| Description |
1 online resource (xviii, 270 pages) : illustrations |
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text txt rdacontent |
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computer c rdamedia |
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online resource cr rdacarrier |
| Series |
Culture America |
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Culture America.
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ACLS Humanities E-Book.
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| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-258) and index. |
| Contents |
Racialized masculinity and the politics of difference -- The preformed image: watermelon, razors, and chicken thievery, 1896-1915 -- Black cinematic ruptures and Ole Uncle Tom -- African-American cinema and The birth of a nation -- The defense of Black manhood on the screen -- Oscar Micheaux: from homestead to lynch mob -- Within our gates -- Blackface, white independent all-Black productions, and the coming of sound: the late silent era, 1915-1931 -- Appendix: Two silent African-American film synopses. |
| Summary |
Butters's comprehensive study of the African American cinematic vision in silent film concentrates on works largely ignored by most contemporary film scholars: African American-produced and -directed films and white independent productions of all-black features. Using these "race movies" to explore the construction of masculine identity and the use of race in popular culture, he separates cinematic myth from historical reality: the myth of the Euro American-controlled cinematic portrayal of Black men versus the actual Black male experience. Through archival research, Butters reconstructs many lost films, expanding the discussion of race and representation beyond the debate about "good" and "bad" imagery to explore the construction of masculine identity and the use of race as device in the context of Western popular culture. He particularly examines the filmmaking of Oscar Micheaux, the most prolific and controversial of all African American silent film directors and creator of the recently rediscovered Within Our Gates--the legendary film that exposed a virtual litany of white abuses toward Blacks. This book is unique in that it takes contemporary and original film theory, applies it to the distinctive body of African American independent films in the silent era, and relates the meaning of these films to larger political, social, and intellectual events in American society. By showing how both white and Black men have defined their own sense of manhood through cinema, it examines the intersection of race and gender in the movies and offers a deft interweaving of film theory, American history, and film history. --From publisher description. |
| Reproduction |
Electronic text and image data. Ann Arbor, Mich. : University of Michigan, Michigan Publishing, 2022. EPUB file. ([ACLS Humanities E-Book]) |
| Note |
All rights reserved. |
| Subject |
African American men in motion pictures.
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Men in motion pictures.
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Silent films -- United States -- History and criticism.
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| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
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| Added Author |
American Council of Learned Societies.
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| Added Title |
ACLS Humanities E-Book. URL: http://www.humanitiesebook.org/ |
| ISBN |
0700611975 (hardcover ; alk. paper) |
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9780700611973 hardcover |
| Standard No. |
heb40148 hdl |
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