Reel Racism: Confronting Hollywood's Construction of Afro-American Culture (Thinking Through Cinema)

__Reel Racism: Confronting Hollywood's Construction of Afro-American Culture__ goes beyond reflection theories of the media to examine cinema's active participation in the operations of racism --a complex process rooted in the dynamics of representation. Written for undergraduates and graduate students of film studies and philosophy, Reel Racism focuses on methods and frameworks that analyze films for their production of meaning and how those meanings participate in a broader process of justifying, naturalizing, or legitimizing difference, privilege, and violence based on race. In addition to analyzing how the process of racism is articulated in specific films, Reel Racism examines how specific meanings can resist their function of ideological containment, and instead, offer a perspective of a more collective, egalitarian social system-- one that transcends the discourse of race. This study looks beyond reflection theories of the media to examine cinema's active participation in the operations of racism - a complex process rooted in the dynamics of representation. Written for undergraduates and graduate students of film studies and philosophy, this work focuses on methods and frameworks that analyze films for their production of meaning and how those meanings participate in a broader process of justifying, naturalizing, or legitimizing difference, privilege, and violence based on race. In addition to analyzing how the process of racism is articulated in specific films, it examines how specific meanings can resist their function of ideological containment, and instead, offer a perspective of a more collective, egalitarian social system - one that transcends the discourse of race. On March 4, 1991, Americans tuning into the nightly news were shocked by what appeared on their televisions: a dark and grainy home videotape recording of Los Angeles police officers beating an unarmed black motorist named Rodney King. This work examines topics such as revisiting racism and cinema; the birth of a (racist) nation cinema; cinema and the maintenance of privilege; and confronting racism and representation; a world apart (from the world of privilege) Analyzes Specific Films To Demonstrate How They Participate In The Process Of Racism.