Research Guides: Out of the Margins: An Anti-Racism Reading Group: Film Consumption Through an Anti-Racist Lens

Session Overview

Film Consumption Through an Anti-Racist Lens

October 20, 2021 | 5:00pm - 6:30pm

In this session, participants will learn to identify authentic storytelling, and differentiate between diverse cultural representations of characters in film versus harmful racialized, stereotypical characters, and discuss why producers, directors and screenwriters of color are critical to innovation in film. Participants will acquire the tools to view films from a non-racist perspective.

Facilitated by: Malinalli López Arreguín (AMCS)

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Selected Readings

Please follow the link(s) below to access the text(s) selected for this session. We look forward to hearing your thoughts during the facilitated conversation.

Song without a name (Canción sin nombre) by León, Melina
Publication Date: 2020
Based on harrowing true events, this film tells the story of Georgina, an indigenous Andean woman whose newborn baby is whisked away moments after its birth in a downtown Lima clinic, and never returned. Stonewalled by a byzantine and indifferent legal system, Georgina approaches journalist Pedro Campas, who uncovers a web of fake clinics and abductions, suggesting a rotting corruption deep within Peruvian society. Set in 1988, in a Peru wracked by political violence and turmoil.
The Beautiful Struggle by Malinalli Lopez
Publication Date: 2019
A mini-documentary directed by this month's reading group facilitator that focuses on what it takes to be approved as an asylum case and the dire consequences immigrants face when crossing the border.

Supplementary Readings

Animating Difference by C. Richard King; Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo; Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo
ISBN: 1442201959
Publication Date: 2009-11-01
Animating Difference studies the way race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender are portrayed in recent animated films from 1990 through the present. Ranging from Aladdin to Toy Story to Up, these popular films are key media through which children (and adults) learn about the world and how to behave. While racial and gender stereotypes may not be as obvious as they may have been in films of decades past, they often continue to convey troubling messages and stereotypes in subtle and surprising ways.
Patterns of Bias in Hollywood Movies by John W. Cones
ISBN: 0875869599
Publication Date: 2012-10-30
This work grew out of the observed frustration of film industry critics who have pointed out examples of bias and stereotyping in specific Hollywood movies over the years only to be rebuffed by the simplistic studio arguments that such films reflect the real world and that moviegoers vote with their pocket books. It can be shown that there is a consistent pattern to the choices Hollywood studio executives make with respect to the movies produced and released and the specific content of those movies, and it becomes obvious that Hollywood is selectively portraying reality.

The Black Characters I Wish I Saw More Of (Op-Ed) by Sesali Bowen
Publication Date: 2019-06-09
We're finally seeing amazing diversity in Hollywood. But this diversity could still use some diversifying.
Hollywood's Anti-Black Bias Costs It $10 Billion a Year (Op-Ed) by Leonard Franklin
Publication Date: 2021-04-21
Days after a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, suffocated George Floyd and the video went viral, I watched my social media feed fill with blackout tiles and corporate publicity statements. They poured in from every industry, proclaiming solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Hollywood -- where I have worked for almost two decades -- was no exception.
Hollywood's Obsession With Cartels (Op-Ed) by Héctor Tobar
Publication Date: 2019-01-06
The cartel operative -- be he a kingpin or a hit man or a small-time drug dealer -- has become the dominant image of Latino people in American television and cinema. He's of course also the dominant image of Latino people in the discourse of the president of the United States.
Hollywood's Race Problem by Roxane Gay
Publication Date: 2016-01-24
The movie industry continues to ignore audiences of color, to its own detriment, given the box office success of movies that do feature diverse casts.
Who Gets to Write What Story? (Op-Ed) by Kaitlyn Greenidge
Publication Date: 2016-09-25
Can an Asian man write a lynching scene if it’s good enough? Or had he "culturally appropriated" an experience?

Cross-Cultural Casting: Noteworthy For Hollywood, But Not Exactly New by Consider This from NPR
Publication Date: 2021-07-16
It seems like Hollywood gatekeepers are opening up more traditionally white parts to other performers. But as NPR film critic Bob Mondello explains, cross-cultural casting isn't new — and it's always raised eyebrows.
What Hollywood Keeps Getting Wrong About Race by The Daily
Publication Date: 2019-02-26
Three decades ago, the highest honor at the Academy Awards was given to a movie about a white passenger learning to love her black chauffeur. Sunday night, the same award was given to a film about a white chauffeur learning to love his black passenger. We look at Hollywood’s obsession with fantasies of racial reconciliation.

Hollywood Chinese by Arthur Dong; DeepFocus Productions
Publication Date: 2007
A captivating revelation on a little-known chapter of cinema: the Chinese in American feature films. From the first Chinese American film produced in 1916, to Ang Lee’s triumphant Brokeback Mountain nine decades later, Hollywood Chinese brings together a fascinating portrait of actors, directors, writers, and iconic images to show how the Chinese have been imagined in movies, and how filmmakers have and continue to navigate an industry that was often ignorant about race, but at times paradoxically receptive.
Reel bad Arabs: how Hollywood vilifies a people by Earp, Jeremy. Jhally, Sut. Killoy, Andrew. Patierno, Mary. Sheehan, Jack G.
Publication Date: 2014
Explores a long line of degrading images of Arabs, from Bedouin bandits and submissive maidens to sinister sheikhs and gun-toting terrorists. Along the way, it offers devastating insights into the origin of these sterotypical images and their development at key points in U.S. history. By inspiring critical thinking about the social and political effects of these Hollywood caricatures, the film challenges viewers to recognize the urgent need for counternarratives.
Latinos beyond reel: challenging a media stereotype by Pagan, Edwin; Picker, Miguel.; Sun, Chyng-Feng
Publication Date: 2014
In Latinos Beyond Reel, filmmakers Miguel Picker and Chyng Sun examine how US news and entertainment media portray -- and do not portray -- Latinos. Drawing on the insights of Latino scholars, journalists, community leaders, actors, directors, and producers, they uncover a pattern of gross misrepresentation and gross under-representation -- a world in which Latinos tend to appear, if at all, as gangsters and Mexican bandits, harlots and prostitutes, drug dealers, and welfare-leeching illegals.

The Odds: Is Hollywood Finally Diverse?
Despite recent gains like the successes of Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asians, black-ish and Fresh Off the Boat, Hollywood remains overwhelmingly white. In this episode, Jeff Chang goes to Hollywood where actors and directors--including Dianne Doan, Adam Rodriguez, Dante Basco, Reggie Hudlin and Justin Chon--explore how the segregation of popular culture affects how we think about each other and how far we have actually come.
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Jeff Chang; Indie Lens Storycast

Django Unbleached: The Languages of Power and Authenticity in Mainstream Film by Lindsey Clouse
Publication Date: 2019-10-02
Though racial representation among top-billed actors in mainstream film is improving, serious Black heroes who speak African American vernacular English (AAVE) are still nearly nonexistent in these roles. Jamie Foxx's character Django from Quentin Tarantino's 2012 film Django Unchained may represent the only one in a successful, mainstream film in the twenty-first century.
Mediating Frida: Negotiating Discourses of Latina/o Authenticity in Global Media Representations of Ethnic Identity by Isabel Molina Guzmán
Publication Date: 2006-08-01
This article analyzes the discourses of Latina/o identity embedded in the movie Frida. The study concludes that the discourses of ethnic identity circulated through the movie, news coverage, and chat stream disrupt notions of Latina/o ethnic identity as a stable and commodifiable demographic category.

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