In Clyde R. Taylor’s “Black Silence and the Politics of Representation,” a framework is built for considering the stifled growth of the Black film industry during the silent era. Taylor draws from Walter Rodney’s “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa,” to show how the suppressive forces of Unequal Development (termed rather wryly in the article as “Undie”) cause a lack of institutional support on all fronts of production and development in the Black film industry. The article’s purpose is to reveal some of the invisible and yet pervasive results of Unequal Development on this industry, and how such a system works to undermine the ability for the industry to grow.
For easy reference, one may consider that while around 500 films were created by the Black film industry in the span of 1910 to 1930, thousands of films were produced by predominantly White studios. As Taylor outlines, there were several factors that can trace the methods of Unequal Development. Segregation laws were in effect, and thus could alter the possibilities of reaching audiences, depending on whether it was segregated by whole theaters, rooms, or show times. Black filmmakers could not access White markets, which consistently put an upper limit on their funds. As experienced by Oscar Micheaux, this affected the amount of time and labor that could go into a film, knowing that each extra dollar spent meant less to be recouped.
Censorship also played a role in the process, as Within Our Gates was removed from circulation due to backlash against the film’s pointed anti-racist message. Representations of miscegenation were forbidden, distilling the efforts of “protecting” White actors/actresses from even the fictional representation of inter-racial sexual relations. The monopoly over the film industry kept Black-owned companies suppressed. In one telling instance, Noble Johnson was offered an ultimatum to leave Lincoln for Universal, stunting the growth of the company by removing its star actor and co-owner.
Yet even with these limitations set upon the industry, Taylor explains how Race films can be read as “allegorical, national melodramas,” reading into the trope of the distraught young Black woman. Many of the films focus on the central motif of the endangered safety and security of a young Black woman. While this can be criticized under a feminist framework, the films use the locus of the Black female body, as the most disenfranchised, highly sexualized and violated of the group, to say something about the group as a whole in American society. Taylor argues that this was a starting point from which Black silent film disrupted the typical narrative of American cinema.
It is unfortunate that while the true target audience should be been more general, rather than simply the black community, the dissemination of a more diverse sociological perspectives was stunted during that time period. Perhaps with greater effort to work with sympathizers, they would have been able to instill more positive perspectives in films shown to white audiences, but the legal situation likely hindered such experimentation. The unscrupulous tactics used by some mainstream companies to undermine the development of race films, especially by the black community, demonstrates the level of institutional racism that existed in that era. I really like the analysis on the representation of black females, and agree that in terms of pure exploitation, unfortunately, they faced a difficult history.