The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, January 31, 1977, Page Page 6, Image 6
entertainn
Black actors
roles are
^distortions,'
author says
Theme of
About C
By CHUCK CROMER
Entertainment Editor
Season ticket applications for the sixfilm
Carolina Community Film Festival
are being accepted.
41 rm -a _ - .....
r lima 01 me irnnies is me ineme of
this spring's festival. The films include
"Grand Hotel," Feb. 13, "Mutiny on the
Bounty," Feb. 20, "Dinner at Eight," Feb.
27, "San Francisco," March 6, " "Goodbye
Mr. Chips," March 20, and "Mr. Smith
(Joes to Washington," March 27.
The films will be presented at 7:30 p.m.
on Sundays at Williams-Brice Auditorium,
I f KT --?:?
.uvuivu uvmccu me ixursing ana
Humanities buildings.
"GRAND HOTEL" (1932) opens the
festival in spectacular style in much the
same way it burst upon Depression
audiences of the early Thirties. It is the
granddaddy of the all-star-cast pictures,
boasting a cast of seven great Hollywood
stars: Greta Garbo, Lionel and John
Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace
Berry, I^ewis Stone and Jean Hersholt.
"Grand Hotel" is a series of interwoven
vignettes rooted in tragedy. Garbo plays
an aging nallerina who contemplates
suicide until her romance with John
Barry more [ronicallv. he is out to rob the
wealthy guests of the hotel, including
Gnrbo 'rv!" theatrics of this particular
segment look like something from
the stage, but the scene remains intprpctind
^w?ancn # Al-~
ww...d ^wmuov u pui ii ay& I lie
hopelessness of a romance that is doomed
to fail.
JOAN CRAWFORD is superb as an
ambitious call girl-secretary who con
lent
By WENDY OGLESBY
Gamecock Staff Writer
Black performers have been forced
?T_11 4^ 1
nunywwuu movie makers 10 poii
stereotyped film roles, Donald Bo
author of a book on black roles
American films, said Wednesday.
^ Bogle said these distortions have
often been taken as reality by both wl
and black Americans.
TOMS, COONS, mulattoes, mamr
and bucks are the five black m
stereotypes, Bogle said in a lecture-?
presentation at Gambrell Hall.
Toms are good, passive Nt
characters who support the system, B
said. The stereotype first appeared
1903 movie version of "Uncle Tc
f!flhin "
"In this movie, we see Uncle Tom,
black slave, chased, harrassed, be
and humiliated, but he dies con
because he has been true to his good w
master," he said.
Masochism is frequently a part of
Tom personality, Bogle said. "By mal
the black characters seem to ask foi
movie makers are able to justify
suffering and punishment endured
Toms," he said.
COON FIGURES are clowns, Bogle s
"They are the ones always eating f
chicken or stealing watermelons," he s
"The white actor tfpts hiiw ac tho
with the black actor portraying the la<
sidekick,"
Rolling eyes, demeaning antics and
combinations of clothes are s(
techniques used to make the bl
character "look as absurd and ludici
as possible," Bogle said.
Black women have been forced to n
white standards of beauty in films and
festival is
lampus
siders an offer by a despicable industrialist
(Wallace Berry in a role he
patented in the Thirties) to become his
private whore. Lionel Barrymore's performance~as
a common but terminally ill
DooKKeeper who wants to die in style-is
another part of the film to savor.
"Grand Hotel" won the Academy Award
as Best Film of 1932, but, more importantly,
it made millions at the box
office. Yet its sequel, "Dinner at Eight"
(1933), was far more rewarding in terms of
consistent, stellar performances.
"Dinner at Eight" is based on George S.
Kaufman-Edna Ferber play, and is
directed by George Cukor. It centers on a
dinner party thrown by Lionel Barrymore,
who owns a merchant fleet of ships that is
about to be consumed by ruthless tycoon
Wallace Berry.
Vignettes of each character prepares for
rlinnpr rovoalino infUtilJunl ? ? *?
, . vfvuiiu^ muiviuuai l CCI9UII5 IOr
attending. Berry is attempting to
financially ruin Lionel Barrymore. Jean
Harlow is his sluttish, wisecracking wife
who foils his plans and has an affair on the
side. Marie Dressier is a declining stage
actress trying to secure money by selling
her stock in Barrymore's shipping company.
John Barrymore, parodying himself
in one of his finest performances, is a
destitute, alcoholic actor on the verge of
self-destruction.
Georges Sadoul described the film as a
"Dazzling tracicomedv.. rantnrpc
w w ^ 1
fectly the self-contained world of the midDepression
upper crust, its pretensions
and its coldness, its incongruities and its
silly desperation, The acting, camera
work and sets are faultless."
See CAMPUS. Page 7
mulatto and mammie figun
resulted, he said. The mulatto is
by skinned, straight-haired black wo
ray the mammie the dark-skinne
gle, v female, Bogle said.
in
"THE TRAGIC mulatto is al1
t?? exotic sex object," Bogle sai<
aren't exactly whores, but they ai
figures. Dark black women, on t
hand, have been desexed by th
ni<JS industry. Louise Beaver, a 1
?yje figure, had to force feed hersel
;lide films to gain enough weight to sa
stereotype," he said.
!8ro Bucks, sexual black men, have
?8le hardest time in movies, Bogle s
in ,a they demonstrate the ties betweer
>m s racism in America.
The need of black audiences to s
"ie men with strength and power ti
aten exploited by filmmakers in such n
J?"1 "Shaft" and "Superfly," Bog
hite "These films play on the needs
audiences to see black chs
me displaying power, but they doi
realistic solutions to the probk
r said.
the
by Formerly an assistant ed
"Ebony" magazine, Bogle has
throughout the United Stat
ai^i graduated from Lincoln Univer
riea studied at Harvard and C<
ai?- universities. He wrote the book
star Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and
ckey An Interpretive History of B1
American Films," upon which hi
his lecture.
Bogle's presentation was tl
lack feature of the Black Lecture
*ous Series which is being sponsored
USC Department of Afro-Ai
leet Studies and the Itieatre and
the Department.
'films of tl
jdp * %L>-' j^Bi^pgj
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KaSSK^MT J : ^?8S3?s?
iii
Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian and
Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh
star in "Mutiny on the Bounty", one of
sjx films to be shown in the Carolina
is have
the fairman
and
IgP^
pjjjB^T'
ways an lilli
1 "ThPV ^ k.
re whore
he other ^R9e^&J
e movie
Tiammie |JIiiipllP
If before
tisfy the HD9Hk'<
had the
aid, and
i sex and
lee black ^B||pp||
las been
lovies as
le said.
of black
iracters
i't offer
im,M he "The white
liter of billed aS M
S!tUHe the black
iumbia faying 1
; 7U?ZS: sidekick."
acks In
3 based
lie first - - DC
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be 30's
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film is a dramitization
Navy mutiny in 1787.
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actor porhe
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h
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of a British