Student Presentation VPAB07 Equity and Diversity in Arts Organizations University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC)

1. Whiteness in Hollywood Films
The Depiction of Whiteness in Hollywood
From classic to modern times:
1. White Women vs. Black Women and
Men
2. White male as superhero
3. White and Black buddies
Jinny C

2. •Difficulty to understand
whiteness?
•Whiteness is not perceived as a
distinctive racial identity
•Therefore, most white Americans
either do not think of their
“whiteness” or think of it as neutral
•White self-representation shows
by interacting with people of
another colour
•“White does not have a colour
until a person of colour enters
the room.”

3.  The modern concept of race and the notion of
whiteness were invented during the period of
European colonization of the Americas and
African
 The key element to understanding racial thinking
in Hollywood and in much of the world today is
white superiority

4. White Women vs. Black Women/Men
 Gone with the Wind in early 1930’s
 The movie represents U.S. history (the Civil War)
and U.S. racial relations are supposed to be
about, from a white perspective
 Racist Film  white=heroes / black=stereotyped
as loyal servants or mammies
 The position white women occupy over black men
as well as black women
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0hTvKgsKsY&
feature=related

5. Gone with the Wind
White Woman -Scarlett Black Woman -Mammy

6. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
(1960)
 The images of African Americans have changed
very significantly from those of Gone with the
Wind
 More Hollywood movies accept the image of
intelligence, seriousness, and commitment for
African Americans image
 Pressures of African American and other civil
rights protestors for racial discrimination in the
America since the 1950s

7. Mythic Superhero
 Heroic white self as a type of “messiah” figure for
people of colour, who saves them from misfortune
 He finds himself by self-sacrifice to liberate the
natives
 The messiah is marked by charisma, the
extraordinary quality that legitimizes his role as
leader in the foreign population
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy6hIJZS7oI&f
eature=related

8. Indiana Jones: The White Messiah
Defeats Evil Religion (1984)
 The main character represents the mythic white
American hero, with doctorates in linguistics or
archaeology respecting other cultures
 By knowing languages, he can communicate with
the natives
 Most important, this fictional character is
kind, fearless to risk his life for people of an
oppressed race, the polar opposite of real-life
colonial masters

9. Ninja Assassin (2009)
 Mythic superhero as Asian
 This shows the change of taste for audience that
the role of white people can be not the
protagonist, but also others

10. Black and White Buddies:
Men in Black and the new
immigrants
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvElfpgfLpc&featur
e=related
 The opening scene is intended to neutralize the
notion that the movie is anti-immigrant
 The U.S. Immigration Service stops a truck in the
South Western desert and uncovers a group of
Mexicans hiding in the back
 The MiB arrive and take charge, taking aside one
large Mexican man for questioning  exposed as a
hideous alien, hiding inside another!
 Whereas the MiB agent K speaks Spanish and is kind
to the Mexicans, whom he welcomes to the United
State, he kills the evil alien when it attacks

11. Men in Black and the new
immigrants
 The movie is thus an allegory about the
new, “exotic” immigration to the United States
from Latin America and Asia and our need to
distinguish between “good” immigrants- those
who can assimilate into American society- and
“evil” ones- those who are supposedly
inassimilable, criminals, or terrorists

12. The Authoritarian Assumptions of
Men in Black
 The movie seems acceptable because it
introduces the white-black partnership that at the
end, the white agent is replaced by the black man
 However, he still works under the largely white
male organization
 Therefore, “Men in Black” could be seen as J is
simply the black man who is inextricable from his
race and serves the white male organization

13. Conclusion
 The depiction of whiteness in Hollywood movies
that has been changed over the past decades
 Engagement in diversity through classic to
modern Hollywood
 Not only the representation of white self image
has been changed, but also the expectation of
audience for white people has been changed too
 The growing American minority population and
the non-white world will pressure Hollywood to be
more inclusive and respectful in its racial and
ethnic representations