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Editorial Reviews
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Though often academically impenetrable, this ``feminist-Marxist-black cultural'' overview is useful for its strong criticism of how studio-produced films about blacks, even those directed by African Americans like Spike Lee and Melvin Van Peebles, offer ``tendentious images of blacks.'' After examining the work of early-20th-century black filmmakers such as Bill Foster and Oscar Micheaux, Reid, who teaches English at the University of Florida, explains how minstrel comedy became part of successful black comedies of the 1970s, in which politically aware comedians like Dick Gregory transmuted the black character from object to subject. In a look at black family films, Reid suggests that A Raisin in the Sun managed to incorporate black feminism and pan-Africanism; he also argues that black viewers have not always been receptive to the violent and misogynistic fantasies of black action films. Reid attacks Spike Lee's lack of sociopolitical analysis and his ``simulated form of blackness'' and concludes by analyzing the achievements and challenges facing independent black filmmakers, who in his view are best able to explore serious issues. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Mar.)Library Journal
Reid (English, Univ. of Florida) attempts to define the new critical framework for analyzing African American cinema. Unlike most previous writers on the subject, Reid makes a clear distinction between films created by whites using black actors, writers, and directors and those in which African Americans exercised significant control over the means of production. The goal of Reid's ``feminist-Marxist-black cultural'' critical standard is to identify which films express an African American sensibility, and which merely reflect the attitudes of a European-American-dominated culture. In this respect, according to Reid, the creative products of black cinema icons such as Oscar Micheaux, Gordon Parks Jr., Eddie Murphy, and Spike Lee are not necessarily as ``black'' as they may seem. Reid's provocative and fearlessly ideological treatise seems destined to be cited, and disputed, by generations of film scholars to come. For all serious film collections.-- Anne Sharp, Ypsilanti Dist. Lib., Mich.Product Details
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