An examination of the stereotype of the hyper-sexualized black man and how that stereotype is subverted in Shirley Clarke's 1967 experimental documentary film Portrait of Jason

1. Nick Rosato
9 April 2018

2. In popular media
In legal policy

3. How others see him
How he sees himself

4. Feminization
Intense but fleeting nature of love

5.  Perhaps most famous example is Tom
Robinson from To Kill A Mockingbird
 “Last Taboo: Why Pop Culture Just Can’t Deal
With Black Male Sexuality”– Wesley Morris,
New York Times Magazine, 2016
 “I know the fantasy exists. It renders black men
desired on one hand and feared on the other.”
 D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of Nation (1915)
 Maine governor Paul LePage: drug dealers come
to Maine for business and “half the time, they
impregnate a young white girl.”
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/30/magazine/black-male-sexuality-last-taboo.html

6.  Emmet Till
 14 year old boy tortured and
murdered for allegedly whistling
at a white woman in 1955
 Murderers acquitted, woman
later admits to lying about
accusation against Till

7.  Claude Neal
 Florida farmhand accused of raping and killing Lola
Cannady in 1934
 Authorities move
him from prison to
prison to avoid lynch
mobs
 Eventually found
by a mob, mutilated,
castrated, and lynched

8.  Created in San Francisco
 “You look at a colored boy and say you’re
humble? Who’s any prettier than the
white of Carl’s eyes?” [1:42:20]
Photo by Thomas Alleman from his 2012 collection “Dancing
in the Dragon’s Jaws,” which depicts San Francisco’s gay
scene in the 1980’s. Retrieved from: https://thebolditalic.com/

9.  “I hustle, I am a
stone whore. And I’m
not ashamed of it.”

10.  Works for a woman who treats her black
servants like slaves
 Tells her black maid Beulah to “peel me a grape”
 Has a nude portrait painted of herself: “Hang it
anyplace you like, as long as you don’t hang it
over the free lunch counter”
 When people find out what he does, they ask
him inappropriate questions:
 “How big is it?”
 “Do you please them?”

11.  When people find out what he does, they ask
him inappropriate questions:
 “How big is it?”
 “Do you please them?”
 Intersection of objectification because he is
black, because he is gay, and because he is a sex
worker

12.  “I’m a male bitch because I go out of my
way to unglue people.”
 In his night club act, he becomes a “girl
who wants to be herself.”
 Describes his relationship with the big
blond blue eyed construction worker in
terms eerily similar to those of women
being constrained to a domestic setting at
the hands of men [1:07:30]

13.  “I fell in love, oh dear. I thought I was a
real lesbian” [1:24]
 Talks about how fortunate he is to be
around such a “beautiful woman who was
all heart and expression” [1:34]

14.  All of these encounters are fleeting, and he
recounts many more like them throughout
the film
 He is very loving and romantic, going against the
stereotype of male, and especially black male,
sexuality as brutish and utilitarian

15.  Jason Holliday defies the stereotype of black
male sexuality, not by avoiding it, but by
subverting it
 Shows full awareness of the
stereotypes
 Sees and portrays himself as
femme
 Loving, romantic view of sex