-1974. Wiley Periodicals, Inc.