Ambiguous Mr. Fox: Black Actors and Interest Convergence in the Superhero Film Ezra Claverie
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Ambiguous Mr. Fox: Black Actors and Interest Convergence Ezra Claverie 155 Ambiguous Mr. Fox: Black Actors and Interest Convergence in the Superhero Film Ezra Claverie Introduction different black superheroes, including the Black Panther. As one of the few black superheroes to have his own comic book title, the Panther’s How does conglomerate Hollywood construct appearance in this film would seem to signify superhero blockbusters for a domestic market Hollywood’s willingness to give black super- structured by American racial ideologies? As heroes their “due,” yet as I will argue, we can also commodities and as marketing tools for larger read the film as a successful exercise in what Der- media brands, these films aspire to wide popular- rick Bell has called interest convergence, a careful ity, and the norms of this genre demand that the navigation between the desires of black people superhero pursue a universalist and prosocial mis- and the dominant racial ideology of white people. sion, fighting on behalf of “the people”—the city, the nation, or the planet—broadly imagined as having convergent interests. These films must Symbolic Racism and therefore appeal ambiguously to audience seg- Racialized Spectatorship ments that hold contradictory understandings of how race inflects American life. This essay looks primarily at the character of In their silence about race, Hollywood block- Lucius Fox, played by Morgan Freeman in busters demonstrate the movie industry’s adapta- Christopher Nolan’s Batman films for Warner tion to the white racial ideology that social Brothers (2005–2012), and it argues that Fox scientists call symbolic racism, the “colorblind” demonstrates Warner Brothers’ skill in creating a and universalist ideology dominant in the United character that appeals across American racial- States since the legal victories of the Civil Rights ideological lines. Moreover, the essay argues that movement in the 1960s.1 Symbolic racism denies Fox offered a template that Marvel Studios then white America’s implication in slavery and segre- followed in its development of black sidekicks for gation, it correlates with resistance to the political the white superheroes in their interconnected demands of black people, and it minimizes or “Marvel Cinematic Universe” of films. The latest denies the importance of race in present-day ques- entry, Captain America: Civil War (Anthony tions of justice. Symbolic racism operates as ideol- Russo and Joe Russo, 2016), features three ogy in the Marxian sense, making America’s Ezra Claverie teaches as a Lecturer in the Writing Program at NYU Shanghai. His work has appeared in Intensities: The Journal of Cult Media, The Journal of Popular Culture, and Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media. The Journal of American Culture, 40:2 © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc 156 The Journal of American Culture Volume 40, Number 2 June 2017 racialized inequities of power and wealth seem other segments. So the blockbuster seeks to flatter natural and inevitable. white peoples’ self-conception as “not perpetra- Yet the buying power of nonwhite audiences in tors of racism” while also offering nonstereotyped the United States means that conglomerate Holly- black characters, thereby signifying the filmmak- wood still courts them. Blockbusters must there- ers’ respect for black actors and spectators. These fore make themselves intelligible to persons of films offer to multiple audience segments the color as respectful to nonwhites, presenting black opportunity to feel valued by the film. characters that avoid the demeaning stereotypes Since the 1980s, black film scholars have of Hollywood’s past. Studios’ appeal to a global offered theories of spectatorship that revealed the hierarchy of audience segments that places white limitations of earlier theories that ignored race. At Americans at the top, the largest segment in their their best, these interventions explored the com- largest market, so blockbuster filmmakers find plexity of black responses to cinema. Contra Mul- themselves constrained into a narrow channel of vey, bell hooks argued that feminist film criticism ambiguous address. Capital has no racial ideol- had failed to theorize nonwhite women, and that ogy, but in order for the capital of the culture black women remained “‘on guard’ at the movies” industries to grow, those industries must create (298), “not duped by mainstream cinema” (295). texts compatible with the ideologies of their audi- Manthia Diawara proposed the “resisting specta- ences; a mass-market text that contradicts those tor” “as a heuristic device to imply that just as ideologies risks a bad return on shareholder some black people identify with Hollywood