Sometimes it’s all a black filmgoer can do to keep from throwing popcorn at the screen.
You’re not seen.
Or you are seen, but you’re stupid or violent.
Or maybe there’s not an angry bone in your body and instead you’re a saintly prop for complicated white characters to work out their kinks.
The net effect of Hollywood’s disregard shows up in a pile of waaay ethnic characters and stories — “Booty Call,” “Big Momma’s House,” “Madea’s Big Happy Family.”
The problem is not that the movies are lowbrow. It is that Hollywood seems to have decided that black movies should be lowbrow only. It is in this context that the black filmgoer heads into the theater and hopes against hope. Even as we keep our popcorn hand strong.
It’s an odd rush of thoughts to have in the middle of watching the new George Lucas film, “Red Tails,” inspired by the true World War II story of the nation’s first African American aerial combat unit. But a few minutes in, when it’s clear you’re seeing a big-budget action film that aims for all the universal notes of heroism, almost entirely through an African American cast, it feels almost like a big-ol’ tens-of-millions-of-dollars hug from Hollywood. The result may be uneven, but that’s a lot of cultural freight to carry and still entertain.
There’s the challenge of giving the airmen their due. It’s “what the black fighting man has never had,” says “The Boondocks” cartoonist Aaron McGruder, who co-wrote the film with John Ridley. “He’s never been elevated to larger-than-life superhero status.” Black characters are mostly second fiddle or sidekicks, he says — rarely the alpha male. Or when they are heroic in films like “Glory,” it’s gotta go through the Matthew Broderick, white narration.
“We got a black president before we got a black action movie.”
Ask Tuskegee Airman Roscoe C. Brown Jr. if he’s happy with the film, and he says, “Does the sun come up?” It’s been an evolutionary process, he says. Some of the airmen have been trying to get this kind of movie made for more than 30 years. “The black community knew who we were, but the black press has faded. We want the young people to know that we did accomplish this. That we were cool — and smart.”
African Americans were barred from military flying before World War II, and the Tuskegee Airmen battled the privations of racism before ever getting airborne. They fought in Europe and — over hundreds of missions — destroyed or damaged more than 400 enemy aircraft. They were awarded nearly 100 Distinguished Flying Crosses.
The story has been a personal passion for Lucas, who for decades tried to bring it to the big screen and developed close relationships with many of the airmen. He had difficulty finding a distributor, self-financed the production and has said he wanted to make it inspirational for black teenagers. He also produced the “Double Victory” documentary about the airmen on the History Channel.
Commenters, on blogs and Web sites focused on black cinema, are imploring audiences to support the movie to reward Lucas and to encourage more varied and thoughtful forms of storytelling through an African American lens. “I am writing regarding the new movie Red Tails. This movie was 23 years in the making. . . . Please make a date with someone and see it the first weekend.”
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