African American cinema

African American cinema is loosely classified as films made by, for, or about Black Americans.^[1] Historically, African American films have been made with African-American casts and marketed to African-American audiences.^[1] The production team and director were sometimes also African American.^[2] More recently, Black films featuring multicultural casts aimed at multicultural audiences have also included American Blackness as an essential aspect of the storyline.^[1][2][3]

Three Film Pioneers

Oscar Micheaux is considered the first major African-American feature filmmaker. He made his first film in 1919 and (44 films later) his last in 1948.

Maria P. Williams is considered the first Black woman film producer for the 5-reel silent drama based on her own screenplay for Flames of Wrath in 1923.

Lester Walton started writing film criticism in 1908 for the national mainstream Black newspaper New York Age. His reviews and insights remain foundational for subsequent Black film literature.

Segregation, discrimination, issues of representation, derogatory stereotypes and tired tropes have dogged Black American cinema from the start of a century-plus history that roughly coincided with the century-plus history of American cinema.^[4][5] From the very earliest days of moving pictures, major studios used Black actors to appeal to Black audiences while also often relegating them to bit parts, casting women as maids or nannies, and men as natives or servants^[6] or either gender as a "magical negro," an update on the "noble savage."

Black filmmakers, producers, critics and others have resisted narrow archetypes and offensive representation in many ways. As early as 1909, Lester A. Walton the arts critic for New York Age was making sophisticated arguments against the objectification of Black bodies onscreen, pointing out that "anti-Negro propaganda strikes at the very roots of the fundamental principles of democracy."^[7] Noting the educational impact film could have, he also argued that it could be used to "emancipate the white American from his peculiar ideas," which were "hurtful to both races."^[7]

The "race films" of 1915 to the mid-1950s followed a similar spirit of "racial uplift" and educational "counter-programing" with an eye to combating the racism of the Jim Crow south.^[8] That sensibility shifted markedly in the 1960s and '70s. Although Blaxploitation films continued to include stereotypical characters, they were also praised for portraying Black people as the heroes and subjects of their own stories.^[9]

The first Black actor cast in a leading role that was not explicitly written for a Black actor was likely 1968's Night of the Living Dead, in which Duane Jones was cast as Ben by Director George A. Romero; the casting was potentially controversial at the time, when it was rare for a black man to be cast as the hero of an American film primarily composed of white actors, but Romero said that Jones performed the best in his audition.^[10]

By the 1980s, auteurs like Spike Lee and John Singleton created nuanced depictions of Black lives, which led the way for later filmmakers like Jordan Peele and Ava DuVernay to use a range of genres (horror, history, documentary, fantasy) to explore Black lives from multiple perspectives. Ryan Coogler's 2018 blockbuster superhero film Black Panther has also been widely praised for creating a fully realized Afrocentric urban utopia of Black people that include a foundation myth, a legendary hero and takes "utter delight in its African-ness."^[11]