Farewell Black Films

There is no one factor contributing to the lack of substance in Black Films today but I do believe the main reason lies in assimilation. Both John Singleton and Spike Lee have moved on to produce big studio box-office movies. Trying to reach a broader audience has proven to equal big profits but at the expense of our cultural empowerment. These two directors are certainly not to blame for the current state of Black Films but as leaders of a movement in the past, I feel they should actively participate in passing on the torch to younger, talented, black directors today. By helping mold a director's craft, they could influence the next great (overdue) Black Film. Although black movie directors are contributing greatly to hollywood (Tim Story, Eric Dickerson,etc), provacative black movies are absent. Just the other day me and my friends were reminiscing about the good black films of our time. While we had Boyz in the Hood, Nino Brown, House Party, and Do the Right Thing, the youth today only have non-sensical movies like Soul Plane to gain from.

I understand that there have been many enjoyable Black Films released over the past couple of years. But I don't consider these films to be empowering. While movies like Dreamgirls are solid movies, they just don't resignate black empowerment to the same effect as movies like The Color Purple, Do the Right Thing, Boyz in the Hood, or Bamboozled. In regards to movies like "Something New"; movies denouncing BM and BW unity are becoming more and more popular in Hollywood these days. It seems that our romance movies (Love and Basketball, Brown Sugar, Love Jones, etc) have come to an end as well. BM and BW in relationships provokes a problem for the white mainstream movie audience and because of that, we are left with movies like "Something New". The promotion of interractial dating and coupling is a theme that is being transcended into our culture and it too has a negative effect. "Anything that influences BLACK men and women to think they are better off apart, that we are unlovable, undesirable, and unworthy makes black power an impossibility" (crammaster blog, AOL Blackvoices).