will we only be remembered as stereotypes, as token supporting characters?
This exclusion is nothing new, writers like Bell Hooks has been writing about race, sex, and class in movies since the 90’s. But it feels like a fresh discussion – an overdue one I think is happening thanks to social media. For so many years big production companies have been gatekeepers and because of that there’s a lack of black directors, writers, and critics in the film world, which affects what we see and what we think about It. Now minorities have a (free) space to tweet and share images or videos we’ve made. Crowdfunding has helped films like Dear White People, and Instagram has let The Art Hoe Collective thrive.
In Beverly, another film screened as part of Black Star, the title character, a young mixed race girl, struggles to find her place and her people with the same tastes in 70’s England. She has to actually physically cycle around to make friends with common interests, whereas all I had to do was click around a bit to find a group of similarly film and justice obsessed ladies. It seems barbaric to have to put yourself out there physically like that, as if being a teenager isn’t hard enough! I felt so sympathetic, seeing her struggle to fit in and express herself. Luckily, I can find films like Aisha Sanyang Meek’s wonderful Hairitage, I can see there are people out there who feel different in the same way and are making amazing art about it. Sanyang Meek’s confidence and creativity is inspiring and cathartic to watch.
Most people go to the movies to escape, to see the real world changed into something more magical. And like it or not, watching films teaches us things – the images we seen on screen give us a sort of filter for how we see the world. Guillermo Del Toro compares the cinema to church, it distracts us from and helps us navigate the world and where we fit. Black Star is a season that gives a place for all the stories often left out of the narrative.
This article was originally published on 21st Oct 2016 via Rife Magazine in collaboration with Nocturnal for the Black Star series.