'A picture worth a thousand words' : Public Controversy Stirred up by the Filmic Rendition of the Tragic Mulatto Phenomenon in Charles W. Chesnutt's The House Behind the Cedars - nepublikovaná konferenční přednáška

Abstract

This paper traces the ideological collusion of African American literature and film at the turn of the 20th century, with a particular focus on the voluminous literary and filmic oeuvre of Oscar Micheaux. The paper explores various ways in which the silent movie and early talkies were used, with overt or covert intent, as ideological leverage towards the social uplift of the African American community.

This could be attempted either by way of parading moderate variations on "rags-to-riches" success stories with the aim of boosting the communal confidence of underprivileged ghetto audiences, or by countering the openly racist or essentialist stereotypes held by mainstream white audiences. It is rather intriguing to note that due to historical coincidence, the new pictorial medium with considerable propagandistic and counter-propagandistic potential became available almost exactly at the time when African Americans completed their plight for nominal recognition as human beings and began their (back then rather quixotic) plight for recognition as first class citizens of the United States.

However, such ideological harnessing of art can be can be rather damaging, as it inevitably tends to fossilize the creative process through truncated and formulaic templates. The work of Oscar Micheaux was in many ways the cutting edge of the fledgling Black film industry, so it is interesting to briefly survey the range of his ideological self-vigilance and also explore how his work may be seen as a happy marriage of ideological and commercial concerns.