To Be Young Black and a Vampire Monsters As Gods in African American Horror Films
The history of the Black image in American film cannot be separated from the history of Blacks in America. ... Although there were great efforts made to educate freed slaves and make them “suitable” for society, African- American’s educated or not, were never considered suitable for white society. ... The film industry in its infancy really had no place for African Americans. ... Their “roles” in films, usually played by whites in blackface, always perpetuated the preexisting stereotypes of African-American men and women. There was not an African-American behind the camera or in the director’s seat. African Americans were forced to make their own place. African-American companies developed, due to the scarcity of opportunities in the American Film Industry. ... The production values were often lower than that of mainstream films and were often dismissed by white audiences as being inferior to mainstream cinema. Within the budding genres of horror and science fiction, Black actors soon learned that their only opportunities would be found in the roles of the monster, the villain among those trying to survive or as the survivor who ultimately gives his life to save that of one of his/her white counterparts. Over time the Black audiences grew tired of these archetypes. ... I propose that just as the constant misrepresentation of Blacks in other genres motivated them to pick up cameras and make their own movies, they were equally motivated to make horror and science fiction films in an effort to see African Americans in more diverse roles. Secondly I intend to prove the “monsters” in African American science fiction and horror were quite often viewed by Black audiences as heroes instead of villians. The history of the African American image in film, begins with the early spectacle films of the late 1800’s. ... ” During the emergence years of the film, 1889-1910’s, films were not really “written” at all. The earliest films were merely recordings of events in every day life, but there was and audience which consisted primary of the white working class. These films which were primary only a couple minutes long with a single shot and no narrative, were meant to amaze the audience with the new invention of moving pictures. ... The films of George Mélièse introduced the world to both science fiction and fantasy. ... However, even back when the whole fantasy of film had been the mere existence of the technology that put the moving pictures on the screen, “the fantasy world represented by American cinema,” was, “ a world populated only by whites,” (Jones, 1991, p. ... In Mélièse’s most famous work A Trip to The Moon (1902) the moon men that they encounter, ape-like in behavior, have been suspected of being caricatures of the “black savage,” with spears and unique body markings. The misrepresentation of African Americans in film however, did not begin with the “aliens” of Mélièse. During films’ earliest years, dozens of short films were produced. Most of them were made to exploit the medium of film itself as a new technologically advanced product, but many of them were simple short films of everyday activities; slices of life. There were tours of films that simply showed things like Thomas Edison’s Fred Otts’s Sneeze (1888) , later, however, Edison began to do things that were a little bit more “entertaining” than a man sneezing. ... Edison was one of the main powers in the early American film industry. ... Since Edison had the most power over the American industry he had the greatest influence over the audience. The movie process practically belonged to one man: Experimental films as Edison’s, moreover signaled the beginning of the historical relationship between technological innovation in American film, and racism.3 To be fair, Edison’s company was not the only one producing such films. By the time film came into being, African American’s had been the stereotyped comic relief in vaudeville shows for over fifty years, portrayed on the stage by white actors in black face. Films like the 1904 Biograph movie A Nigger in a Woodpile and the Essanay 1907 production The Dancing Nig are common examples of films that portrayed African Americans as comic stooges and the darkies that find “it impossible to keep” their “ feet still whenever” they “hear the sound of music.