Some may find this surprising, but I am not personally a black person.
Matters of civil rights, and black pride, and events like February’s Black History month, are extremely close to my heart, which I fully acknowledge could be baffling to all those people who look me over and see only a stumpy, pale, mostly-Jewish movie maniac. Black people have always been a central part of my life, as friends and as family, but I would not ever pretend to speak for anyone else’s experience. Many black artists are among my role models and heroes, though I hope I’m not overzealous with my identification. I’m as aware as a white boy can be that there are some things I just don’t understand, and which may not even be for me to understand. And while we have had and still do have some contributors of color here at our site — though we would always be very happy to have more, [hint hint] — bottom line, nobody here is trying to speak on behalf of anybody else in some kind of sweeping, overarching way. That said, we do still want to show our appreciation.
So when I announce that we’re dedicating the remainder of February to a focus on black cinema here on Daily Grindhouse, it goes under the tongue-in-cheek header of “Black-History-Month Week,” which is meant to note the oft-cited irony of the shortest month on the calendar being deemed Black History Month but also to emphasize that we don’t presume to be an authority on all black movies, actors, and filmmakers. Not hardly. We are coming at this subject as great admirers. A site like Daily Grindhouse cannot exist without mad love for the artistic contributions of black people. And that’s what we’re trying to show.
Credit for our latest theme-week goes to Vashawn Quinones, who got the ball rolling on getting us all thinking about our favorite black-made and/or black-themed films.
For the record, this was my list (some of which I’ve written about in the past):
COFFY,
FRIDAY FOSTER,
BUCKTOWN,
SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM,
MO’ BETTER BLUES,
CARMEN JONES,
RAW,
BEVERLY HILLS COP,
THE GOLDEN CHILD,
LIFE,
DO THE RIGHT THING,
NEW JACK CITY,
SURVIVING THE GAME,
LEAN ON ME,
CB4,
GOOD HAIR,
I’M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA,
HOUSE PARTY 3,
FRIDAY,
BAMBOOZLED,
ALI,
LOVE JONES,
CADILLAC RECORDS,
THE PRINCESS & THE FROG,
I WILL FOLLOW,
MIDDLE OF NOWHERE,
and
And that was just off the top of my head! There’s a lot of cool stuff to celebrate, so let’s get right to celebrating.
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Tags: Black History Month Week
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