Sex in What City??

Okay--I've been quiet about this long enough and it is now time to finally speak about Sex & The City 2. I will attempt to do so now, without any spoilers, as I know many of you will not have seen the movie by the time you read this blog.

As a staff member of New York Women In Film & Television, I was invited to the New York premiere at Radio City Music Hall on Monday. Quite the star-studded event, it was as fabulous as the book, series and first movie claimed to be. The red carpet was crawling with New York-based celebrities, the principal actors and most of the other actors in the movie (Liza Minnelli, Chris Noth, Mario Cantone, Jason Lewis and John Corbett) which was streamed live into the theater, sending the audiences into a frenzied excitement each time one of their favorites appeared on the screen. It also caused the premiere to begin almost an hour late. So, needless to say, I needed to be "wowed" by this film (oh, did I mention that the free popcorn tasted like it had been popped on Sunday morning??!!).

The movie finally got underway after Michael Patrick King and the four ladies, Sarah, Kristin, Cynthia and Kim, came onto the grandest stage in New York and welcomed everyone to the show. So I settled in, hoping to be able to tell you that all of the early critiques about this movie were wrong--that it was worthy of your $12 at the box office, that it would leave you wanting a Sex & The City 3, that the story was somewhat compelling and that you should make it a holiday weekend must-do.

Sadly, I cannot report any of the above.

Sex & The City 2 was quite disappointing on several fronts. To begin with, there was vitrually no sex at all, in any city, at any time. As a matter of fact, the only one that has sex of any kind is Samantha (surprise, surprise) though you almost wish she didn't because it is portrayed in such a clownish manner that it's not like watching our enviable, free living friend, Samantha Jones. Rather, it's like seeing a dear old friend make a fool of herself, in a desperate attempt to fight Father Time, which is quite a departure from Samantha as we remember her.

Next, our guys (Aiden, Big, Steve, Harry) practically don't exist in this sequel. I should be happy about this, since I am in the daily trenches, advocating for equality for my ladies in the film business. But I realized that wallpaper roles are the same for both genders--it leaves you with an incomplete storyline. Not only do we not see or hear from our guys very much this time around, they are hardly even mentioned or, it seems, thought about with any real passion. I spent some time actually wondering if this movie is a sequel to Sex & The City: The Movie, or the prequel to Golden Girls: The Movie.

The storyline is limited at best. Honestly, Michael Patrick King and Candace Bushnell could have wrapped this story up in 30 minutes, tops! It had that feel of seeing an XS sized sweater, stretched to it's limits, in order to fit over a M-L body type. You know, where you look at the person and say to yourself "there's just not enough material there for your body" and it looks bad. Well, at this movie, I found myself thinking "there's just not enough material here for a feature length film" but it looks good. Kudos to John Thomas (Director of Photography) and Michael Berenbaun (film editor) for the lovely cinematography.

As for the rumblings of a Sex & The City 3--this installment leaves very little room for that. It actually sums up the entire past, present and future of all of the principal characters so there really isn't much to look forward to from them. Even if one of the characters decided to stray from the path that SATC2 has laid out for them, the detour would have to be so extreme that it would almost be unbelievable, way out of character and a total departure from the integrity of the story. Besides, these girls are all middle-aged now; they are who they are and few, if any, interesting changes are going to happen to them, cerainly not unpredictable changes, at least.

The brightest spot in this film, for me, was the absolutely amazing costume design by the legendary Patricia Fields. Beyond the fabulous everyday clothes that all of our girls continue to wear in this show, somehow Patricia makes the audience believe that, even in ultra-conservative, Muslim country Abu Dahbi, these clothes would be mostly acceptable. Of course, Samantha has to be repeatedly reminded about modesty, but that's to be expected. Overall, the clothing was as stylish and trendy as anything you might see on a French Carribbean resort, in the Canary Islands or in the South of France. The shoes were amazing and almost had me panting. And it was genius to have even more wonderful fashions underneath the traditional abayas of the Abu Dahbi women late in the film, a great moment for feminists all over the world, I'm sure. So huge kudos to Patricia Fields.

