Tracing the Racial History of African American cinema and black narrative control leading to the success of get out (2017) and Black Panther (2018)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to trace the racial history and evolution of African American cinema and the narrative control that Black filmmakers have cultivated in the process in order to tell their stories and battle cultural and racial prejudices. This control has sometimes been used to make a socio-political statement or just as a subversion of pre-existing stereotypical tropes that usually go against the true representation of the Blacks in Hollywood. This paper goes through decades of African American cinema that have been mostly directed and produced by Black filmmakers, both aesthetically and financially, and tries to find out how the culture evolved. Categorized among different eras, the history of Black representation in American cinema and the narrative control of African American filmmakers have been through many strides and stumbles, dappled with rich history. The paper seeks this racial history and endeavors to find how it culminated with the critical and commercial success of Get Out (2017) and Black Panther (2018).