Shaping the Future of African American Film

Shaping the Future of African American Film PDF Author: Monica White Ndounou
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813573122
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
In Hollywood, we hear, it’s all about the money. It’s a ready explanation for why so few black films get made—no crossover appeal, no promise of a big payoff. But what if the money itself is color-coded? What if the economics that governs film production is so skewed that no film by, about, or for people of color will ever look like a worthy investment unless it follows specific racial or gender patterns? This, Monica Ndounou shows us, is precisely the case. In a work as revealing about the culture of filmmaking as it is about the distorted economics of African American film, Ndounou clearly traces the insidious connections between history, content, and cash in black films. How does history come into it? Hollywood’s reliance on past performance as a measure of potential success virtually guarantees that historically underrepresented, underfunded, and undersold African American films devalue the future prospects of black films. So the cycle continues as it has for nearly a century. Behind the scenes, the numbers are far from neutral. Analyzing the onscreen narratives and off-screen circumstances behind nearly two thousand films featuring African Americans in leading and supporting roles, including such recent productions as Bamboozled, Beloved, and Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Ndounou exposes the cultural and racial constraints that limit not just the production but also the expression and creative freedom of black films. Her wide-ranging analysis reaches into questions of literature, language, speech and dialect, film images and narrative, acting, theater and film business practices, production history and financing, and organizational history. By uncovering the ideology behind profit-driven industry practices that reshape narratives by, about, and for people of color, this provocative work brings to light existing limitations—and possibilities for reworking stories and business practices in theater, literature, and film.

Shaping the Future of African American Film

Shaping the Future of African American Film PDF Author: Monica White Ndounou
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813573122
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Hollywood, we hear, it’s all about the money. It’s a ready explanation for why so few black films get made—no crossover appeal, no promise of a big payoff. But what if the money itself is color-coded? What if the economics that governs film production is so skewed that no film by, about, or for people of color will ever look like a worthy investment unless it follows specific racial or gender patterns? This, Monica Ndounou shows us, is precisely the case. In a work as revealing about the culture of filmmaking as it is about the distorted economics of African American film, Ndounou clearly traces the insidious connections between history, content, and cash in black films. How does history come into it? Hollywood’s reliance on past performance as a measure of potential success virtually guarantees that historically underrepresented, underfunded, and undersold African American films devalue the future prospects of black films. So the cycle continues as it has for nearly a century. Behind the scenes, the numbers are far from neutral. Analyzing the onscreen narratives and off-screen circumstances behind nearly two thousand films featuring African Americans in leading and supporting roles, including such recent productions as Bamboozled, Beloved, and Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Ndounou exposes the cultural and racial constraints that limit not just the production but also the expression and creative freedom of black films. Her wide-ranging analysis reaches into questions of literature, language, speech and dialect, film images and narrative, acting, theater and film business practices, production history and financing, and organizational history. By uncovering the ideology behind profit-driven industry practices that reshape narratives by, about, and for people of color, this provocative work brings to light existing limitations—and possibilities for reworking stories and business practices in theater, literature, and film.

Playing the Market

Playing the Market PDF Author: Anne Fuchs
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004485244
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
The relationship between Johannesburg’s Market Theatre and the economic and political forces of South Africa's apartheid regime was both complex and somewhat ambiguous. The theatre's two founders, Mannie Manim and Barney Simon, however, from idealistic beginnings managed to steer their experimental enterprise around pitfalls ranging from censorship, boycotts and recuperation by big business to the difficulties encountered in finding black authors, let alone black audiences. If the place occupied by the Market institution in apartheid society is emphasized throughout the present study, its contribution to the aesthetic of resistance is also underlined through detailed criticism of the plays and authors dominating the theatre. Pieter-Dirk Uys, Barney Simon's workshop plays and, among others, Black Consciousness plays are subjected to various methods of theatre performance analysis. The reckoning that had to come in the early 1990s revealed itself as globally positive; the reasons for this may be found in the updated concluding part of Playing the Market, which is composed of more general essays (including one on the vibrant Junction Avenue Theatre Company) on how the theatre scene in contemporary South Africa started to change. A postscript reveals more specific aspects of the Market situation in the late 1990s when its hegemony in the New South Africa was already being questioned.

