bell hooks Talks About Racism And Sexism In Film and pop culture.

Whenever Hollywood wants to make a movie about violent male characters you just know that men of colour are going to be depicted as evil. Jodie Foster’s new film, “The Brave One”, has been receiving a lot of positive press. However, after I watched black feminist bell hooks talk about the representations of racism and sexism in films it got me thinking about the images of black men in film.

bell hooks is a genius because she understands the importance of popular culture and how images in movies are manifestations of not only our beliefs but also of our prejudices. Since the beginning of Hollywood there has been an impetus to depict black people in a negative light.

Jodie Foster’s new film “The Brave One”, is being presented as a feminist film yet the movie is very misandrist and racist. Foster has been typecast as the pretty white female victim, in her films for the past two decades now. Foster has received a lot of positive press for her new film even though its a rip off of the film “The Death Wish”. According to the mainstream media, it is “empowering” for Foster’s character a pretty white woman to kill men especially black and hispanic men.

Would “The Brave One” be praised by the media if say Roseanne Barr or Rosie O Donnell was the lead instead of Jodie Foster? Its no surprise society likes seeing pretty, thin, women in movies being vulnerable and in danger but somehow overcomes this by murdering men.

bell hooks reminds us from her outstanding book “Outlaw Culture”, that we must be “enlightened witnesses” to these racist images. The reason actors of colour were chosen for the movie “The Brave One” is because men of colour are traditionally viewed as the ”bad guys”. Also these racist representations of black manhood are palatable to people. Racism sells and Hollywood has been doing this for decades. People believe young black men and other men of colour are “violent” and “evil”. The filmmakers are “conscious” of this obvious racism so they place the Terrance Howard character as the “noble” good black man in the film. Howard’s character does not conceal the deleterious racist and misandrist messages this movie is sending.

In “The Brave One”, the violent men are men of colour there are the hispanic thugs that attack Foster’s character and her partner in Central Park. Also, Foster is the potential ”victim” of a rape and attack on the subway by two young black men. The trailer for the “The Brave One” has the latino and black men as the violent sadistic aggressors. After watching the bell hooks clip it makes perfect sense that the mainstream not only want to view men of colour as violent but racism sells.

Now some people may say “well its just a movie ” but bell hooks reminds us that no racism in films are socially constructed. Movies like “The Brave One” are not just movies they are powerful tools that are created to elicit a response in the public. “The Brave One” is a perfect example of the phrase hooks created called “White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy.”

People just watch movies unconsciously and they don’t “think” about what they are seeing and the collective thinking that emerges. There is a cultural production of this obvious supremacy and people should be cognizant of it. I think critical media literacy is necessary and its not surprising that the media has glossed over the blatant racist messages this movie is sending.