City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

The Hollywood Jim Crow, the racial politics of the movie industry, Maryann Erigha

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

index present

non fiction

The Hollywood Jim Crow

bibliography

Maryann Erigha

the racial politics of the movie industry

"From the #OscarSoWhite phenomenon to the backlash against whitewashing, the racism experienced by African Americans and other racial minorities in Hollywood, both in front of and behind the camera, has garnered national attention. In The Hollywood Jim Crow, Maryann Erigha brings these persistent inequalities into focus, analyzing how everyday practices in Hollywood thematically mirror Jim Crow laws through the marginalization, segregation, and stigmatization of Black film directors. Examining over 1600 contemporary films and their directors, film production organizations, and box office figures, she illustrates with striking detail the tenacious racial hierarchies still at work in Hollywood. The Hollywood Jim Crow deftly exposes, among many other things, the key elements anchoring these hierarchies, including the stigmatization of Black film directors as 'unbankable'; the ghettoization of Black directors for Black films only; and the perception of Blackness among Hollywood decision-makers. Shifting focus from questions of racial representation to those of racial hierarchy, Erigha investigates career trajectories, qualitative opportunities, access to resources, and structures of oppression to provide a complete understanding of the core problem, and its potential solutions. The Hollywood Jim Crow delivers a searing indictment of Hollywood’s unequal practices, drawing connections between the film industry and other sites of racial oppression in society." -- back cover

Introduction -- Hollywood's racial logic -- Labeling Black unbankable -- Directing on the margins -- Making genre ghettos -- Manufacturing racial stigma -- Remaking cinema -- Conclusion