REFLECTION: Black Power Hollywood Style

Will African American directors’ breakthrough into mainstream filmmaking change Hollywood or will Hollywood change them?

Director and Oakland, California native Ryan Coogler infused a seemingly unlikely homage to the Black Panther Party into the Marvel universe in last year’s runaway blockbuster hit Black Panther. Setting the film’s opening scene in Oakland, California, the birthplace of the Black Panther Party, and the film’s continual references to Oakland’s Black radical past through the character of N’Jobu’s desire to join the fight for Black liberation creates a connection between the film and an often omitted history of Black radicalism that was not present in the film’s source material. In fact, in Coogler’s version of Black Panther, the entire conflict in the film is motivated by the differing response of two Wakandan brothers to U.S. Black radicalism. These Black Power references combined with the film’s fierce Black aesthetics unmistakably elevated the superhero film genre beyond its usual audience and helped to create its success. Coogler is the youngest director to direct a Marvel film. It enjoyed the fifth largest opening weekend in film history and quickly became the highest grossing film of 2018 in North America. It was also the highest grossing film ever made by an African American filmmaker. 

One of the more striking things about the resurgence in Black commercial filmmaking is that, with the notable exception of Jordan Peele and Peter Ramsey, almost all the filmmakers involved had moved to Hollywood after first making their mark in Black independent cinema.

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Coogler’s fiscal success and the trendsetting popular appeal of Black Panther was the culmination of several years of Hollywood “firsts” in relationship to Black filmmakers. When Ava DuVernay’s, A Wrinkle In Time was released shortly after Black Panther, it was the first time in Hollywood history that films directed by African Americans were simultaneously number one and two at the box office. In 2014, when Black British director Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave won the Oscar for Best Picture, it was the first time that a film with a Black director or producer won in that category. Similarly, when Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight won the 2016 Oscar, it was the first time that an entirely Black-cast film won an Oscar for Best Picture. Peter Ramsey’s 2018 Oscar win for best-animated feature with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was the first time an African American director had ever won in that category. Jordan Peele’s 2017 film Get Out similarly enjoyed critical and fiscal success, winning an Oscar for Best Screenplay and becoming the 24^th highest grossing film of all time. Peele’s follow-up film Us, had the highest grossing opening weekend for a horror film in Hollywood history. Like Black Panther, Peele’s work had a deep impact on the cultural landscape creating powerful new catchphrases, renewed popular interest in Black culture and an idea that an unapologetically Black version of African American culture could be marketable. Jordan Peele famously and somewhat controversially commented that, “I don’t see myself casting a white dude as the lead in my movie. Not that I don’t like white dudes, but I’ve seen that movie.” 

All of these Hollywood “firsts” heralded the start of a minor renaissance in Black commercial filmmaking and seemed to be a manifestation of a new Black Power, Hollywood style. One of the more striking things about the resurgence in Black commercial filmmaking is that, with the notable exception of Jordan Peele and Peter Ramsey, almost all the filmmakers involved had moved to Hollywood after first making their mark in Black independent cinema.

This is unlike previous generations of Black independent filmmakers, including members of the so-called L.A. Rebellion generation such Haile Gerima, Charles Burnett, Zeinabu Irene Davis, Larry Clark, Julie Dash and Yvonne Welbon, who seemed to universally reject Hollywood as an end goal. In a 2010 interview, Julie Dash spoke of her desire to work in Hollywood with an acknowledgement that “Hollywood is still not open to what I have to offer.” Charles Burnett followed the success of his independent classics Killer of Sheep and To Sleep with Anger with a 1994 film The Glass Shield that starred Ice Cube. The film struggled to find an audience largely because Miramax did not know how to market it.

Film Theorist Anna Everett has written about the “audacious persistence” of Black filmmaking and “its cyclical manifestations over a historical continuum…that sometimes parallels and sometimes leads dominant Hollywood cinema, independent film and experimental cinemas.” Black independent filmmaking has historically nurtured and fed a Black film tradition. Should Black filmmaking’s current iteration where Black filmmakers seem to be leading dominant Hollywood cinema with its attendant migration away from the Black independent cinema be a cause for celebration or a moment to assess the damages? Was the earlier generation correct to turn away from Hollywood? While directors like Coogler and Peele enjoy unprecedented fiscal success, has this, in fact, come at a cost of sacrificing the cutting-edge Black sensibilities that created Black independent film as a vital space for Black creative expression? While few would argue that Black Panther is not a stunning film, it would be hard to argue against the idea that it fails to pack the gut punch of Fruitvale Station whose sparse aesthetic unlocked new truths about Black masculinity. Many people were critical of the idea that a white CIA agent was necessary to save Wakanda given the CIA’s historic role in disrupting Black self-governance not only in the U.S., but globally.  Many Black spectators wondered why this character was present at all in a tale that was supposedly about Black empowerment. They also wondered about the disposability of Erik Killmonger, the character with the closest affinities to African Americans, a fact that even caused Boston Globe writer Christopher Lebron to declare in an Op-ed piece that “Black Panther is not the movie that we deserve.” 

The simple answer to the questions surrounding some of the more disturbing ideological elements of Black Panther was that all of these elements were present in the source material and the source material was not created by Black people. Black power has historically been predicated on Black independence. Black independent film is by definition independent and this is perhaps why it has remained so vital to a larger Black filmmaking tradition. We must be careful in celebrating these Hollywood “firsts”, not fall into the habit of thinking of Black independent cinema as merely a resource or starting point from which to grow future Hollywood filmmakers. To do so would do a disservice not only to Black filmmaking but to the very idea of Black Power itself. 

Amy Ongiri - Black Hollywood author