And that, my friends, is what kept my eyes glued to the screen, my interest alive and my mind working. To see a film entitled Sex & The City 2 with viturally no sex, no city, and no talk of either, left me feeling like I walked into the wrong theater. If I could have watched this film on mute, my rating may have possibly been higher than 5 out of 10. If I could rate the film just on her costume design alone, it would receive a 9.5 from me.

But I must subtract for storyline, creativity and authenticity so the 5 out of 10 stays as my rating.

In other words, Sex & The City 2 only got it half right.

But I went with my sister, my cousins and one of my BFFs so it was a good time anyway!

Did you see it? What are your thoughts?

Where Are My African American Female Directors?

In reflecting on Black History Month, I began to wonder about my African American female directors, particularly after the Kathryn Bigelow Oscar nomination. Identifying them required more research than I’d anticipated, which further fed my curiosity about their current state in Hollywood and the film industry in general.

I recently attended a discussion with African American female directors at Digital Laundry, a black-owned production facility in Harlem. On the panel were directors Neema Barnett, Leslie Harris, Bridgett Davis and Tanya Hamilton. You may not readily recognize their names, but you should, as they are very accomplished within the film industry.

It turns out that what I believed was true: African American female directors are creating new work all the time. But the current state of the film business makes it challenging for the average consumer to find their work. One can view their works at black film festivals and, occasionally, at Sundance, or they go straight to DVD. Even when their work manages to reach the national market, they rarely receive the support necessary to sustain a lengthy theater run. Equally as challenging to reconcile is the disparity between the films released with black-themed content and the number of black women who are called upon to direct such films.

While Darnell Martin (Cadillac Records) is the first African-American woman to have a major studio release, with her 1994 Columbia Pictures film, I Like It Like That, there were several who paved the way for her. The first black woman noted to have directed/produced a film is Maria P. Williams, whose film Flames of Wrath was released almost 87 years ago in 1923. Julie Dash is the first black female director to have a nationally released film with Daughters of the Dust in 1991. Leslie Harris was the third one, when Miramax Films released Just Another Girl On The I.R.T. in New York, Los Angeles and other cities.

In 1986, Neema Barnett, who directed the feature film A Civil Brand, became the first black woman to ever direct a sitcom (What’s Happening Now). When asked how this made her feel, Neema says that while it was an honor “It also made me angry. I thought, ‘Why am I the first?’ ‘Why is it this way?’ ” But thank goodness for Neema’s breakthrough because, when not working on features, most of these filmmakers are now able to look to episodic television for interim work.

Bridgett Davis is one of the first African-American women to write, produce, direct and self-distribute a feature film. Her 1995 film, Naked Acts, broke box office records for a single-screen, exclusive release.

So, in light of all of this, some questions come to mind regarding the continuous lack of exposure for black female directors: Is Hollywood to blame? Are there simply not enough compelling stories for black women to direct? Is the black filmmaking community lacking talented female directors?

My answer to all of these questions is NO. And here are some of my reasons why.

While there is no doubt that the “old-boy’s” network is alive and well in Hollywood, there have been recent opportunities that clearly could have been offered to black female directors. The upcoming film For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf, based on Ntozake Shange’s 1975 stage play, is scheduled for release next January. Tyler Perry is adapting the screenplay and directing this film. It’s undeniable that a defining moment in black film history would have been created if this powerful piece, starring all black women, was directed by an African-American female. Unlike the suits, Tyler Perry knows who they all are: Kasi Lemmons, Neema Barnett, Debbi Allen, Sanaa Hamri, etc. Had Perry seen fit to use his Hollywood influence to share this opportunity with one of his female colleagues, this could have been a defining moment in his own career as well. That’s how you work within the system to change it for the better.

Another missed opportunity is the upcoming 3rd Annual Essence Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon, which will be held during Oscar week. The first two years, Essence gave a Visionary Award (for behind-the-scenes work) to Suzanne DePasse and Gina-Prince Blythewood. That award doesn’t appear on the agenda for this year’s luncheon. The awardees list includes Queen Latifah, Zoe Saldana, Mary J. Blige and Gabourey Sidibe. While I am proud of this list of awardees and love their work, none of them are working behind-the-scenes. It is important to keep our black female directors front and center whenever possible because it so rarely happens. I urge Essence to reinstate the Visionary Award for next year’s luncheon.

