Issues of the “black body” and whitewashing trickled down into the portrayal of Dandridge on and off screen. In what seems parallel to the story of Irving Thalberg and Norma Shearer and the making of the movie Marie Antoinette, Preminger also began an affair with Dandridge after convincing her to take the role leading to debate over the film’s representation and its recognition. While she eventually became one of the first black women to be nominated for an Academy Award in a leading role and landed on the front cover of Life magazine (fig. 13), Dandridge too felt like she was confined to the same sexualized roles that Marilyn Monroe had (fig. 14). For “Black Hollywood” and much of the world, Dorothy Dandridge was a regarded as triple threat (singer, actor, and dancer) and more importantly a fashion icon ahead of the time. Dandridge’s style was filled …show more content…
15). She was often shown wearing clean-cut blouses, dresses and trousers that were body skimming yet demure, simple yet sophisticated and sexy yet classy. Stylistically comparing Dandridge to actresses such as Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe, who were regarded mainly for their facial beauty and body shape over their acting abilities, Dandridge was categorized similarly although not in the same regard due to her race. Dandridge throughout her career was dubbed the “Black Marilyn” which was ironic given her close friendship with Monroe. Both short statured, curvy, with signature coiffed hairdos, beauty marks, red nails and lips, both were read through ideals of sexuality in the 1950s in roles that made them the object of male gaze. For Hollywood and white society Marilyn Monroe became a household word for sex, for people of color that person was Dorothy Dandridge.
The Asian women interviewed in this film spoke candidly about their experiences in the entertainment industry. This film shows a comprehensive look at media stereotypes of Asia and Asian American women since the silent era. One point that the film brought up was that many white women played Asian women in early Hollywood films. One actress who frequently played an Asian woman was Katherine Hepburn. I can’t imagine how insulted I would be if I was an Asian actress who was losing roles to an American woman.
Film Historian Donald Bogle, the author of “Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films,” offers compelling and informative examples of various stereotypes of African-Americans performers. He emphasizes on historical characteristics of gifted black actors/entertainers; renovating their roles to disseminate specific representations that are significant to the economics and history of America’s shifting environmental circumstances.
The other ladies in the short film talk about how they thought that she had a “ real problem with [her] ethnicity like [she] had a problem with the fact that [she] was born African-American (Reynolds). This, along with the documentary on Lacey Schwartz, shows that a person’s sense of blackness is very much a product of what others around them define blackness as.
According to PBS.org,”12.5% of film actors were black in 2014.” Only 12.5% of all actors!You would think it would be a lot more in a developed and liberal country like America. On the contrary, it's a lot more compared to the 3.2% it was in the 60’s.Dorothy Dandridge being part of that percent. Dandridge was a black icon in the 60’s starring in many films but, most notably, Carmen Jones. Where she is a seductive factory worker, who falls in love with a soldier after he kills his sergeant.She was so famous in the 60’s but in present times, she's unknown. She should be as famous as other icons in the 60’s such as Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe but she’s not since being black in the 60’s put you at an automatic setback. It caused her to be
They did not challenge gender norms or ideals. Nor did they aim to usurp the position of the man. Rather, they supported the overarching mentality that women were to be submissive, strive to fulfill the needs and wants of men, and aim to please their male counterparts. (Kallen) Importantly, none of these women or representations of women exhibited any physical attributes that the dominant culture would view as masculine. Instead, they all displayed quintessential feminine characteristics and traits. Moreover, they were not valued for their brains or accomplishments; they were judged solely based on the degree to which they conformed to the male-dictated status quo. Marilyn Monroe and other sex icons of the 1950s were portrayed as dim-witted, naïve, childlike, and vulnerable, which was the polar opposite of society’s picture of the strong, smart, witty, and brave male. There was nothing about these women that challenged male superiority or threatened the overarching worldview that it was a ‘man’s world’ and women’s purpose was to make this world more enjoyable for the men who ruled it. (Meyerowitz
Women during this Jazz era were freer about their sexuality, but due to this freeness, an article called “Negro Womanhood’s Greatest Need” criticized the sexuality of Black women. In this article, the writers criticized Black women of the Jazz era; one part stated “.“speed and disgust” of the Jazz Age which created women “less discreet and less cautious than their sisters in the years gone by”. These “new” women, she continued, rebelling against the laws of God and man” (p.368). Women expressing their sexuality is not only an act against God, but also against men. In Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif” Twyla’s mother Marry had no problem expressing her sexuality because she was a stripper, who danced all night, she wore a fur jack and green slacks to a chapel to meet her daughter Twyla.
Ira Aldridge’s early life is one of the reasons why Aldridge was such an important actor. Aldridge was born in New York sometime in 1807 (Evans). When he was a teenager, Aldridge acquired his education at one of New York’s African Free Schools, earning an education most African-Americans did not receive in Aldridge’s time (Evans). In essence, the extra schooling Ira Aldridge received helped him to advance his career, because most African-Americans at the time were still working in low ranking jobs and did not get the opportunity to further themselves as Aldridge did. Aldridge went even further to get into an acting career. The first taste of theatre Ira Aldridge got that sparked his interest was at The African Grove Theatre performi...
The history of Hollywood cinema in the past is marked by the exclusion and marginalization of colored actors, but more and more African American actors have appeared on the Hollywood screen since 1890s. Sydney Poitier is one of them who was perceived as the most important African American integrationist due to his plenty of outstanding works. The film No Way Out is Poitier’s first movie, but audiences can see all the shining points from Doctor Brooks that would make Poitier’s characters laudable for the future decades (Bogle, 2001).
African American representation in the film industry has always been a topic for discussion. Whether talking about character types and roles, the actors being cast or not cast, and the lack of diversity in front of and behind the camera. ‘The contemporary status of race in mainstream American culture is intimately bound to the process of representation within and through the mass media.’ (Rocchio, 2000, p. 4). Any role that was to be played by an African American kept in with the dominant stereotypes of the time of production; incompetent, child like, hyper-sexualised or criminal.
Over the course of approximately one-hundred years there has been a discernible metamorphosis within the realm of African-American cinema. African-Americans have overcome the heavy weight of oppression in forms such as of politics, citizenship and most importantly equal human rights. One of the most evident forms that were withheld from African-Americans came in the structure of the performing arts; specifically film. The common population did not allow blacks to drink from the same water fountain let alone share the same television waves or stage. But over time the strength of the expectant black actors and actresses overwhelmed the majority force to stop blacks from appearing on film. For the longest time the performing arts were the only way for African-Americans to express the deep pain that the white population placed in front of them. Singing, dancing and acting took many African-Americans to a place that no oppressor could reach; considering the exploitation of their character during the 1930's-1960's acting' was an essential technique to African American survival.
Marilyn Monroe, Norma Jeane Mortenson. A devious soul but a pure heart, a black past, but a bright future; she became one of the most idolized figures in society. Norma was definitely not born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and she never sugar coated her life to the media. She was straight forward which made her heavily known for her quotes such as “I learned to walk as a baby and I haven’t had a lesson since.” (Marilyn Monroe). This was the beginning to her life story as a hero. This may not seem inspiring or heroic to many by the lack of knowledge a person may have on Norma. In the depths of her quotes lay a deep, heartfelt life though. For this quote may seem sensational and comical to the ear, but Marilyn was transferred to many foster homes not really having a parent that would show her the way. What a good role model would do though, and what Norma courageously has shown society, is that when life knocks you down, get up and hit life back twice as hard. Norma Jeane Mortenson, married Jim Dougherty, and started working. Soon she created the character Marilyn Monroe, she dyed her hair blonde, wore short dresses, and she became the momentous and inspirational character that everyone saw through television, newspapers, and photos. She was one of the greatest actors, singers, and models of the nineteen forties and fifties. But like every hero they suffer and create their own demise. Jeane, Marilyn Monroe, is a shakespearean tragic hero, because like every hero she must fall.
