This intro is divided into three main sections. First, it provides an overview of the uplift project to better understand how black cinema functioned in early 20th century. Secondly, it presents evidence to suggest that uplift cinema was a useful form of cinema. Thirdly, it speaks to the system of methods used.
Black moviegoers felt misrepresented in the movies and felt it was hopeless to try and force the white filmmakers to change their characterization of black people. Instead, they decided to show a true representation of their characterization by producing black films. This book is basically about the early African American film practices of films in the 1910s. Additionally, it is also about the influence and role of black films on a larger social, political, educational, and economic scale. It also speaks to the film history and its methodologies which is reconstructed out of surviving archival items shedding light to the history of uplift cinema in a time of social and political struggle.
The uplift films was an extension of the larger African American uplift movement concerning the social and political progress of African Americans. These films focused on individual initiative, mutual assistance, social responsibility, interracial cooperation, and economic independence as a basic strategy for advancing the lives of African Americans (3). These films depicted the misrepresentation and misperception of African Americans by white racists. They contradicted racist stereotypes by following to codes of etiquette and practices. A major component of uplift films was education in order to provoke black social and political thought. This was a threat to a lot of the socially conservative white southerners who feared education of African Americans because it would lead to a sense of social equality. Therefore southern institutional models of uplift repackaged education as a tool to make “useful citizens” rather than social equals or political adversaries (5).
Uplift films through their medium of representation and persuasion helped to advance African American thought and define their identity within the social and political culture.
I like how you mentioned that the major catalyst for African American uplift movement was racist white films. I just wonder how much of an impact these uplift films had on the rest of social and political culture other than their own local communities.
It is interesting to learn how black filmmakers attempted to challenge the stereotypes of black people by painting themselves in a more positive light, rather than directly attacking white people for making those stereotypes exist in the first place. It makes me wonder if white southerners almost would have preferred the black filmmakers to take a more outwardly aggressive stance because it would have been easier to create justification for in turn shutting them down, and what would have happened if it had become a more aggressive dispute.
It is clear that Black uplift films were influential in fostering an improved collective identity among African Americas during this period. I’m sure it altered the prejudiced opinions of some white people who also watched them. But do you think that, to an extent, there were negative reactions from white people that indirectly caused additional problems for African Americans? In other words, is it possible that the rise of Black films caused a backlash from white opposition, and that they increased external pressure on the community?
These uplift films were a staple of what it meant to struggle as a black american during these times. What is so moving about them is how they tried to make the black community, who constantly felt the weight of oppression on their shoulders, to build things for themselves and become self sufficient. By portraying the black population as a group of uplifting citizens fending for themselves, must have done wonders for the morale of the time.