African American Film after the Civil Rights Movement 4219-SD026
The course examines selected movies made by African American film directors after the Civil Rights Movement. We will look at a variety of genres-from "blaxploitation" movies of the 1970's, through highly crafted feature films and documentaries of Spike Lee and independent cinema of Julie Dash, Cheryl Dunye and Haile Gerima, to John Singleton's Hollywood blockbusters, as well as the more recent work by Ryan Coogler, Ava DuVernay, Barry Jenkins, and Jordan Peele. We will address the processes of claiming Black subjectivity in film, (re)configuring African American identity and challenging the (aesthetic, political) norms of classical Hollywood cinema. Analysis of specific films situated in the context of African American history and culture focuses on such issues as: deconstruction of racial stereotypes, Black politics, the Black aesthetic, the interconnections between gender, sexuality and race, African American icons (in music, film, sports, popular culture), the benefits and risks attending the entry of Black culture into mainstream American culture and our position as white audience.
Topics discussed:
1. African American film in the 1970s: comedy, blaxploitation and African American new wave; African American film in the late 1980s/early 1990s: the new black aesthetic of Spike Lee, John Singleton; African American film in the 21st century: the new wave.
2. African American popular culture: the music video, hip hop, African American body/image
3. Race and the tradition of American Gothic
4. Political cinema
5. African American music in film
6. African American success in Hollywood
7. A critique of mainstreaming of African American culture
8. African American independent cinema
9. Gender and sexuality in African American film
10. Black documentary filmmaking
11. Racial violence and systemic racism in the United States
Type of course
Mode
Learning outcomes
1. Cultural studies: basic knowledge of film genres, film techniques and classical Hollywood conventions.
2. Tools for film analysis.
3. Knowledge of selected film theories.
4. Capacity for comparing/relating different cultural/esthetic models
5. Application of earlier knowledge of cultural studies, American history and esthetics.
6. Development of oral and writing skills in English.
7. Ability to define an appropriate research topic, locate secondary materials, construct a research paper.
Assessment criteria
Students will be asked to submit responses to sets of viewing questions related to the films discussed. Additionally, they will participate in group work, to be presented to the rest of the class. Each of the completed tasks will be graded as either Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory (S/U). The final grade will depend on the number of tasks the student undertakes PLUS class participation (or an alternative, such as a written response to the film).
Bibliography
FILM:
Raisin in the Sun, 1961 (plus fragments from Raisin in the Sun, 2008, TV)
Watermelon Man 1970
Sweet Sweetback's Badassss Song, 1971
Shaft 1, 1971 (plus fragments from Shaft Returns, 2000)
The Spook Who Sat By the Door
Do the Right Thing
Mo' Better Blues
Boyz'n the Hood
Poetic Justice
Daughters of the Dust
Tongues Untied
Watermelon Woman
Bamboozled
When the Levees Broke
Precious
12 Years a Slave
Fruitvale Station
13'th
Selma
Moonlight
Get Out
Black Panther
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Manthia Diawara, "Black American Cinema: The New Realism
Andrew Ross, "Hip and the Long Front of Color"
Kimmel, “Masculinity as Homophobia”
Castro, “Tongues Untied”
Toni Morrison, "Romancing the Shadow"; The Killer of Sheep
Baraka, "Spike Lee at the Movies"
Baker, "Spike Lee and the Commerce of Culture"
hooks, "Counterhegemoning Art"
Dyson, "Between Apocalypse and Redemption"
Bambara, "Reading the Signs"
Brouver, "Repositioning"
Interview: Dash with Baker
David Van Leer "Visible Silence: Spectatorship in Black Gay and Lesbian Film"
Spillers, "Uber Against Race"
Diawara, "Black Spectatorship"
hooks, "The Oppositional Gaze"
Christopher Lebron, "Black Panther Is not the Movie we Deserve"
Michelle Alexander, "The New Jim Crow"
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: