MY CAMERA IS A WEAPON

The past, present and future of the black image in Trump's Hollywood

Since the late ‘80s, when I first flew out to Los Angeles for film meetings, and right into this decade, I’ve only had a few at major studios or streamers where there was a black executive present. Usually that single executive was a black woman who was the lowest ranking person in the room. There were a few exceptions. HBO films employed two black woman development executives in the ‘90s and ‘00s — though not at the same time. I recall at meeting at Netflix where I met with three women vice presidents — one was black, one was Asian. I’ve only had one since pitch meeting in all that time where a black male was employed in development at major distributor. I was amazed to see him. Not soon after he left that studio and started his own very successful branding company. Guess he saw the glass ceiling looming.

I rarely go to Los Angeles to meet with buyers anymore. Mostly everyone jumps on a Zoom, Google Meet or whatever. You look at five or six people in little boxes and try to make a human connection through digital persuasion. Amazingly I’ve actually sold a few things this way. When I do go west I’ve always stayed in West Hollywood, where there used to be lots of music venues, night life and good food. My last time out there it felt like there were more homeless folks on Sunset Boulevard near Crescent Heights than eaters at Sunset Plaza. The idea of “Hollywood” is still potent, even if the reality is like a fading dream.

I’ve experienced several black film/TV mass media movements via Hollywood. They tend to be brief, exciting, and underfunded. The first was in the ‘70s when a string of black action films were labeled ‘blaxploitation’ in the wake of civil rights marches and black power protests. The flashy ones fit that stereotype but a lot of good work got released during that 1970 to 1976 period, including ‘Cooley High,’ ‘Sounder’ and ‘Aaron Loves Angela,’ all of which featured flesh and blood characters in humanistic scenarios. After blaxploitation we went into a long period when black comedians Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy could get film’s green lit, but black dramas were hard to find.

I had enough of a rep as writer to benefit from the door Spike Lee and Robert Townsend opened up with ‘She’s Gotta Have It’ and ‘Hollywood Shuffle’ in the late ‘80s. Though hardly a master of the craft of screenwriting, I co-wrote two produced features (‘Strictly Business’ in 1991, ‘CB4’ in 1993). My Village Voice colleague turned screenwriter the late Barry Michael Cooper would have three films produced during that same period (‘New Jack City’ in ‘91, ‘Sugar Hill’ and ‘Above the Rim’ in ‘94.) But the gates closed mid-90s. Spike kept pushing out movies and some black actors prospered — Will Smith and Denzel Washington most prominently - but the studios got of out the business of funding low budget films targeted at an urban audience. As a result I wouldn’t have another produced screenplay credit until 2007 and Barry wouldn’t until 2017. That didn’t mean we didn’t get writing assignments. It did mean the openings to get those projects funded were fewer and farther between.

Even before the Trump II regime took office, the momentum that had been generated by the Obama years and Black Lives Matter protest had slowed. Without a doubt the first ‘Black Panther’ film was the cinematic, and financial, high point of Hollywood’s diversity efforts. Director Ryan Coogler’s 2018 film was a certifiable cultural event. But no subsequent films or streaming programs have matched that Marvel movies impact. Certainly the sequel, hampered by the death of Chadwick Boseman, didn’t. The clever color blind casting of ‘Bridgerton’ season one definitely made some noise on Netflix. I would argue, however, that the collected broadcasts of the Black Lives Matter Cinematic Universe (roughly from 2015 to 2023) didn’t match its good intentions with box office receipts or audience engagement. The other fact is that most projects don’t actually work. This has always been a game of more misses than hits. It’s just that the chances non-white creators have always been limited than their white counterparts. In the wake of the pandemic all Hollywood production deals came under scrutiny and, since most deals with African-American creators and production companies were the newest, they were the first to be cut. Throughout 2021 and ‘22 I heard of offices closing, staffs down sizing and projects being scraped.

Now we’re faced with an administration that argues that anything that mentions black, Hispanic or non-white history needs to be ignored or erased. They’re using the threat of withholding government funding as the stick. While this will initially hit educational institutions and museums, this angry advocacy will have a chilling effect on a great many gate keepers who, quiet as kept, were never truly comfortable pushing diverse programming. Moreover, as we’ve already seen, the streaming and tech billionaires who control so much media are either hostile to the black image or have no emotional commitment to it. In many ways this hostile environment echoes the world before the civil rights movement, where any acknowledgment of black humanity was a cause of hand wringing and racist backlash. Can the populist right wing really erase all the gains that have been made? No. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t gonna try to bully and coerce as many gatekeepers as possible, using the Federal Communications Commission and the Fox bully pulpit, to put pressure on folks who green light the content we consume.

Despite the happy faces on the NAACP Image awards stage this weekend, there’s no question we’re facing a serious ideological battle over history and what constitutes an American. Make no mistake every movie or TV show that offers an affirmative vision of a color blind country will be attacked from the White House and the minions of white supremacy. I do expect some retrenchment from the mainstream media. That said, every story told, every image projected and every hero elevated is now part of a media war that will define who we are as citizens of America and of this planet. But its not like black stories have ever had wide distribution without social agitation pushing them forward. To paraphrase the late great photographer/ filmmaker Gordon Parks, “My camera is a weapon.”