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i am: 40...a capricorn / moon in pisces / libra rising...an old soul with a young spirit...older than i look...contemplating my 3rd tattoo...NOT a web designer...a lesbian...working things out with the g.f....a native iowan...a graduate of cornell college and ohio state...a critical reader and thinker...really rather shy...agnostic...an ardent feminist...a bleeding-heart liberal...a pacifist...and so not your average white grrl...
e-mail me
feeling generous? *grin*
Who Links Here
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September 05, 2002
i don't countjason was talking the other day about images of black folks in the media (particularly film) and the lack of romantic movies, featuring black male leads, reaching wide audiences. in the course of the comments, he wanted to know where all the white people are—both in the audiences for these movies, and in the movies themselves (think the best man). especially after reading everyone's comments, mine got so out of control that i figured they should probably just become a blog of their own. (i've been doing that a lot lately....). that's a good thing—my last few posts have been dull, dull, dull. it's not that i'm not thinking about things...there's a lot going on right now to think about. it's just that the desire to take the time and energy to write about them just hasn't been there for me lately. but i digress....
i'll forgive jason for saying that "lesbians don't count" if we happen to be the white folks in these audiences, but only because i think i know what he meant. *grin* actually, i'm not sure that i do "count," but i don't think that's attributed to my being a lesbian. i've been pretty much immersed in facets of "black culture"—literature, music, film—for so long (15+ years) that i rarely read books written by white folks anymore (if i do, they're usually by gay/lesbian/bi authors) and 95% or more of my music "in rotation" is music made by black folks. living with a black woman—actually...2 black women, just one at a time...!—for 8 of the last 9 years has undoubtedly influenced my cultural proclivities, as well. i honestly don't think i'm lyin' when i say that i'm not "your average white grrl"....
while i suppose there's more of a "balance" in the movies i see—no surprise there, as the industry is pretty much driven by white folks (tho thankfully, that's being challenged more and more)—i did see all but one of the movies jason mentioned in the theaters—love & basketball (the first dvd i ever owned), the best man, love jones, and jason's lyric (that's the one i didn't see until video)...in addition to how stella got her groove back, two can play that game, the wood, and i don't know how many others. sometimes we don't make it until the second-run theaters, but we see every "black peepa movie" (as s calls them *chucklin'*) that hits the theaters, almost regardless of genre. it's not often that i miss a movie featuring denzel, jeffrey (as few and far between as they are), samuel, omar, or laurence...or angela, sanaa, whoopi, alfre, or monica (okay, so she may be a less-than-stellar actor, but...she's fine, okay??)...or many others.
but it's true that i'm often one of just a few white people in the place (and sometimes the only one)—which supports jason's argument. we see black folks in the audiences for so-called "white movies" (i.e., those with no or few prominent black roles) all the time, but the opposite is most certainly not true. not cool, but...not surprising, either. in fact, i just don't get white people who have no interest in seeing movies with predominantly black casts...reading books written by black authors...or listening to music by black artists. a lot of the time, this work isn't really about "the black experience," per se, but is more about the human experience. but (white) folks so often don't want to acknowledge that. it's like...they're more comfortable continuing to see black folks as "the other," rather than acknowledging our common humanity...or taking a step outside their own little boxes for a second, to see what life is like for people who are different from themselves.
when i talk to the (mostly white) people i work with, they've almost never even heard of the authors i'm reading, the movie i've just seen, or the music in my cd player. they wonder why the framed posters up on my walls are of lauryn hill and meshell, and why my work space features a watermelon woman postcard and images of people as diverse as bessie coleman, michael franti, madame c. j. walker, jackie joyner-kersee, malcolm x, and ruth ellis. i always get the sense that they don't "get" me at all, or have the vaguest of ideas about why these images might hold some importance for me. i imagine them thinking, "what's up with this woman? why should 'we' be concerned with 'them,' anyway??"
this has obviously become less about the movies, and more about how absurdly self-absorbed white people can be, in the comfort of their own little lily-white worlds. but maybe that's part of what jason was really saying in the first place.
2:45 PM
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