"Red Tails" and the Black Man's Burden

"The White Man's Burden" is the title of a poem by Rudyard Kipling that was published in 1899.  In it Kipling describes the duty of white Europeans to lift up the native people of other continents from their supposedly "savage" existences -- as "half devil and half child."

Even if the poem is interpreted as calling upon the powerful nations to use their power wisely and for the benefit of others, rather than justifying imperialism, its racism and condescension are inescapable.

A review of the new film Red Tails on Yahoo! made me think of another burden, this one belonging to the "Black Man."  But it is a burden shared by other minorities in the United States.  In a review titled "The laudable 'Red Tails' misses its target," Jake Coyle complains that the film about a unit of African American pilots during World War II does not adequately address the racial prejudices the actual pilots had to overcome in the 1940s.

Coyle writes that George Lucas, the film's producer, is seeking to prove that there is a wide audience for a film with an all-black cast.  He writes: "That's a laudable goal, but 'Red Tails' reduces a historical story of deep cultural significance to merely a flyboy flick."

But why can't Lucas make a film with black lead actors that is "merely a flyboy flick"?

Coyle continues: "Instead of creating something authentic and new, 'Red Tails' superimposes the tale of the black World War II pilots on a dated, white genre of 1940s patriotic propaganda. 'Red Tails' is blatantly old-fashioned, just with a change in color."

Again, why not?

There have been plenty of films that address the problems of racism in the United States.  Even this particular historical situation has been addressed by HBO's The Tuskegee Airmen.  But must EVERY film with a primarily black cast be a "black movie"?

Must every story by or about African Americans bear the burden of America's history of racism and oppression?  Is that the Black Man's Burden, to always be reminding white folks about their sins or the sins of their ancestors?  Do not get me wrong: there is real value in telling stories that keep our sins in plain sight.  But having that be the only story is really limiting.  There are so many more stories to tell than just that one.

This is a cultural dynamic that I have blogged about before.  In "Dances with High-Heeled Sneakers" I wrote about a review of an exhibition in New York City by American Indian artists.  That reviewer seemed unable to understand or unwilling to accept American Indian artists who were telling a story other than the one he was familiar with: the tragic story of a people overrun by the United States and working desperately to keep the old ways alive.  The artists who emphasized humor and modernity seemed to confuse the reviewer; they refused to stay within the the confining role of Tragic Indian.

History is heavy, and everyone needs to take a break at some point from carrying its weight.

In Coyle's comments we also can see an example of something called markedness.  When we speak of binaries, one is marked and one is unmarked, and the unmarked is considered the broader or more powerful or significant of the two.  This term originally comes out linguistic studies, but it is applied to cultural studies, too.

There are movies and there are black movies.  The first term is very broad and could include almost any genre.  It is the unmarked term, unmarked since it has no adjective distinguishing it from the other term.  I imagine it would be a term understood to mean movies made with a mostly white cast and primarily for a white audience, which is still the largest movie-going audience in the United States, so it makes sense that Hollywood tries to appeal to that large pool of customers.   But no one calls them "white movies."  Movies with white lead actors are just movies.  Or if they are marked, it is by their genre category: action, romcom, drama, etc.   It is understood that the audiences for these films will be of all races.

That leads Coyle to say the Red Tails misses its mark because it is "merely a flyboy flick."  We have had those before.  In fact, there is one called Flyboys, and its cast is predominantly white.  Its theme, not the race of its cast, controlled the way it was discussed and presented.  Coyle seems to have trouble understanding Red Tails because it looks and feels and sounds like a flyboy flick -- but it has a black cast, and so therefore it must be a black movie.

And we know what black movies are.  They are either earnest history lessons or films made by Tyler Perry.  A cast of primarily African American actors.  A story arising from experiences in African American communities and characterized by expressions (gestures, words, intonations, etc.) understood to be "black."  And until recently, it was understood that such films appealed to a primarily black audience, and until Perry's character Madea got popular, "black films" could be expected to gross about $30-40 million because of that small audience.  But Madea Goes to Jail grossed about $90 million. 

An odd thing about the Yahoo! review is that the headline suggests the film misses its target by not telling the history of the Tuskegee Airmen, but then the review states Lucas's target was to make a film with a black cast that appealed to a broad audience. (Hasn't Perry answered that question?).  So, since historical accuracy was not the target, how can Lucas be accused of missing it?

It remains to be seen whether he does hit his target.  The film's ticket sales will determine that.  The yardstick Lucas seems to want the film measured by is not history or earnestness, but entertainment.  That is, is it a good film rather than a good history lesson?  (Coyle does address that in his review.)

I have not seen it.  But if Lucas was in control, I am not holding my breath.  I have yet to forgive him for Stars Wars I, II, and III.  See "The Badness of King George" for my thoughts on that.

The Badness of King George (Lucas)

Believe it or not, there was a time when people tried to defend George Lucas's storytelling abilities. 

Who ya gonna call?

