African American Women in Early Film Essay -- Hollywood Movies Film Bl

African American Women in Early FilmIn early claim many African American actresses portrayed roles as mammies, slaves, seductresses, and maids. These roles suppressed them not allowing them to show their true talents. Although they had to take on these degrading roles, they still performed with self-regard, elegance, grace and style. They paved the way for many actresses to follow both blacks and whites. These women showed the film industry that they were more than slaves, mammies, and maids. These bewitching actresses showed the film industry that they are able to hold escape parts and even carry the whole cast if study be. Phenomenal actresses such as Hattie McDaniels, Pearl Bailey, Ethel Waters, Nina Mae McKinney, and Dorothy Dandridge, to name a few, are African-American stars who paved the way for so many African-American actresses today disrespect the hardships that they were faced with. These women displayed beauty, intellect and talent, which allowed the stars that follo wed that they do not have to just settle for stereotypical roles. In early film there was much propaganda and even today, which lead to these demeaning roles that they had to betray, Professor Carol Penney of Yale-New Haven writes, Film is one of the most influential means of communication and a powerful medium of propaganda. Race and theatrical is central to the study of the black film actor, since the major studios reflected and reinforced the racism of their times. The depiction of blacks in Hollywood movies reinforced many of the prejudices of the white majority preferably than objective reality, limiting black actors to stereotypical roles (1).Hattie McDaniels, a trailblazer amongst African-American film, acquired many firsts for African-American actors. McDaniels was the first African-American to sing on the radio, first to welcome an Oscar for best supporting actress in Gone with the Wind. She was also the first African-American to star in a sitcom in 1951 that featured an African-American actress in the title role (Pax 1). McDaniels appeared in more than three hundred films during the twenties and thirties. Her career was built on the Mammy image, a role she played with dignity (Smith 7). She received much flack from the blacks because of the roles she played in film and on radio. scurrilouss felt that she was degrading the race but her reply was to these views were... ...reen and feel that they are beautiful too. Work CitedThe African-American Almanac, 1997. Detroit Gale Research, 1997.Encyclopedia of World Biography. Vol. 10&16. Detroit Gale Research, 1987.Ethel Waters. Online. 10 butt against 2005. Available www.http//www.redhot jazz.com/waters.html.Honoring Black History Month. Pax Stars. Online. 10 March 2005. Available www.http//www.pax.tv/bios/one-bio.cfm/hattie-mcdaniel. Nina Mae McKinney. South Carolina African American History Online. Online. 11 March 2005. Available www.http//www.scafam-hist.org/aahc/.Pearl Bailey. Black History Virg inia Profiles. Online. 13 March 2005. Available www.http//www.gatewayva.com/pages/bhistory/1996/bailey.shtml.Penney, Carol. Black Actors inamerican Cinema. Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. Online. 12 March 2000. Available www.http//www.yale.edu/ynhti/cirriculm/units.Pioneer black actress Dorothy Dandridge has a famous cast of modern-day admirers. Online. 12 March 2005. Available www.http//ohio.com/bj/fun/tv/0299/002827htm.