Black Hollywood stars: “It is not all the studio’s fault”
on May 16th, 2007 at 7:05 am(blackenterprise.com) May 11, 2007– Last night, Hollywood power players spoke candidly about their responsibility to make sure African Americans are portrayed in a fair light on the silver screen. The dialogue took place at the Town Hall of the 2007 Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference + Expo hosted by General Motors at the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Some of the proposed solutions may surprise you.
All of the panelists agreed that African Americans must share the blame for “bad” movies that portray blacks negatively. “A lot of what’s going on in Hollywood is black-on-black TV and film crime,” said Robert Townsend.
Consumers need to support films that are positive, and actors and directors need to make movies that truly reflect all aspects of the African American experience. Townsend notes, “We either have gangsters or families-that-don’t-poop (type of movies). There is room for a drama, a musical, a soap opera.”
Lynn Whitfield also encouraged directors to not cater to the expected images: “I’ve been on sets where directors don’t ask us to dumb down our images, but we do it ourselves because the diet we have been fed makes us think that’s how we will get our movies made.” (read more…)