He withstood the criticism fairly well, until cracks in his narrative armor began to appear with Return of the Jedi.  The highly merchandisable cuteness of the Ewoks and the wretched sentimentality of the "family photograph" at the conclusion -- when ghosts of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, and Darth Vader appear with Luke and company --  foreshadowed things such as Jar-Jar Binks.

What the duck?

Sure, there was his involvement with the Indiana Jones series.  But when people wanted to talk about Lucas as if he possessed undiluted genius, I had a standard response to them: "Always remember three words: Howard. The. Duck."

I waited nearly 20 years between the release of Return of the Jedi and A New Hope, only to be horribly and bitterly disappointed in the crapulence Lucas threw at us and was somehow proud of.  I then began to think perhaps Howard the Duck was the norm and the first Star Wars movies were the exception.

Now it seems Lucas was not satisfied ruining my expectations for the Star Wars prequels.  He now wants to ruin the originals.

Still lame.

Back in 2004, in the re-release of Return of the Jedi, Lucas replaced the original image of Sebastian Shaw, the actor who played Darth Vader during the brief moment when we saw beneath his mask, with Hayden Christensen, who played Annikin Skywalker in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

I don't really care about that.  That doesn't make that cinematic moment less groan-worthy than it already was.  I say that Lucas is determined to ruin his legacy because, in the latest Blu-Ray release of Return of the Jedi, he is injecting groan-worthiness where it had not existed before.  (Link to story about changes.)

In a key scene, Luke is saved and Darth Vader turns against the Dark Side -- he stops the Emperor from Tazering Luke with the Force and tosses him down the funhole of a Death Star.  In the original scene, Darth does all of this silently.  In the "improved" version he says "Noooo!"  Twice.

I understand the problem Lucas might have felt he was addressing.  There is a lot of emotion going on in Darth Vader's mind in this scene and he makes some key decisions.  But the character's face is hidden behind his famous mask.  Giving Darth dialog, however inarticulate and unconvincing it might be, would communicate to the audience what he was thinking and feeling.

But there is no problem for Lucas to solve here.  We do not need any verbal assistance to make up for a lack of facial cues from Darth Vader.  His actions tell us what he is feeling.  Tossing one's boss into a pit of blue fire is not very ambiguous.  But that wasn't enough for Lucas, the Master of Obviousness.

Seeing this revised scene made me think about the peculiar convention of the wordless close-up.  Most films have at least some of them.  The shots rely upon crucial information being communicated through the close-up of an actor's face, which focuses the viewer's attention on the emotions taking place within the character.  Even when that face is relatively expressionless, the audience can be trusted to understand what is happening beneath the calm surface.  This is partly through the dialog and action that surrounds the close-up, but it also is through the audience's training.  We have been taught how to understand such film conventions by watching thousands of hours of film and television.

The Searchers (1956)

A famous example would be a scene with John Wayne in The Searchers.  After his character, Ethan, and others have determined that they have been lured away from the settlements by the Comanche and that all of their families are in great danger, the posse races back to save them.  But Ethan knows their horses cannot make the hard ride.  Racing back will kill their mounts, which will keep them from saving the families AND leave them without horses.

He is left behind and wipes down his tired horse.  Across his still somewhat stoic face we see the concern and fear for what might be happening to his brother's family.  No dialog.  No scenes of mayhem.  No overwrought expressions.  Some of his frustration is evident in the way he wipes down the horse.  He is helpless and he hates that.

In film studies we talk about "reading" images.  But with many wordless close-ups, we are not really reading the face of the actor -- at least not reading it separate from the dialog and actions that have come immediately before or that will follow.  We must admit that a face without dialog can sometimes be ambiguous.  But if the elements surrounding the close-up are clear, the viewer is not so much reading the face in the close-up as he/she is projecting expected feelings onto that character -- or what they would be feeling themselves.  In a sense, the face can be like an empty space that the viewer fills in.

My evidence for this is Team America: World Police, a film with no actual faces, only puppets.  This movie has close-ups and reaction shots of puppets.  Some of them are rigged to have expressions, but many times the faces do not change during the shot.  The emotions are conveyed through actions and dialog.  However, in some scenes we are given reaction shots from puppets who are showing no reaction and who have no dialog or actions for cues of their emotions.  But the audience, I believe, understands what is going through the character's mind.  The close-up functions as a time not for the audience to "read" the face and decipher its meaning, since there is nothing there to read on the surface.  Instead, the audience uses the time of the close-up to register or sense more deeply the emotions and thoughts of the character they are projecting there.

In this scene from Team America, the leader of the agents tries to recruit Gary Johnston to join them.  The scene includes reaction shots of Gary during the pitch, but, of course, his face never changes.  Yet somehow the audience understands what he is thinking and understands when he declines the offer.

If you think about it, what is Darth Vader but a large puppet?  If we can understand Trey Parker and Matt Stone's marionettes, then we do not need George Lucas's help to understand one of the world's most iconic villains in his moment of redemption.