The Black Theatre Movement in the United States and in South America

The Black Theatre Movement in the United States and in South America PDF Author: Olga Barrios Herrero
Publisher: Universitat de València
ISBN: 8437083982
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
El creixement dels moviments sociopolítics entre els anys seixanta i noranta als Estats Units i a Sud-àfrica va establir els ferms fonaments sobre els quals, amb una força i ímpetu sense precedents, es va forjar el teatre negre d'aquests anys. Forma i contingut van sorgir a l'una del compromís polític i artístic adoptat per aquests artistes contra l'imperialisme, el colonialisme i el racisme occidentals. Per primera vegada en la història, el teatre negre dels Estats Units i de Sud-àfrica analitzava i valorava les arrels negres per a poder il·luminar la recerca d'un futur de llibertat. No obstant això, el context sociopolític i les circumstàncies específiques de cada país han generat igualment els trets distintius del teatre afronord-americà i negre sud-africà (incloses les diferències de gènere) manifestos en ramificacions artístiques totalment heterogènies i úniques.

African Film

African Film PDF Author: Josef Gugler
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253216434
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
In African Film: Re-imagining a Continent, Josef Gugler provides an introduction to African cinema through an analysis of 15 films made by African filmmakers. These directors set out to re-image Africa; their films offer Western viewers the opportunity to re-imagine the continent and its people. As a point of comparison, two additional films on Africa--one from Hollywood, the other from apartheid South Africa--serve to highlight African directors' altogether different perspectives. Gugler's interpretation considers the financial and technical difficulties of African film production, the intended audiences in Africa and the West, the constraints on distribution, and the critical reception of the films.

Southern African Writing

Southern African Writing PDF Author: Geoffrey V. Davis
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9789051835991
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description


Beyound The Echoes Of Soweto

Beyound The Echoes Of Soweto PDF Author: Geoffrey V. Davis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000150135
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
This book provides the reader with a comprehensive view of Matsemela Manaka's plays, namely, Egoli, Pula, Children of Asazi, Toro, and Goree and discusses three of his essays: 'Theatre of the dispossessed', 'The Babalaz people', and 'Theatre as a physical word'.

Black South African Women

Black South African Women PDF Author: Kathy Perkins
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134673574
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 585

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Book Description
This is the first anthology to focus exclusively on the lives of Black South African women. This collection represents the work of both female and male writers, including national and international award-winning playwrights. The collection includes six full-length and four one-act plays, as well as interviews with the writers, who candidly discuss the theatrical and political situation in the new South Africa. Written before and after apartheid, the plays present varying approaches and theatrical styles from solo performances to collective creations. The plays dramatise issues as diverse as: * women's rights * displacement from home * violence against women * the struggle to keep families together * racial identity * education in the old and new South Africa * and health care.

Worlds in One Country

Worlds in One Country PDF Author: Denis Hirson
Publisher: Jacana Media
ISBN: 1431402478
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
Worlds in one country is a compact, inclusive history of writing in South Africa from the nineteenth century to 1994 that crosses boundaries of language and colour, including prose, poetry and theatre.

Voices of Justice and Reason

Voices of Justice and Reason PDF Author: Geoffrey V. Davis
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9789042008267
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
Over the past fifty years transformations of great moment have taken place in South Africa. Apartheid and the subsequent transition to a democratic, non-racial society in particular have exercised a profound effect on the practice of literature. This study traces the development of literature under apartheid, then seeks to identify the ways in which writers and theatre practitioners are now facing the challenges of a new social order. The main focus is on the work of black writers, prime among them Matsemela Manaka, Mtutuzeli Matshoba and Richard Rive, who, as politically committed members of the oppressed majority, bore witness to the "black experience" through their writing. Despite the draconian censorship system they were able to address the social problems caused by racial discrimination in all areas of life, particularly through forced removals, the migrant labour system, and the creation of the homelands. Their writing may be read both as a comprehensive record of everyday life under apartheid and as an alternative cultural history of South Africa. Particular attention is paid to theatre as a barometer of social change in South Africa. The concluding chapters consider how in the current period of transition writers and arts institutions have set about reassessing their priorities, redefining their function and seeking new aesthetic directions in taking up the challenge of imagining a new society.

Decolonizing the Stage

Decolonizing the Stage PDF Author: Christopher B. Balme
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198184447
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
A study of post-colonial drama and theatre. It examines how dramatists from various societies have attempted to fuse the performance idioms of their traditions with the Western dramatic form, demonstrating how the dynamics of syncretic theatrical texts function in performance.