Blackness in film
What can't I say about "Heroes in Hard Times" that no one has said yet.... it was definitely a tough read. It was nice, however, to have him note more movies I have heard of, as opposed to not.
"Framing Blackness" was much easier to get through, and even though I have never seen great majority of the films he mentioned, having him break them down bit by bit didn't make me feel so alienated from their content. However, I found Guerrero to be overanalyzing many of the aspects of film from movies I have seen. For instance, his interpretation of Gremlins as an attack on minorities and the majority's fear of their uprising seemed an infinitely far stretch to me. I felt like I had arguments against many of the recreated films he's mentioned, such as King Kong, Star Wars, and Zora Neale Hurston's story.
Even in guerrero's analyzation of Beverly Hills Cop, I feel he was off in assessing the true message of the film. While he attacked Murphy's character for stereotyping himself in ways of blackness and gayness, these instances were being tackled in the present time of the creation of the movie. In the late 80's, people began trying to battle stereotyping blacks, and I'm sure many blacks used this to their advantage as Murphy does when checking into the hotel. I think it would do Guerrero some good to go back and analyze what the sociological states of each time period he analyzes were. The films were only portraying popular opinion of each time period. If he were to assess recent films, he'd find far less "dissembled" (p133) self stereotyping than he did in the 90s.
"Framing Blackness" was much easier to get through, and even though I have never seen great majority of the films he mentioned, having him break them down bit by bit didn't make me feel so alienated from their content. However, I found Guerrero to be overanalyzing many of the aspects of film from movies I have seen. For instance, his interpretation of Gremlins as an attack on minorities and the majority's fear of their uprising seemed an infinitely far stretch to me. I felt like I had arguments against many of the recreated films he's mentioned, such as King Kong, Star Wars, and Zora Neale Hurston's story.
Even in guerrero's analyzation of Beverly Hills Cop, I feel he was off in assessing the true message of the film. While he attacked Murphy's character for stereotyping himself in ways of blackness and gayness, these instances were being tackled in the present time of the creation of the movie. In the late 80's, people began trying to battle stereotyping blacks, and I'm sure many blacks used this to their advantage as Murphy does when checking into the hotel. I think it would do Guerrero some good to go back and analyze what the sociological states of each time period he analyzes were. The films were only portraying popular opinion of each time period. If he were to assess recent films, he'd find far less "dissembled" (p133) self stereotyping than he did in the 90s.
posted by Anonymous at 12:43 AM
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