investment. It also risks damaging the equity of images of black people, some white spectators, the larger brand, either character or corporate. too, resist the racial representations of the domi- The success of blockbusters therefore depends on nant cinema” (892). Hollywood films that their heteroglossia, their ability to signify differ- appealed to white people engaged in a “textual ent things to different segments, who have funda- deracination and isolation” of their black charac- mentally different understandings of history, ters from any specifically black social or political justice, and policy. Scholars approaching these context, thereby denying black spectators “the films must therefore consider potentially contra- possibility of identification with black characters dictory readings of the films as texts. as credible or plausible personalities” (896). Yet Symbolic racism’s preservation of white hege- such criticisms of Hollywood representations of mony has a corollary: the belief among white peo- blackness did not explain the pleasures that black ple that they have become the main victims of spectators nevertheless found in Hollywood. Jac- racism. In a study comparing black and white per- queline Bobo examined ways that black female ceptions of how race relations have changed in the spectators enjoyed and valued The Color Purple past fifty years, Michael Norton and Samuel Som- (Steven Spielberg, 1985) despite the film’s retro- mers find “a general mindset gaining traction grade depictions of blackness (272). As Robin R. among white people in contemporary America: Means Coleman has argued, most media presenta- the notion that white people have replaced black tions of racial difference “do not lend themselves people as the primary victims of discrimination” necessarily to dichotomies between negative (215). This finding helps explain Hollywood stereotypes and positive images,” so “good-bad blockbusters’ virtual silence regarding racism in representational queries” do not exhaust the contemporary American life. To white people meanings that media texts contain (83). I therefore who see themselves as the primary victims of seek to avoid what Rebecca Wanzo calls “‘just’ racism (e.g., through affirmative action), any film syntax.” “Too often,” she writes, “cultural analy- that claims otherwise will seem a race-conscious ses from varied political positions rely on a ‘just’ and therefore racist attack on beleaguered white- syntax: ‘Isn’t she just a mammy,’ ‘just a prosti- ness. However, a film that sides explicitly with a tute,’ ‘just cooning,’ ‘just a welfare queen,’ or ‘just narrative of white victimhood risks alienating a sellout?’” (136-37). Even in the superhero genre, Ambiguous Mr. Fox: Black Actors and Interest Convergence Ezra Claverie 157 not known for profound characterization, the possesses supernatural or magical powers. These reductive “‘just’ syntax” can obscure contradic- powers are used to save and transform disheveled, tions that illuminate the cultural work that block- uncultured, lost, or broken white people (almost busters perform. Hence, I seek to identify ways exclusively white men) into competent, success- that successful blockbusters repurpose older ful, and content people” (544). Hughey identifies stereotypes into themes against which their scripts ten tropes of Magical Negro films, but only one, present variations. “primordial magic,” has a supernatural element, and then only metaphorically. Others, like “eco- nomic extremity,” “hegemonic whiteness,” and “Spare me the Uncle Tom “material detachment” derive from mundane routine.” social relations (555). Hughey does not mention Batman Begins, but his observations apply with equal force to Lucius Fox. Lucius Fox, the salient black character in the Over a long career, Morgan Freeman has por- Batman films of the 2000s, appears crafted to this trayed the President of the United States, Nelson end. Morgan Freeman’s portrayal of Fox, espe- Mandela, and Almighty God. The BBC summa- cially in Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan, rizes Freeman’s star image as one of “gravitas” 2005), warrants attention for three reasons. First, (“Film”). Yet for all the dignity of Freeman’s star Fox largely conforms to the cinematic stereotype image, he built his early Hollywood resumeon of the black person who helps a young white pro- roles flattering to white stereotypes about black tagonist fulfill his potential. Spike Lee famously people. His first Oscar nomination came for the called this figure the Magical Negro, noting its pimp Fast Black in Street Smart (Jerry Schatzberg, appearance in a spate of films including What 1987), whom the white journalist protagonist Dreams May Come (Vincent Ward, 1998), The (Christopher Reeve) profiles for a story. The jour- Green Mile (Frank Darabont, 1999), and The nalist sensationally fabricates most of Fast Black’s Legend of Bagger