Inquiring Minds: Lewis Gordon on minorities in the film industry

History was made this year at the Academy Awards when Halle Berry became the first African American to win the Best Actress Oscar. At the same time, Denzel Washington took the Best Actor award, marking the second time a black actor has won in that category and ending the drought that has lasted since Sidney Poitier won the Best Actor award in 1963 for “Lilies of the Field.” GSJ writer Mary Jo Curtis talked with Professor of Africana Studies Lewis Gordon about the treatment of minorities in the film industry.

In all, African Americans have earned just 18 best actor/actress nominations and won only three times in more than seven decades; out of another 16 nominees, five black actors and actresses have won Oscars for supporting roles. Do these small numbers represent discrimination on the part of Academy voters, or is the infrequency of nominations and wins simply indicative of the lack of opportunities available to minorities in the film industry – or both?

The factors behind these small numbers vary. Sometimes it is discrimination by Academy voters. Denzel Washington’s performance in “Malcolm X,” for instance, warranted an Oscar, in the opinion of many critics and viewers at the time, more perhaps than his recent victory. One could have imagined, as well, Jay Davidson receiving the best supporting actor award for his performance in “The Crying Game,” or Samuel Jackson for his role in “Pulp Fiction.”…

What’s more, Hollywood in the last half of the 20th century continued to suffer the effects of the political purges of the 1950s – purges that also, by the way, affected universities in negative ways till this day. The resulting odd mixture of conservative national politics and seemingly liberal cultural politics led to a situation of racist consequences without necessarily racist intent, something that continues in universities as well. The claim was that black roles were low in demand because racist audiences made them expendable. In other words, the bottom line is what most mattered. The problem with this argument is that it doesn’t comport with the risk taken on white actors, including some with a string of failures before success. In other words, it masks the important question of commitment that is needed to create alternatives for the audiences.

This year’s achievements of Berry and Washington, as well as the special honor bestowed on Poitier, emerge from the fact that these actors appeared in a greater number of lead roles than did their predecessors, save in the early period of cinema when “race” films were produced by pioneering black film makers, the most noted of which was Oscar Micheaux.

Poitier won the Best Actor Oscar in 1963, but it took another 10 to 15 years before other African Americans began to land leading roles in films and command real success at the box office. Are Washington’s and Berry’s wins more indicative of change than Poitier's was? Will it be any easier for other black or minority actors to win good roles?

There are many complicated dimensions to this question, some of which were hinted at by Poitier in his poignant speech at this year’s ceremony. First, there is an ambiguity problem. Poitier was from the Bahamas, and he, like Harry Belafonte, was able to take advantage of the fact that black immigrants from British colonies were considered less threatening than blacks born in the United States. …Thus, it seemed like Hollywood was responding to the American race situation, at least to the rest of the world, although the industry’s two most famous black male stars were from the Bahamas and Jamaica.

The most famous black female, Dorothy Dandridge, was from the United States; she received a nomination for lead actress for her performance in “Carmen Jones.” The problem was that after her performance in such a strong, nontraditional role, her subsequent film offers were for the old stereotype maid and mammie roles.

The recent Academy Awards ceremony could thus be read differently. One could say that in 1963 the first black received an Oscar for leading actor, and in 2002 the first U.S.-born blacks received awards for actor and actress. In Berry’s case, her strong identification with Dandridge, which includes playing her in the HBO dramatic biography “Introducing Dorothy Dandridge,” was a spiritual journey connecting two women that came to its conclusion that night.

All this is to say that the 2002 ceremony shows how long a road has been trod. That journey was best stated in Poitier’s magnificent speech. He spoke of a community of people (from all racial backgrounds) who were committed to making a difference through the opportunities they offered him, and he exemplifies, with dignity and grace, what it means to rise to such an occasion. But such an achievement is only a beginning.… What hopefully will make a difference is this: There need to be both more roles and more types of roles for actors of color, roles that reflect the complex lives they live beyond the stereotypes.

Are awards a useful measure of progress, or should the industry focus on much wider measures?

We should place cinema and other aesthetic productions in their context. There can be progress in an aesthetic medium while society at large digresses. The 2002 achievements emerge, for instance, during a politically retrograde period where nearly every social gain in the past 50 years is being lost. The numbers of blacks in universities have declined; there is little sign of improvement in the criminal justice system, particularly with regard to police brutality. When Poitier won in 1963, his achievement was one of the culminating effects of the civil rights movement. Today, there is no correlative movement. In fact, black Americans have been badly beaten down over the past two decades, and the callous, open assault on black voters in the recent presidential election and its subsequent backlash have contributed to political malaise and a “why bother” attitude.

Washington, Berry, Poitier and [Whoopi] Goldberg stand as beacons of hope for those who believe in working through a system. They worked through the Hollywood system. The material change, however, will have to be more than accolades to the two hottest black stars. It will also mean more than simply writing scripts. There need to be changes at levels of production and management.…

As for social progress, I think cinema can at least… as Jesse Jackson always urges, keep hope alive. Social progress requires many of us to take on struggles, most of which are difficult and unappreciated, for the sake of generations to come.

The movies "John Q." and "The Pelican Brief" were not written specifically for black actors, yet Washington was cast in both films. How unusual is this? Do you see a day when the industry will be colorblind when it comes to casting?

Neither was “Beverly Hills Cop” written for a black actor, and the comic book characters on whom “Men in Black” is based are white. Although these roles didn’t specify color, the reality of color permeated many decisions at the level of production. If Washington were white, he would have been able to demonstrate his skills as a romantic lead actor.

I don’t think colorblind roles are the answer. At issue is what is expected when a character is black. There need to be more and better roles for black actors. Some of those roles could be race-neutral roles, but in the end, the many examples shown in Spike Lee’s brilliant film “Bamboozled” call for a time in which black actors can portray black characters that are truly human beings.