Race on Screen: After Blaxploitation: The Emergence of Black Film in the 1980s

FILM 165B After Blaxploitation: The Emergence of Black Film in the 1980s. This course is a survey of the changing tide of black film production in the 1980s. It examines the complex web of politics, misogyny, and racial stereotypes that black filmmakers of the 1980s sought to subvert by shunning masculine, crime-centered action films in favor of feminist and political films set against the backdrop of everyday life. Together we will survey a surprising wealth of colorful, rarely screened black cinema that draws attention and scrutiny to black ideations of representation in the post-Civil Rights Era. We will examine ways in which imagery and sound is used by a generation of black filmmakers to solidify feminist and queer identities. Students will call into question the motives and stakes of making films that confront political narratives of blackness, femininity, masculinity, sexuality, and queerness.