Dolomite and Peaty Wheat Straw

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Recommended: Stereotypes against black people in hollywood

I have seen many from Dolomite and Peaty Wheat Straw by Rudy Ray Moore, Willy Dynamite starring Roscoe Orman, and The Mack Starring Max Julien and so on. The way these actors portrayed the characters of Willy Dynamite, Dolomite, and Goldie the way the talked the jive the way they walked the walk more than likely set the black race back by decades. Grabbing there groins and having a glide in their stride, wearing big hats, capes, and over exaggerated gestures help create stereotypes and threadbare ideals of the black race that are prevalent even today. In 1987, Robert Townsend wrote, starred, and directed a behind the scenes parody of those types of movies called Hollywood Shuffle, while on one hand Townsend is exhibiting his blackness by pointing out the obvious bias behavior of the white studios but also exhibiting the talent and recognition seeking of the black actor. Townsend’s almost biographical parody of movies, television shows not only his range as an actor but also his since of humor of the angst of being an actor chosen solely for the color of your skin. Robert Townsend through situational and dramatic irony and by exhibiting how the white ideals shape the identity and description of what is black and how Hollywood has warped it.

Robert Townsend plays Bobby Taylor a struggling young man actor who is with a healthy imagination and a dream of becoming a serious actor. Bobby family reluctantly supports him in his endeavors but his mother, and grandmother played by Starletta DuPois and Helen Martin secretly pass judgment on his chosen career path while his co-worker Donald and Tiny at the Winky-Dinky Dog played by co writer Keenan Ivory Wayans and Lou B. Washington openly mocks his dream. Crushed are Bobby dreams of playi...

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...ood Shuffle" And "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka." Cinema Journal 38.3 (1999): 50-66. JSTOR Arts & Sciences III. Web. 3 Dec. 2011.

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Mask. New York: Grove, 1967. Print.

Grant, William R. Post-soul Black Cinema: Discontinuities, Innovations, and Breakpoints, 1970-1995. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.

Harrison, C. "W.J.T. Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want? Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. 380 Pp., 16 Col. Plates, 84 Halftones, 10 Line Drawings. Hardback $35, 24.50 ISBN 0-226-53245-3." Journal of Visual Culture 6.1 (2007): 160-63. Print.

"The Souls of Black Folk Study Guide - W. E. B. Du Bois - ENotes.com." ENotes - Literature Study Guides, Lesson Plans, and More. Web. 03 Dec. 2011. .

Touré. Who's Afraid of Post-blackness?: What It Means to Be Black Now. New York: Free, 2011. Print.

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