African American Films in the 1980’s

Ceanne Browne AMCS 273 My Inspiration For This Project

I wanted to research about African American films in the 1980s because when I watched and learned about the movie The Color PurpleI saw how much films affect society. I also wanted to know why decade was so important to film and what changed. I also wanted to learn about the effects it had on how we make movies today. There are so many things that make decades stand out like music, fashion, and film. Film is one of the best ways to get your point across where you can show the pain, effects of a event has on a person, and someone else's point of view that you wouldn’t else see. What African American Film were like in the 1970s

● There was a lot of Blacplotaion ○ “the exploitation of blacks by producers of black-oriented films” -Merriam- Webster dictionary ● A lot of the movies were about gangs and mobs ○ Like Fit Man (gangsters), Foxy Brown (mobsters), Which way Is Up? (labor workers), Cotton Comes to Harlem (robbery) ● They would have the black actor do something bad like stealing or shooting someone, then would have the white actor fix the problem and look like the hero. ● This was post civil rights movement, but they were still being represented poorly and that’s what the 80s changed. What changed in the 1980s

We all know the movies the “outsider”, “the breakfast club”, and so many more great ones, but when looking through the popular movies from the 80s I don’t see any that have someone black on the couver. Why is that? It seems obvious just by a simple google search that black people were very underrepresented in Hollywood in the 1980s. Directors like Spike Lee and Ossie Davis wanted to see a different representation of the black community in movies. Movies like Coming to America and The Color purple where stories told by black directors who changed the way black people were represented in movies. They were no longer mean, violent, or the villain, they were seen in another light. Movies that impacted the decade

● Coming to America (1988) John Landi ● Do the Right Thing(1989) Spike Lee ● School Daze (1988) Spike Lee ● Lean on Me (1989) John G. Avildsen ● The Color Purple(1985) Steven Spielberg ● Purple Rain (1984) Albert Magnoli ● Harlem Night (1989) Eddie Murphy ● These movies changed how the black community was seen, maybe it was through comedy, drama, action, or whatever it might be. They wanted to change the narrative of black people. Spike Lee and Eddie Murphy Spike Lee and Eddie Murphy both changed how we saw the black community represented in the 1980s. They are also still working in Hollywood almost 40 years later.

Spike Lee

● Lee began making movies when he got out of college and made movies that showed black people as funny, adventours, and not the bad guy like the 70’s did. He made movies like She’s Gotta Have it (1986) and Do the RIght Thing (1989).

Eddie Murphy

● Murphy started on Saturday Night Live (SNL) and showed that black people could be funny, he then went on to make movies like Coming to America and Harlem Nights. The color purple (1985)

● The color purple was about the lives of African American women back in the 1900s. ● It showed how women didn’t have any rights, they were ordered around by their husbands and broken down by their white bosses. ● Actors like Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, and more went on to make more movies about what it’s like being black in America. ● Black men were mad at this movie because it showed them in a negative light and that they were violent and mean. How it affected film of today

● When Eddie Murphy was on SNL he showed that black people could be goofy and funny. He changed how black comedy was performed it was a little bit more light hearted in stand up and films. ● Movie like The Color Purple gave is the opportunity to see another point of view and the pain from someone else. The movie is a great example of how lighting and camera angle effect a scene to make the viewer feel what the character felt. These techniques are still used today. ● African American films in the 1980’s showed how black people are good and not always poor, robbers, in a gang, etc. Citation

Beaete. (1969, November 1). Black Films from the 80's to present. IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/list/ls055113619/.

Clark, A. (2018, July 17). A short history of black US indie cinema. British Film Institute. https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/short-history-black-us-indie-cinema.

Garephj. (2011, July 8). Favorite Blaxploitation movies of the 70's. IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/list/ls000860943/.

George, N. (2005). March 6, 1987. In Post-soul nation (p. 154). New York, New York: Penguin.

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Blaxploitation. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved November 24, 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blaxploitation