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Prof. Lawson
My research question is on how does not having a race specific media affect job opportunities for
African American actors. Meaning that, while most people say that Latino actors are the ones
who struggle in the movie and entertainment industry due to the racial gap. African Americans
are impacted greatly due to them having to intertwine with white actors as they dont have their
own media outlet. Latinos have their own news outlet, their own shows with many networks.
African Americans have one channel BET (Black Entertainment Television) forcing African
One claim that I have discovered is that, in the article Academy Nominates All White Actors for
Second Year In a Row written by, Tim Gary the last two years all the academy nominations
have been all while actors. When in fact, there have been amazing movies with black leads that
has made the same amount of money and same reviews as the movie with white actors. The
movie Straight Out of Compton has been known to have the highest grossing (profit) movie of an
African American director. Regardless, none of the actors in the movie so much had gotten a
nomination. The question about these claims would be whether these movies would deserve a
nomination.
Also, what about the other races that are also being profiled for not being white and being looked
down upon on in the movie industry. An article written in the Washington Post, Hollywoods
race problem: An insular industry struggles to change written by, Cecilia Kang, Krissah
Thompson and Drew Harwell. Talk about how Hollywood has a huge problem with shifting the
way they run things. In a way that, they dont think that the people are ready for the, cultural
and racial shifts (Kang). Most directors shy away when it comes to trying something different.
This is because they believe that if whatever works now works. And it gives them profit by the
end of the show or movie then why change it. They think that by adding more and more African
American dominant movies they might end up flopping and not be able to bounce back from it.
The problem or questions that may arise from these claims are that, Latinos are actually more
underappreciated compared to blacks. That, there are actually more black directors compared to
Latinos. While all these claims may be true, Hollywood is the one with the problem of making
most of the movies and T.V shows predominantly white. Rather than having someone speak out
for the minority, they think that by having someone from the majority would accomplish the
same exact thing. Chandrain Nair is a writer for the Huffington post and he states that, Studios
are scared to greenlight a major film, even one for global audiences, that does not star a white
actor with an American accent. They consistently cast white actors to play non-white roles, such
as Prince Faisal, Ramses II and now even Michael Jackson (Nair 2). The studios would rather
May claim talks about how African Americans seem to struggle to get networks where blacks are
the main characters. Where other black can tune in to the network and know that their favorite
shows that they can relate too are being played. Most African Americans grew up in America and
there isnt any news outlet for needing African American news actors. Also since they are being
placed in a white world, they are forced to give in and work alongside white actors who are the
face of the show. Giving African Americans a harder time as they need to intermix with T.V
networks
Other people will mostly doubt about how African Americans have it harder for themselves when
it comes to being placed in the entertainment industry. That there are many other races who have
the same struggle and if not more. However, thats not what Im trying to argue. Im trying to
bring awareness that Hollywood has shifted from the old-school black family T.V shows such as:
Family Matter, Bernie Mac Show, Everybody Hates Chris, Fresh Prince of Bel Air. And once this
shift had taken placed, it really gave black actors and actress a harder time to find new shows to
work on. There isnt a huge selection of networks for blacks (BET) compared to Latino:
Industry Struggles to Change." The Washington Post. WP Company, 23 Dec. 2014. Web. 12 Apr.
2017.
Gray, Tim. "Academy Nominates All White Actors for Second Year in Row." Variety.
Nair, Chandran. "Hollywood's Problem Isn't Just Black and White -- It's a Lack of Global
Voices." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 29 Feb. 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2017.