What is Hollywood to do when we don’t fully support each other?

The panelists all agreed “it is not as much about the money as one may think it is. It is about the content.” In the 90s, there were 28 films directed by black women. Three of them were released nationally. Only one of them had a major Hollywood release, and that film was actually about a Latin-American family. In the last 10 years, Hollywood has delivered quite a few movies with African American casts and subject matter. But since Julie Dash’s 1991 breakthrough, there have only been 10 Hollywood films directed by black women released nationally and with a decent enough marketing campaign to assist with it’s promotion. So, while there are certainly more than enough compelling stories for women of color to tell, and, as Bridgett mentioned “women are storytellers,” they are habitually excluded from the most important part in the story telling process.

Leslie Harris says it’s time for an immediate discussion about the state of black female directors, particularly in light of Bigelow’s nomination, and I agree. We need to strike while the iron is hot. You’d better believe that if Bigelow doesn’t win the Oscar, the mainstream female film community will definitely vocalize their disapproval throughout the media. We need to speak up for our black female directors as well. The DGA has two steering committees that need to put Hollywood on notice. The Los Angeles chapter has an African American Steering Committee and the New York chapter has an Ethnic Diversity Steering Committee. Dan Cooperbey is the Co-Chair for the committee in New York and he also participated in the panel discussion. Both committees work to ensure equity and diversity in film directing on Hollywood sets. They have their work cut out for them.

We must make sure that our black female directors’ stories, which are actually our stories, reach the masses. It’s time that they are included on the short list of directors whenever black film projects get the green light. They have to move from primarily showcasing at film festivals and on DVD, to being released on 1,800 screens every month. It took 74 years for the Academy to acknowledge a black female as Best Actress. How long are we willing to wait for a Best Director or Best Picture nomination for our black female directors? It’s going to be up to us to make it happen and close this gap. The silence around this situation is stifling our progress and that is simply unacceptable.



For more information about African American Female Directors please visit:

http://www.reelsisters.org
http://www.aawic.org
http://www.sistersincinema.com

To get more information and to support African American film please visit:

http://www.castandcrewofcolor.org
http://www.colorbars.net
http://www.africanamericanfilmmakers.com

One Woman’s Thoughts about Gone With The Wind

“There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called Old South. Here in this pretty world Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave . . . Look for it only in books for it is no more than a dream remembered. A Civilization gone with the wind . . .”

So begins the movie Gone With The Wind, one of the most celebrated and controversial films in the history of Hollywood. For me, it speaks to the mindset of Hollywood in 1939, the year this film was released. The story tries to make us believe that the South was better when slavery was enforced, that President Lincoln was practically a traitor for signing the Emancipation Proclamation and that blacks were, and would always be, inferior to whites, something “Yankees” could never understand. Though the film has a recurring theme of this way of life being honorable and right because it was rooted in the love of the land, Gone With The Wind is simply a romanticism of crimes against humanity.

Unlike many Hollywood productions, the issues surrounding this film extended beyond the studio and the big screen. Born on June 10, 1895 to former slaves, Hattie McDaniel’s memorable role of Mammy became the subject of much controversy. Starting out as a blues singer, she is one of the first black women to perform on American radio, had about 40 performances in the 1930s, performing in 12 films during the year 1936 alone, most of these as the maid or cook for white families. McDaniel was cast in Beulah where she was the first black person to star in a radio program geared toward the general audience. During her career, McDaniel worked with Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus in 1932 and with Katherine Hepburn in Alice Adams in 1935. But by the time she died of breast cancer on October 26, 1952 at the age of 57, she would be most infamously remembered for her on screen performance in Gone With The Wind, and for her off screen defense of this performance.