Singer/actress Lena Horne's primary occupation was nightclub entertaining, a profession she pursued successfully around the world for more than 60 years, from the 1930s to the 1990s. In conjunction with her club work, she also maintained a recording career that stretched from 1936 to 2000 and brought her three Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989; she appeared in 16 feature films and several shorts between 1938 and 1978; she performed occasionally on Broadway, including in her own Tony-winning one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music in 1981-1982; and she sang and acted on radio and television. Adding to the challenge of maintaining such a career was her position as an African-American facing discrimination personally and in her profession during a period of enormous social change in the U.S. Her first job in the 1930s was at the Cotton Club, where blacks could perform, but not be admitted as customers; by 1969, when she acted in the film Death of a Gunfighter, her character's marriage to a white man went unremarked in the script. Horne herself was a pivotal figure in the changing attitudes about race in the 20th century; her middle-class upbringing and musical training predisposed her to the popular music of her day, rather than the blues and jazz genres more commonly associated with African-Americans, and her photogenic looks were sufficiently close to Caucasian that frequently she was encouraged to try to "pass" for white, something she consistently refused to do. But her position in the middle of a social struggle enabled her to become a leader in that struggle, speaking out in favor of racial integration and raising money for civil rights causes. By the end of the century, she could look back at a life that was never short on conflict, but that could be seen ultimately as a triumph.
Appearing in the 1903, The Souls of Black folk had emerged, a collection of 14 proses, written by one of the single most intellectual blacks in America, W. E.B. DuBois (Oxford Companion). This dynamic collection of essays reflect on African American history, sociology, religion, politics, and music. DuBois begins saying “The problem of the 20th century is the color line (5). This quote pronounces DuBois bases for his collection, that is being different form the others (Whites) makes you feel like you are being shut out from their world by a vast veil; hence the color line(8). On the other had we have Birth of a Nation, which comes out later in 1915 (TCM). Ironically it becomes the top selling film in White America during that time, but degrades everything that DuBois and another activist stood for. While DuBois hopes to educate White and Black America on their boundaries, the color line, the film’s director, D.W. Griffith, undermines these ideas. Defiling images of African Americans by distorting the perception of Blacks using stereotypical examples such as the mammies, mulattos, and bucks, Griffith tries to justify that blacks were inferior to Whites. In spite of the many controversies that are expressed in the film, it had become a known as the most innovative, American Epics and was a top seller during its time because of Griffith’s technical breakthrough and format. While comparing and contrasting these two pieces I hope to reveal to you this why this ‘double consciousness’ exist, even todays society as a result of these stereotypes displayed in “The Birth of a Nation.”
Think about the obstacles of a woman to become successful in the 1950s. I want to find an answer whether it was the media, which created Monroe’s sexy image or Monroe, whom herself used her sexy image to become famous. I am going to study the background of the time period, and learn if the current events such as the Civil Rights Movement and the Cold War, had any impact on Monroe's life, or whether Monroe herself had any influences politics in mid-20th century. I will also explore on how Monroe’s image influenced and redefined the feminism in the 21st century. I believe Marilyn Monroe was a clever, confident, and independent woman who was very brave and smart. Her spirit is what the girls in the new century needed. I also would like to study why Marilyn Monroe is still relevant and even famous in the 21st century to show the power of female charisma.
Norma Jean, most famously known as Marilyn Monroe was a famous actress in Hollywood that was one of the biggest sex symbols to come by in the 1900’s. Marilyn Monroe did not start out as an actress or one of the world’s biggest sex symbols, she began her career as a model. Monroe began work in a weapons factory in Burbank, California, where she was later discovered by a photographer. She was married to her first husband Jimmy Dougherty who was a marine. Jimmy had been deployed for some time and when he returned in 1946, Monroe had a fruitful career as a model, and she also changed her name from Norma Jean Baker to Marilyn Monroe in preparation for an acting career (Cinnamon,