Zooming in on Hollywood’s leading black men
By BRUCE INGRAM Contributor February 17, 2012 2:40PM
Vaun Monroe, president, National Association of Black Screenwriters and professor at Columbia College Chicago
‘Tall, Dark
& Handsome: The Evolution of the Black Leading Man’
Vaun Monroe, president of the National Association of Black Screenwriters, professor at Columbia College Chicago
1 p.m. Feb. 18
Northbrook Public Library, 1201 Cedar Lane
Free
(847) 272-6224 or www.northbrook.info
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Updated: April 18, 2012 1:52AM
Black actors have had a particularly hard time in Hollywood from the very beginning, but a handful have broken through to become leading men in the traditional mode.
Columbia College professor Vaun Monroe will discuss how that happened and what it signifies during his lecture “Tall, Dark and Handsome: The Evolution of the Black Leading Man” at 1 p.m. Feb. 18 in the Northbrook Public Library.
“What happened, basically, was that black people wanted to see themselves on screen,” said Monroe, who teaches directing and screenwriting at Columbia and serves as president of the National Association of Black Screenwriters. “And they didn’t want to see themselves the way they were portrayed in ‘The Birth of a Nation.’”
Independent director/producer Oscar Micheaux, a pioneering black filmmaker made successful movies with black casts for black audiences for three decades beginning in 1919. That was enough of a wake-up call for Hollywood, which began to re-think its restrictions regarding race. Eventually, black stars began to emerge and occupy, with varying degrees of comfort, the role of the leading man.
Monroe’s lecture will examine the films of Paul Robeson, Sidney Poitier, the black exploitation cinema in general, Bill Cosby, Denzel Washington and Will Smith — keeping in mind the way they have all had to rein in their sex appeal.
“For the black leading man, very often, there has been an attempt to contain their physical charisma because of fear of interracial sex,” Monroe said. “In the films of Sidney Poitier, for instance, he could hang out with nuns, no problem, or be handcuffed to Tony Curtis, but Hollywood didn’t want him sexually involved with women — especially white women.
“Even in more recent films that have supposedly been daring about interracial sex, that generally turns out to be an okey-doke — a fake-out. In ‘Pulp Fiction,’ for example, Ving Rhames had a white girlfriend, but it was no touchee. Same thing in ‘Jackie Brown.’ Bridget Fonda was Samuel Jackson’s girlfriend, but she only had sex with Robert De Niro.”
Monroe offered some reflections on Hollywood’s most famous leading men:
† On Paul Robeson: “He was so powerful in his walk-around everyday charisma — he was an Ivy League scholar, an amazing athlete, a brilliant artist — that he was a natural to become the first black leading man. Still, he was only able to go so far, because there was strict segregation at the time.”
† On Sidney Poitier: “He has been a fantastic ambassador for black film, though sometimes misunderstood. Early in his career, he played a type of safe black man whose job was primarily to mollify white audiences at a time when there was tremendous civil unrest in the country. And he did that very well. Then, when audiences began to say ‘What you’re doing is not realistic,’ he responded by taking roles that were more interesting and more of a challenge to his talent.”
† On Bill Cosby: “He made films during the blaxploitation era, but he did not make blaxploitation films. They were films that black people just happened to be in.”
† On Denzel Washington: “ It took him a while to come into his own as a straight-up leading man. But he has gone on to make genuine black films like “A Soldier’s Story” and “Malcolm X.” You won’t find films of that sort on Will Smith’s resume.”
† On Will Smith: “He follows a very carefully crafted strategy to make sure he remains bankable. Since he does a lot of science fiction, there’s a way that his blackness is coded. He’s also usually in situations where he’s not around many other black people. Will Smith does not do black movies.”
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