The racial climate of the studio was discriminatory, at best, during the project’s production. MGM had ‘whites only’ and ‘blacks only’ signs on the bathrooms during the shooting, until a group of black performers threatened a work slowdown. Individual cars were sent for the white performers while the black actors, including McDaniel, had to car pool to the studio in one limo. It is said that that the studio heads viewed the higher salaries of some of the black performers as justifiable because “they were playing slaves” which “kept them in their place.”

Initially, Susan Myrick, the film’s consultant on Southern culture and practices, didn’t want to hire McDaniel as Mammy. In the biography Black Ambition, White Hollywood, Myrick is said to have felt that McDaniel was “lack[ing] in dignity, age, nobility and so on. She just hasn’t the right face for it.” Eventually, Myrick tried to convince the public that McDaniel and her character Mammy were one in the same, particularly after McDaniel made a cold remedy for someone on the set. This was among many reports that would come from Myrick as the film’s producers tried to justify their actions.

Fear of bad press, even if this press came from black news journals, prompted the studio to implement a fake PR campaign that heavily focused on the times when McDaniel did domestic work, omitted her father’s rebellion against slavery, created a fictitious grandmother, and made no mention of her entertainment success prior to being cast in this movie. McDaniel appeared to cooperate with the studio’s efforts, which caused Butterfly McQueen, who played Prissy, to label her a sell out. The rewriting of a celebrity’s life story still happens today, but, in McDaniel’s case, it was detrimental because she was truly representing an entire race of people at that time.

The storm surrounding this film began long before its completion and release. Walter White, who at the time was the executive secretary of the NAACP, wrote a letter of protest to the film’s producer, David O. Selznick, letting him know that the film would adversely affect American society. He did not want production on the project to stop. Instead, White requested that the studio hire a black person to supervise and remove the racist connotations found within the story. He also suggested that the writer, Sidney Howard, refer to W.E.B. Dubois’s Black Reconstruction in an effort to maintain authenticity in telling the whole story about the South during and after the Civil War. Mr. Howard’s response to this suggestion was simply that he’d already read Black Reconstruction. Unfortunately, Hollywood has still not completely learned the value of having black people telling and overseeing black stories, which may account for the lack of diversity on the big screen even today. It certainly resulted in clownish images of blacks in Gone With The Wind.

Selznick believed himself to be sympathetic to the need to ensure that the film did not foster stereotypical ideas about black people but his mindset was tied to the racist notions of the time. He fought to keep the “N” word in the script by arguing that it made for historically authentic dialogue. The word was not stricken from the script until June of 1939 but was replaced with an equally derogatory word—“darkie.” He considered hiring D.W. Griffith (Birth of a Nation) to assist with the film. In the end, Selnick did not honor his promise to Walter White to hire a black consultant for the film, as he felt that person might want to make changes to the content of the film. In addition to resistance from the NAACP, Selznick faced the criticisms and protests from Lester Granger of the Urban League, who insisted that Hollywood produce films in which blacks were portrayed with dignity. Granger made it clear that he felt that Hollywood threatened American democracy by refusing to recognize the equality and humanity of all of its citizens. Somehow, these same battles are being fought today.
The three principal black characters, Mammy, Prissy and Pork, don’t even have real names and were portrayed as simple-minded, complacent, even happy in their enslaved existence, and filled with love for their oppressor. That the film’s producers may have really felt this was true is evident in their commitment to this portrayal even in the face of all the arguments brought by the NAACP, Urban League, the black press and letter writing protestors. It was further evidenced at the film’s opening in Atlanta, where McDaniel was not allowed to attend and at the Academy Awards where McDaniel was not allowed to accept her Oscar on stage. These were living examples of how the ideals of the old South continued to be romanticized by Hollywood.

This film that is so highly revered in Hollywood as one of the best American films ever made, with all of its racism, stereotypes, and bigoted images, is still being celebrated 70 years later. And it is still a disgraceful depiction of American history as it relates to black people. While there have been some changes in the types of stories Hollywood tells about African American life, we have a long way to go before we see true equality on the big screen and behind the scenes. It seems that Hollywood still feels that America’s best days are indeed gone with the wind.